The Letterbooks of John Evelyn 9781442669390

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
Note on the Text
Glossary
Vol. I
Book I.Epistolarum Liber Primus: Epistle XXXV-XLII
Book II. Epistolarum Liber Secundus: Epistle I -XXII, 23, 24
Book III. Epistolarum Liber III: Epistle I-CXL
Book III. Epistolarum Liber III: Epistle CXLI- CCXV
Book III. Epistolarum Liber III: Epistle CCLXVI-CCCCII
Volume II
Book IV. Epistolarum Liber Quartus: Epistle CCCCIII-CCCCXCIX
Book IV. Epistolarum Liber Quartus: Epistle D-DCXXIX
Book IV. Epistolarum Liber Quartus: Epistle DCXXX-DCCCX
Bibliography
Evelyn’S Correspondents
Index

Citation preview

THE LETTERBOOKS OF

John Evelyn

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

© Trustees of the British Museum

THE LETTERBOOKS OF

John Evelyn

Edited by Douglas D.C. Chambers and David Galbraith

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2014 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4426-4786-2

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Evelyn, John, 1620–1706 [Correspondence. Selections] The letterbooks of John Evelyn / edited by Douglas D.C. Chambers and David Galbraith. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Volume I. Add 78298 Liber I – Add 78298 Liber II – Add 78298 Liber III. Volume II. Add 78299 (Liber IV) – Bibliography – Evelyn’s correspondents – Index. ISBN 978-1-4426-4786-2 (bound : set) 1.  Evelyn, John, 1620–1706 – Correspondence.  2.  Great Britain – History – Stuarts, 1603–1714 – Sources.  3.  Great Britain – Social life and customs – 17th century – Sources.  4.  Diarists – Great Britain – Correspondence.  5.  Intellectuals – Great Britain – Correspondence.  I.  Chambers, Douglas, editor  II.  Galbraith, David Ian, 1953–, editor  III.  British Library. Manuscript. Additional 78298  IV.  British Library. Manuscript. Additional 78299  V.  Title. DA447.E9L48 2014  941.06092  C2014-901465-1 This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing activities.

Contents

List of Illustrations  │  vii Preface  │  ix Abbreviations  │  xiii Introduction  │  xvii Note on the Text  │  li Glossary  │  lvii VOLUME I  │  3 Add 78298 Liber I  │  17 Add 78298 Liber II  │  29 Add 78298 Liber III  │  59 VOLUME II  │  611 Add 78299 Liber IV  │  625 Bibliography  │  1151 Evelyn’s Correspondents  │  1173 Index  │  1179

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Illustrations

Frontispieces Vol. 1 John Evelyn, Robert Nanteuil (British Museum) Vol. 2 (Colour) John Evelyn, Godfrey Kneller (Royal Society, London) Colour Plates (following page 234) Plate 1 Wotton House, John Evelyn (Add 78610 B) (British Library) Plate 2 Wotton House, John Evelyn (Add 78610 H) (British Library) Plate 3 John Evelyn, Hendrik van der Borcht the Younger (private collection, on loan to the National Portrait Gallery) Half tone Images Plate 1 Naples from Mount Vesuvius, John Evelyn (drawing) (British Museum) Plate 2 Triumph of Vespasian, Arch of Titus, Rome, Carlo Maratti (British Museum) Plate 3 Dedication to Thomas Henshaw, John Evelyn (British Museum) Plate 4 Evelyn’s hieroglyphs (Add 78351: f 101) (British Library) Plate 5 Van Dyck’s Self-portrait with a Sunflower, Wenceslaus Hollar (British Museum) Plate 6 John Evelyn, Robert Nanteuil (private collection) Plate 7 Mary Evelyn, Robert Nanteuil (private collection) Plate 8 Richard Browne, Robert Nanteuil (private collection) Plate 9 Elizabeth Prettyman Browne, Robert Nanteuil (private collection) Plate 10 Execution of Charles I, Peeter Huybrechts (British Museum) Plate 11 Frontispiece to An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus, Wenceslaus Hollar (British Museum) Plate 12 Titian’s Venus with an Organist, F. Barlow and R. Gaywood (British Museum) Plate 13 John Evelyn, Richard Gaywood (British Museum) Plate 14 Sayes Court, John Evelyn (detail) (Add 78628 A) (British Library)

33 63 64 65 67 94 95 96 97 163 179 185 186 200

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Plate 15 Snow pits, from Boyle, New Experiments ... touching Cold (1665) (Wellcome Library)  Plate 16 A Map or Groundplott of the Citty of London, Hollar (British Museum) Plate 17 Londinum Redivivum (Society of Antiquaries of London, 1748) (detail) (British Museum) Plate 18 Frontispiece to Sprat, The history of the Royal-Society of London, Hollar (British Museum)  Manuscript images (all from the British Library) Introduction Add 78299: f 164 (detail) Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Add 78299: f 165 (detail) Fig. 3 Add 78299: f 165 (detail) Fig. 4 Add 78298: f 179v–180 Fig. 5 Add 78298: pastedown (detail) Fig. 6 Add 78299: f ivv (detail)

345 422 429 438

xxiii xxiii xxiv xxv xxviii xxix

Book I Fig. 7

Add 78299: f 165v (detail)

18

Book II Fig. 8

Add 78299: f 165v (detail)

38

Book III Fig. 9 Add 78298: f 38  Fig. 10 Add 78298: f 129v (detail)

60 343

Book IV Fig. 11 Add 78299: f 79 (detail)

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Preface

This edition has a complex history. Douglas Chambers began working on Evelyn’s letters in the early 1990s, when the manuscripts comprising the Evelyn archive were housed at Christ Church, Oxford. His original intention was to produce a collected edition of Evelyn’s correspondence, incorporating material from this archive and letters housed in other collections. This was not the first attempt to edit Evelyn’s correspondence. Selections had appeared in nineteenth-century editions of Evelyn’s diary, often in excerpted form, and in other collections of the letters of his correspondents. An earlier attempt by Francis E. Bowman of Duke University (announced by Esmond de Beer in the first volume of The Diary of John Evelyn in 1955) was well advanced before Bowman stopped work in the 1960s. It soon became clear to Chambers that the idea of a complete edition was overly ambitious, and would have to await more systematic efforts to produce a census of Evelyn’s surviving letters. Moreover, in 1995, shortly after Chambers began work, the Evelyn archive was acquired by the British Library, and was transferred from Oxford to London. As a result, work began for the first time on a complete catalogue of the collection, prepared by Frances Harris of the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library. This entailed large-scale reorganization of materials which had neither ever been fully described or catalogued, nor organized in a systematic manner. For several years, as this work was in progress, the final organization of the archive and the distribution of the correspondence within it were likely to be uncertain. At this point, Chambers decided to focus on producing an edition of Evelyn’s two letterbooks, now British Library Add Mss 78298 and 78299. Although they had been used by Evelyn’s nineteenth-century editors, and by some recent editors of the work of some of his correspondents, these manuscripts had never been fully transcribed or edited. They also represent a logical starting-point for any subsequent attempts to produce a complete edition of Evelyn’s correspondence, as they comprise his attempt to produce a selected edition of his own letters. Douglas Chambers worked on Evelyn’s correspondence from 1993 until 2004. He also had access to the papers of Francis Bowman, who had transcribed the second letterbook, and Chambers checked his work against Bowman’s. But in 2004 he was forced to suspend work for reasons of ill health, and the project remained in hiatus until 2008, when several friends and colleagues, including David Galbraith, agreed with him to bring it to completion. Chambers’s work on the edition was well advanced: he had transcribed

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the two manuscripts, and checked his transcriptions against the originals. Corrections to the text of the first letterbook had been incorporated, while corrections to the second volume were still in progress. He had also done considerable work on the annotations, and had assembled extensive biographical materials on Evelyn’s correspondents. Translations (particularly of the Latin) had been prepared. Chambers had also acquired a large archive in support of the edition. This included illustrations he intended to include in the finished work and correspondence associated with the project. However, several weeks after files pertaining to the edition had been copied from his computer, a disastrous fire at Stonyground, his farm near Walkerton, Ontario, resulted in the destruction of all the archive for the edition, and any materials not already copied. It was soon clear that some important material had not survived, and that significant work remained to be done before the edition could be published. Almost all of the translations had also been lost, and the surviving text did not include many of the corrections, and possibly also the latest versions of some of his annotations. In addition, no materials pertaining to his projected introduction (except the Glossary) or to his acknowledgments could be recovered. David Galbraith began work on the edition in 2008–9, and spent several periods in the British Library checking the transcriptions, bringing references to other Evelyn manuscripts into line with the new catalogue of the archive, and incorporating additional material from the manuscripts. He also extensively revised the annotations. Although some sections were essentially complete and are included with little change, others were entirely rewritten. He is also responsible for the introduction and the preliminary apparatus, the selection of the illustrations, and the preparation of new translations. Because of the loss of archival materials associated with this edition, our acknowledgments will inevitably be incomplete. We apologize in advance for any omissions. Both authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the staff of the Manuscript Room of the British Library, and particularly of Frances Harris, the former Head of Modern Historical Manuscripts. The editors are also grateful for the advice of many other members of the community of seventeenth-century scholars and authorities on Evelyn, including Guy de la Bédoyère, Gillian Darley, Mordechai Feingold, John Dixon Hunt, Michael Hunter, Lisa Jardine, Erik de Jong, Mark Laird, and Giles Mandelbrote. We also thank the staff of the University of Toronto Press, particularly Suzanne Rancourt and Barb Porter, our copy editor Miriam Skey, and our indexer Mary Newberry, and the libraries of the University of Toronto, particularly the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, and the library systems at Trinity College and Victoria College. Finally, both editors gratefully acknowledge permissions from the relevant individuals and institutions to reproduce materials under copyright. Many people contributed to translations at various stages in this project, including Julia Lougovaya, Jennifer Oliver, Aven McMaster, and William Poole (Latin), Amyrose McCue Gill and Sarah Rolfe Prodan (Italian), Celine Bonnotte (French and Spanish), and Hartwig Meyer (German). Douglas Chambers also wishes to thank both Birkbeck College, University of London, and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters, for appointments as visiting research fellow. He also acknowledges the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Department of English of the University of Toronto, and Trinity College in the University of Toronto. In addition, he also thanks the undergraduate

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and graduate students who were employed as research assistants at various stages of the project. David Galbraith thanks Heather Murray and Craig Patterson, his collaborators in bringing the edition to completion, and the extraordinary community of early modern scholars in the Department of English of the University of Toronto. He is also grateful to the Cultures of Knowledge project based at Oxford. He would like to acknowledge gratefully the financial support of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, through its Senate Research Grant program, which enabled him to consult the Evelyn manuscripts on several occasions, and which underwrote the costs of the translations, illustrations, and the indexing, and Trinity College, which also supported the completion of this project.

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Abbreviations

* corrected date # questionable date 1687 library catalogue BL Add Ms 78632 A A Descriptive Catalogue of the Naval Manuscripts in the Pepysian Library. Ed. J.R. Tanner. London: Navy Records Society 1 (1903). Beal, Index Peter Beal. Index of English Literary Manuscripts. Vol. II, 1625–1700. London and New York: Mansell, 1987. Bibliography Geoffrey Keynes. John Evelyn: A Study in Bibliophily with a Bibliography of His Writing. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968. BL British Library BL Evelyn Archive British Library Add Mss 78168–693 BM British Museum C George E. Cockayne. The Complete Baronetage. 9 vols. Exeter: W. Pollard, 1900–9. CSP Calendar of State Papers. Darley, John Evelyn Gillian Darley. John Evelyn: Living for Ingenuity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006. Diary  The Diary of John Evelyn. Ed. E.S. de Beer. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955. Diary (1819) Memoirs, illustrative of the life and writings of John Evelyn. Ed. William Bray. 2 vols. London: Henry Colborn, 1819. Diary (1887) Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn. Ed. William Bray. 4 vols. London: George Bell & Sons, 1887. DNB  The Dictionary of National Biography (1903 and supplements to 1985). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. E The Journal of Edward Mountagu, Earl of Sandwich, 1659–65. Ed. R.C. Anderson. Navy Records Society 64 (1929).

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Abbreviations

Evelyn Library  The Evelyn Library. Sales Catalogue. 4 vols. London: ­Christies, 1977–8. F Joseph Foster. Alumni Oxoniensis. 4 Vols. Oxford: Parker, 1888. H  The History of Parliament. Incorporating B.D. Henning, The House of Commons 1660–1690. 3 vols. London: Secker & Warburg, 1983. www.histparl.ac.uk. Harris, Transformations Frances Harris. Transformations of Love: The Friendship   of Love of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. I H.R. Plomer, H.G. Aldis, G.H. Bushnell, E.R. McC. Dix, A.E. Esdaile, R.B. McKerrow, et al. Dictionaries of the Printers and Booksellers Who Were at Work in England, Scotland, and Ireland 1577–1745. [London]: The Bibliographical Society, 1977. J Sir Bernard Burke. A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited and Extinct Peerages. London: Harrison, 1866. K Mary Frear Keeler. The Long Parliament 1640–41: A Biographical Study of Its Members. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1954. L Alfred B. Beaven. The Aldermen of the City of London. 2 vols. London: The Corporation of the City of London, Eden Fisher, 1908–13. Letterbook I BL Add Ms 78298 Letterbook II BL Add Ms 78299 M William Munk. The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London. 5 vols. London: Published by the College, 1878–1968. N  Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. Leiden: Sijthoff, 1911–37. NPG National Portrait Gallery ODNB  The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. www.odnb.com. OED  The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. www.oed.com. P George E. Cockayne. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. 8 vols. London: George Bell & Sons, 1887–98.

Abbreviations

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Particular Friends  Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Ed. Guy de la Bédoyère. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1997. Pepys Diary  The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Ed. Robert Latham & William Matthews. 11 vols. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1970. Q Nouvelle Biographie Universelle. 46 vols. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères (1852–66). R Michael Hunter. The Royal Society and Its Fellows. 2nd ed. Chalfont St Giles, Bucks: British Society for the History of Science, 1994. SP State Papers T The Tangier Papers of Samuel Pepys. Ed. William Matthews & Edwin Chappell. London: Navy Records Society, 73 (1935). V John Venn and J.A. Venn. Alumni Cantabrigiensis. 2 Parts in 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–54. W Memoirs of Count Gramont. Ed. Gordon Goodwin. 2 vols. London: A.H. Bullen, 1903. Z Joseph Haydn. The Book of Dignities. London: W.H. Allen, 1890. Unless otherwise indicated, classical texts and translations are cited from the relevant volumes of the Loeb Classical Library.

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Introduction

I Evelyn’s “book of Letters” This is the first edition of the letterbooks of John Evelyn. Evelyn’s letterbooks belong alongside his famous diary for the insight they provide into his long career and the varied contexts of his activities, whether personal, social, political, or intellectual.1 His correspondents include members of his family and immediate social circle, and also many of the most interesting figures in post-Restoration England, such as Robert Boyle, Abraham Cowley, and Samuel Pepys, as well as some of the most important members of the nobility and the government. These letters cast light on topics as wide-ranging as the early years of the Royal Society, horticulture and gardening, and the London book trade and art market. They are also an important source for understanding political and religious controversy in post-Restoration England, in the period extending from the ministry of Edward Hyde to the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 and its aftermath. Evelyn’s diary has provided generations of readers with a remarkably sustained and detailed narrative of his life, from his travels on the continent during the Civil War and the Interregnum until only weeks before his death in 1706. In his 1683 autobiographical letter to Robert Plot (456),2 Evelyn recalls “I was Borne at Wotton in the County of Surry (being the Antient Seate of the Evelyns, since they came from Shrop-shire to Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex, and from Long-Ditton in Surry, some ages since) upon the 31 and last of October in the Yeare 1620” to Richard Evelyn (1590–1640) and his wife, Eleanor (1599–1635), who also had two daughters and two other sons.3 He goes on to say that he “was educated at the Free-Schole of Lewes in Sussex, in which County my Grandfather (by my Mother) left me some considerable Estate: From thence Anno 1637, I went to

1 For Evelyn’s biography, see Darley, John Evelyn and the ODNB entry by Chambers, and Evelyn’s letter to Robert Plot of 16 March 1683. 2 Parenthetical references to individual letters are to the numbering established in this edition. See Note on the Text for discussion of editorial procedures. 3 See the portraits of Richard and Eleanor Evelyn at Wotton and Christ Church until 1976: Richard (Christie’s Sale 6355, Lot 114) and Eleanor, reproduced in Millar, The Age of Charles I, No 142, and Hearn, Van Dyck & Britain, No 93.

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Balliol College in Oxford, where I continu’d about three Yeares fellow Commoner under the Tuition of one Bradshaw.” He spent most of the Civil War on the continent, visiting Italy in 1644–6, and living in France for much of the period between 1646 and 1652, when he returned permanently to England, settling at Sayes Court, Deptford, with his wife Mary (c.1635–1709), the daughter of Sir Richard Browne (1605–83), the English resident in Paris. Although they had a number of children, only their son John (b. 1655) and daughter Susanna (b. 1669) survived into adulthood. John predeceased his parents, dying in 1699 after a prolonged period of ill-health, apparently both physical and emotional (405 and 767). Especially traumatic were the deaths of his eldest son Richard in 1658 (132), and his two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, within five months of each other in 1685, the latter after she had eloped from the family home (498 and 505). Evelyn remained in Deptford until 1694, when he returned to Wotton, which he inherited on the death of his brother George (b. 1617) in 1699, and where he was buried in 1706. Shortly before his final return to England at the beginning of 1652, Evelyn had announced in a letter to William Prettyman, his wife’s uncle, that he would “bring over with me no ambitions at all to be a states-man, or meddle with the unlucky Interests of Kingdomes ... A Friend, a Booke, and a Garden shall for the future perfectly circumscribe my utmost designes” (39). But this scheme for a Horatian-like refusal of public life and withdrawal to his “villa” in Deptford was quickly qualified, if never completely abandoned, particularly after political and religious constraints on Royalists were lifted after the Restoration, and also as Evelyn’s financial needs became more pressing.4 As early as 1654 Evelyn had begun to establish contacts with important figures in the circles devoted to “experimental philosophy” in Oxford and London, and by 1659 was in regular correspondence with Robert Boyle and Samuel Hartlib, as well as other virtuosos such as his friend Jasper Needham and John Beale. After 1660, he played an important role in the Royal Society, as a founding fellow, an active participant in its deliberations, and a member of its Council. In spite of his serious reservations about the moral tone and political and religious complexion of Charles’s court, he also sought and accepted commissions to positions of state, serving as a commissioner for the wounded and prisoners of war in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars and as a member of the Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations, and later, under William III, becoming treasurer of Greenwich Hospital (723). Throughout this period, Evelyn maintained an active literary profile. He published extensively in a wide variety of fields, most famously arboriculture and gardening, including Sylva (1664), the first work to bear the imprint of the Royal Society, but also on subjects as diverse as London air pollution (Fumifugium [1661]) and the history of printmaking (Sculptura [1662]).5 His publications encompassed both texts in translation from

4 Evelyn’s later text, Publick Employment and an Active Life (1667), written in response to Sir George Mackenzie’s A moral essay, preferring solitude to publick employment, and all it’s appanages, such as fame, command, riches, pleasures, conversation, &c. (1665) is suggestive of some of his ambivalences over the contending claims of otium and negotium. See Letter 289. 5 For Evelyn’s publications, see Keynes, John Evelyn: A Study in Bibliophily with a Bibliography of His Writing. See also Evelyn’s account of his publications in Letter 629 to Flower Hyde.

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French and Latin and original works, and he also left a very large archive of unpublished materials, including his correspondence and his diary. But unlike the diary, which has been continuously in print from 1818 and was superbly edited by Esmond de Beer,6 only a small selection of the letters has appeared in print. Moreover, most of Evelyn’s manuscripts, including both letterbooks, were unavailable to de Beer during his editorial work on the diary. Nineteenth-century editions of Evelyn’s diary printed some of the correspondence, often in excerpted form.7 Other letters have been published in the editions of some of his correspondents. And while some have become well-known, such as his letter of 3 September 1659 to Robert Boyle (159), proposing the creation of “little foundation” and citing Bacon’s idea of a “Salomon’s House,” and his 1689 letter to Pepys about libraries and collecting (619, with different dates in the letterbook version and the text sent to Pepys), it was only in 1997 that a significant portion of the correspondence, the letters to and from Samuel Pepys, appeared in a reliable edition.8 Although the letterbooks were used by W.G. Hiscock in his biographical works,9 and later also by some editors of Evelyn’s correspondents,10 when they were housed in Oxford, it has only been since their acquisition by the British Library that they have been properly catalogued and easily accessible for consultation by scholars. The letterbooks consist of two folio manuscript volumes, owned since 1995 by the British Library and now catalogued as Additional Manuscripts 78298 and 78299.11 Prior to that date, they had been owned by Evelyn’s descendants, and housed first at Wotton, and after 1949 at Christ Church, Oxford.12 They contain seven letters in Latin, twentyfour in modern European languages, and over eight hundred in English. The collection opens in 1644, when Evelyn was in Rome (and writing in Italian), and (in the English letters) in 1645 in Venice. It follows him to France, passes through his final return to England in 1652, and continues until a rather abrupt conclusion in 1698, eight years before his death. In all cases the correspondence is outgoing; he does not transcribe any incoming letters. Both manuscripts are in Evelyn’s hand, and give evidence of his attention over a prolonged period. These are texts he made a deliberate decision to preserve in this format, and they show various forms of his editorial work, including annotation, revision, and cancellation. The manuscripts mimic some of the characteristics of printed examples of the epistolary collection. As was conventional in such collections, the letters are divided into four 6 The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). Henceforth Diary. 7 The number varies, and increases over the course of the century. The edition first printed in 1859, and subsequently frequently reprinted, contains the most extensive selection of outgoing and incoming letters. 8 Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, ed. de la Bédoyère. Since this edition normally uses the texts which Evelyn sent to Pepys, there are often differences between these versions and those copied into the letterbooks. See Particular Friends, 18–21. 9 Hiscock, John Evelyn and Mrs. Godolphin, and John Evelyn and His Family Circle. 10 See, for example, Oldenburg, The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. Hall and Boas Hall; and Boyle, The Correspondence of Robert Boyle ed. Hunter, Clericuzio, and Principe. 11 For a description of the manuscripts, see Note on the Text and the entries in the British Library’s online catalogue. 12 They were catalogued at Christ Church as Evelyn Mss 39a and 39b, but not described accurately until they entered the British Library.

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“books”: Liber I comprising the Latin letters; Liber II, the letters in Italian and French, and one in each of German and Spanish; Liber III, 405 letters in English from 1645 until 1679; and Liber IV, another 404 letters in English (and one in French) from 1679 until 1698. The Latin and vernacular letters are numbered consecutively and organized chronologically (the Latin beginning with Letter XXXV), as are the two books of En­ glish letters, albeit with errors in sequencing.13 Each letter has a head-note and often also marginal annotations, and there is an index for both volumes compiled by Evelyn at the end of Add 78299. As his attention to the formal properties of the collection suggests, the letterbooks represent Evelyn’s attempt to edit his own correspondence, for an audience which he imagined to consist, in the first instance, of his descendants. The letterbooks represent only a small portion of Evelyn’s surviving archive.14 Some manuscripts had entered the British Library in the nineteenth century when they had been bought at auctions of the estate of William Upcott, who had purloined large amounts of material from Wotton when he had been recruited to organize the library and collaborate with William Bray in preparing Evelyn’s diary for publication.15 The Evelyn material in the British Library is now catalogued in 605 volumes. Of these, 131 volumes contain papers directly associated with John Evelyn, including (apart from the letterbooks), twenty-two volumes of his correspondence (Add 78300–22). Other volumes include the manuscripts of his diary (Add 78323–6), his commonplace books (Add 78327–33), and his extensive devotional manuscripts (Add 78360–92). Some volumes are cross-­referenced to other items in the archive. For example, frequent injunctions in the diary to “see your notes” in reference to sermons allude to the much more detailed descriptions in his large register, “A breife Account of divers Sermons” (Add 78364). Much of the verse which he sent to his correspondents is also entered into his miscellany of his occasional verse (Add 78357). Other materials, such as his commonplace books, should be put alongside the records of his library (Add 78630–43), particularly his catalogue of 1687 (Add 78632).16 In addition to Evelyn’s papers, other sections of the archive include the papers of his wife Mary (Add 78430–9) and his son John Evelyn Jr (Add 78442–61), as well as those of his descendants, and other historic manuscripts associated with the Evelyn family or the family of his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne.17 In total, they

13 There is good reason to believe that the manuscript is missing several leaves, which would have contained the Latin letters I–XXXIV, and possibly a title-page, such as he provided for several other manuscripts, including Add 78367, “A Rationall Account of the True Religion.” Evelyn seems himself to be responsible for the removal of a leaf in Add 78299 between f 33 and f 34 (see note 41). 14 See the British Library online manuscript catalogue for detailed descriptions of the archive and its contents. Many of the manuscripts are also listed in Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. 2, but identified according to the old Christ Church cataloguing system. 15 De Beer, Diary I.53–4 reprints Upcott’s account of the archive in situ in 1813. Some of the materials removed by Upcott were also bought back at these sales by the Evelyn family, and ultimately came to the British Library with the rest of the archive in 1995. 16 See de la Bédoyère, “John Evelyn’s Library Catalogue.” 17 See the description of the archive in Hofmann et al., “John Evelyn’s Archive at the British Library,” in John Evelyn in the British Library, 11–73.

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comprise one of the largest family-based archives of early modern material, and a collection of seventeenth-century correspondence without many rivals. That the archive has survived is fortunate, and that it is now housed in the British Library fitting. But the fate of the rest of Evelyn’s collections was less permanent. His papers, his library and collection of prints, and his furniture remained at Wotton House from Evelyn’s death in 1706 until the mid-twentieth century.18 Whether in view of their earlier experiences with William Upcott, or on account of legal disputes, the owners were reluctant to grant researchers access to the papers for much of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, making occasional exceptions for scholars such as Geoffrey Keynes.19 Subsequently, the papers made several journeys: from Wotton first to Stonor Park and (in 1949) to Christ Church, and then in 1995 to the British Library, when they were purchased by deed of sale. The other collections did not remain intact. In an earlier series of sales beginning in 1976, these items were dispersed at auction, sub hasta as Evelyn would have insisted. Paintings, prints, and furniture were sold in 1976, and the library, comprising over three thousand volumes, in 1977–8, “One Auction (I may call it diminution) of a day or two, having scatterd what has ben gathering many Yeares” (619).20

II “Copies onely of severall Letters the most part of which are of no Importance” What is the relationship of the letterbooks to the rest of Evelyn’s surviving correspondence and to his diary? And is it possible to reconstruct the history of the text, as de Beer succeeded in doing for the diary? As is the case with the diary, it seems probable that these volumes have a complex textual history, and also like it, are elaborate editorial constructs assembled by Evelyn over a prolonged but discontinuous period. As many readers since the nineteenth century had inferred, and as de Beer demonstrated, much of the diary

18 Not entirely, of course. Evelyn’s library had been reduced even during his lifetime as a result of his move from Sayes Court to Wotton. See Hunter, “The British Library and the Library of John Evelyn,” 82–102, and Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and His Books,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, ed. Harris and Hunter, 71–94. Griffiths, “John Evelyn and the Print,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 95–114, demonstrates that some of the prints had been dispersed by the late eighteenth century. 19 See Keynes, Bibliography, 14–30 for an account of Evelyn’s library at Wotton and Christ Church and Hiscock, Times Literary Supplement (6 April 1951), 220, for the transfer of the archive to Oxford. 20 Some of these items entered public collections: Evelyn’s two cabinets are now in the Victoria and Albert and the Geffrye Museums; some of the paintings in the National Portrait Gallery; and approximately four hundred books, many with extensive annotations, in the British Library (catalogued separately as Eve.). The prints, still housed in the volumes in which Evelyn had placed them, were scattered. For the library sale catalogue see The Evelyn Library, 4 vols. (London: Christie’s, 1977–8), and Hunter, “The British Library and the Library of John Evelyn,” 82–102, and Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and His Books.” Griffiths, “John Evelyn and the Print” discusses the dispersal of that collection.

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was compiled many years after the dates to which it refers.21 De Beer realized that the extensive descriptions of monuments and artefacts in the account of Evelyn’s travels in France and Italy derived in many instances from published sources which appeared in some cases years after the dates of Evelyn’s visits.22 He was also able to use “forward references” to later events to hypothesize a multilayered textual history in which the diary was begun as early as the 1660s, was taken up again in the early 1680s, and only became contemporary with the events it describes in 1683–4.23 A crucial stage in the composition of both the diary and the letterbooks seems to have occurred early in 1682. Evelyn had been very ill at the start of the year. He writes that he “onely continued so weake that I could not go to church ’til Ash-wednesday, which I had not missed I think so long in twenty yeares.” This illness prompted him to put his affairs in order: in a passage marked with a manicule, he notes that “After this Warning & admonition, began to looke-over & methodize all my Writings, Accompts, Letters, Papers &c: Inventoried the goods &c of the house, & put things into the best order I could; & also new made my Will.”24 At this point, he refers directly to the letterbooks. Evelyn had written Daniel Colwall on 11 February, proposing changes in the Royal Society’s criteria for membership (441). By early March, he had recovered from his illness, and notes on 9 March: “Came to see & congratulate my recovery Sir John Lowther, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Pepys, Sir Anth: Deane, & Mr. Hill, which last gave me a hopefull account of the successe my Letter was like to have (which lately I sent to Mr. Dan: Callwell) in behalfe of the Royal Society.” He adds, “See a Copy of the Letter in my book of Letters.”25 By this time, then, the diary and the letterbooks were being developed in tandem. But is it possible to cast any further light on their composition? An earlier injunction in the diary to “see your book of Letters” in connection with his January 1660 letter to Herbert Morley (163) implies that the letterbook already contained material extending at least to this point when Evelyn entered this passage, which de Beer argued must have been done later than December 1680.26 However, the forms of evidence which de Beer used in inferring the history of the diary are often of little value in probing the textual history of the letterbooks. The letters are not dependent on later published sources for descriptive

21 De Beer in Diary I.69–114. The diary is made up of several manuscripts. The most important, Add 78323, “Kalendarium,” covers the period from Evelyn’s childhood until October 1697, and was begun, de Beer argued, in the 1660s. Another manuscript, Add 78325, “De Vita Propria Pars Prima,” is a revision of the former text, undertaken by Evelyn c.1700, which covers the period until October 1644. The latter is printed in the first volume of de Beer’s edition. 22 De Beer in Diary I.85–105 and II.569–79. 23 De Beer in Diary I.70–3, who argues that the section of Add 78323 reporting on events prior to March 1644 postdates 1660 but probably predates the Great Fire of 1666, and that the material after July 1649 must postdate December 1680. Evelyn worked from notes he had made in printed almanacs until 1684, when the diary entries began to be written in close proximity to the events they describe. 24 Diary IV.272 25 Diary IV.273 (Add 78323: f 242). De Beer’s speculation on the contents of the letter is mistaken. 26 Diary III.239 (Add 78323: f 163v) and de Beer in Diary I.71–2. The lengthy note which Evelyn includes at the bottom of Add 78298: f 100 seems to be a later insertion, and may have been added at the time that the parallel passage in the diary was entered.

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detail. Evelyn also attempts to avoid anachronism and to be scrupulous in his use of titles. Typically, each addressee is identified in the head-note by a title appropriate to the date of the letter. Although Evelyn often provides information on later honours or appointments for his correspondents, these commonly take the form of marginal annotations which cannot usually be used as evidence for the date at which letters were first copied into the collection. Some inferences can be drawn, however, from the index which Evelyn compiled at the end of the second volume.27 The Latin, foreign vernacular, and English letters are indexed separately, usually by the number Evelyn assigned them, but sometimes, particularly in the case of the later letters, by page. The final letter in Book II, addressed to Antonio Verrio and dated 2 February 1686 (II.24), is not included in the index to this book, implying that it entered the collection after the index had been completed. But its date can be pushed back a little further. The index to the English letters is quite carefully laid out. Evelyn divided his pages into alphabetical sections, and then entered the names of his correspondents. The first page, comprising A–G, is very crammed, while subsequent pages are more generously spaced, with adequate room for later additions. The name of Richard Anderson, who is addressed only once in a letter of 23 May 1684 (480), clearly belongs to the original iteration of the index. It is followed by a cross reference to Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington and lord chamberlain, which is equally clearly a later insertion (fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Add 78299: f 164 ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

The name of Henry Frederck Thynne, who is addressed on 22 September 1685 (508), is also evidently an insertion into a list which had already been created (fig. 2).

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Fig. 2 Add 78299: f 165 ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

27 Add 78299, ff 164–5v.

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In other cases, additional names are added out of alphabetical sequence at the end of entries for particular letters. More precise evidence is also provided by the entry for Thomas Sprat, who is identified as dean of Westminster, a post in which he was installed on 21 September 1683. His subsequent appointment as bishop of Rochester, a position in which he was consecrated on 2 November 1684, is acknowledged in a reference which was clearly added to the initial entry (fig. 3).

Image removed at the request of the rights holder Fig. 3 Add 78299: f 165 ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

It seems possible to infer, therefore, that the index was compiled between the end of May and the beginning of November 1684, and further, that subsequent to this date, letters were entered in relative proximity to their dates of composition. In this respect, the letterbooks resemble the diary, and seem like it probably to have “gone live” in 1684. Evelyn may have been less consistent, however, in entering his letters than he was in keeping up his diary. He did not necessarily transcribe letters immediately after he had dispatched them. The likely misdating and misplacing of two letters referring to the disgrace of Henry Slingsby, one-time master of the Royal Mint (559 and 560), suggest that his work on the letterbooks was not continuous, and that gaps of over a year sometimes separated periods of engagement with the project. Moreover, the letters of some years, such as 1688, give evidence of careful selection and arrangement of a sort which argues that Evelyn may have waited until the end of the year to choose his materials. After 1684, letters also became available in larger numbers than in earlier years. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the number of letters per year increases significantly at this point. But if this is the date at which Evelyn’s entries in the letterbook became contemporary with the composition of the letters, the questions of when the project was begun and how far it had advanced before Evelyn recommitted himself to it in 1682–4, remain uncertain. Here, the evidence is thin. One of the most distinctive features of the first letterbook, however, is a noticeable change in Evelyn’s handwriting on fol. 180, which contains a letter to Edward Hyde of 14 September 1669 (323). From this point onwards, the writing is much smaller than on earlier pages, and shows many of the properties of his later hand (fig. 4). It seems possible therefore to hypothesize that Evelyn had begun the letterbooks at an earlier date, and had reached 1669 before suspending the project. It may also be the case that some work was done in the mid-1670s: with the exception of the 1686 letter to Antonio Verrio, both the Latin and the vernacular letters predate 1676. This hypothesis leaves unanswered the question of when Evelyn began entering his correspondence, but a date in the 1660s (as de Beer proposed for the section of the diary prior to March 1644) is possible. It also implies that the two projects were not closely synchronized until the early

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1680s, and that the letterbooks may have extended further forward in time than the diary for much of the period before Evelyn returned actively to both projects. These questions also raise larger issues about the relationship between the diary and the letterbooks, and the status of both as documentary records. That Evelyn’s archive of his own correspondence was fragmentary and imperfectly organized is suggested both by the relative paucity of letters from early in his life, and by Evelyn’s recurring difficulties in dating his incoming and outgoing letters. Not surprisingly, he is particularly prone to misdate letters written prior to 25 March of any given year; he is also often unclear about whether to use the Julian or Gregorian calendar in dating letters from the continent. The dating of the letters to Benjamin Maddox and Jeremy Taylor from the 1650s is very confused, as are the letters of the 1670s to Thomas Clifford.28 Other correspondence from the 1670s is also liable to be misdated or misplaced in the chronological sequence, again

28 See de Beer, “Jeremy Taylor in 1655,” and “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford.” Harris, Transformations of Love, 138, notes that a letter to Clifford dated 28 January 1672 (347) repeats and condenses material about Evelyn’s suit with William Prettyman from an uncollected letter to Clifford of 23 November 1670.

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suggesting that the archive from which Evelyn drew his materials when he returned to the project in the 1680s was in a disorganized state. In some cases, Evelyn himself recognizes that letters have been misdated or misplaced (451 to Thomas Butler, and 663 to Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn). In others, the misdating is obvious: a letter to Margaret Cavendish (368) is dated six months after her death; another, to Meric Casaubon (370), three years after his. It also seems likely that in many instances, particularly in the case of the earlier correspondence, Evelyn entered the text from a draft he had retained after dispatching the original letter. In at least one case (333), he may not have had a text at hand, but assigns the letter a number, and leaves sufficient space for the lengthy argument addressed to Patrick Maginn in defence of the eucharistic theology of the Church of England. Inevitably, much of Evelyn’s outgoing correspondence has been lost. However, in instances where the letters of his correspondents have been edited, as in the case of his letters to Robert Boyle, and his correspondence with Pepys,29 it is possible to compare alternate versions, and sometimes to catch glimpses of Evelyn in the act of editing and self-fashioning. Unlike many earlier examples of the genre, Evelyn’s letterbooks were not intended simply as a documentary record or register of his correspondence. They were instead, in the words of James Daybell who describes the seventeenth-century evolution of the letterbook, “intimately connected with the construction of the self” and akin to “a form of life writing.”30 The texts Evelyn entered into these volumes, in fact, often diverge from the letters he sent to his correspondents. In some instances as many as three witnesses survive, as is the case with his famous letter to Pepys of August 1689 (619). Sometimes the differences are of little import, but some have considerable significance. A letter to Mary Evelyn of 12 February 1652 (47), for example, written shortly after his return to England, is an extract from a longer letter in which he provides detailed instructions on financial matters in anticipation of her journey across the Channel.31 In another example of greater public import, his letter of 10 October 1688 to Archbishop Sancroft (593) adopts a carefully cultivated rhetoric of anonymity; the original version, signed only with his initials, requests that the recipient acknowledge its safe receipt.32 The letters to Pepys sometimes also show significant variation in both dating and text.33 Moreover, in some cases, both in the correspondence with Pepys and in other examples such as the 1688 letter to “Incognitu” (597), there is also reason to doubt that some letters were actually sent, and to conclude that some might be more appropriately understood as rhetorical or scholarly exercises by Evelyn than as literal records of communicative acts. This category might also include a 1655 letter addressed to “Cousin S.” (75), which prefigures the

29 See Boyle, The Correspondence of Robert Boyle, ed. Hunter, Clericuzio, and Principe, and Particular Friends, ed. de la Bédoyère. These editions routinely record variants between original letters and letterbook texts in cases where both survive. Some variants are also noted in our annotations. 30 Daybell, The Material Letter, 188. See 177–90 for Daybell’s discussion of the letterbook in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 31 Add 78431: f 32 (22.2.1652). In many cases, the relationship between letterbook texts and surviving original letters and drafts is discussed in the notes to particular letters. 32 Bodleian Ms Tanner 28/2: f 91 (a); see Letter 593, note 1. 33 See de la Bédoyère’s discussion in Particular Friends, 18–21.

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description of Interregnum London in A Character of England (1659), and elaborates the cultural competition between Paris and London which would re-emerge as a theme later in his career. In at least one case a letter was readdressed, and reassigned from Robert Hooke to Christopher Wren when it was copied into the letterbook (435); in another case, which also points to his recycling of materials, a Pindaric first dedicated to Cowley in 1666 (279) was copied to both Flower Hyde (629) and Anne Spencer in 1690.34 In compiling the letterbooks, Evelyn attempted to produce a selected edition of his correspondence. Their relationship to the diary seems to have been shaped, at least in part, by Evelyn’s wish to leave parallel life-records for his family. Two notes in Add 78299 frame this desire, albeit through topoi of self-deprecation. In the pastedown he writes with affected modesty, “This Booke Containes the Copies onely of severall Letters the most part of which are of no Importance, & therefore may be disposd of as Wastpaper. There are yet some of them which may be preserved but they are very few. Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity.” He adds, writing in what appears to be a later hand, that the letters “have all ben Examind tho’ not so diligently as they might be” and suggests that any not deemed “material” can be disposed of. In another note facing the first page, he adds: “I did not enter any of these Letters (or what are copied in two other Volumes)35 with the least Intention to make them publiq but for my own satesfaction, & to looke now & then back upon what has past in my private Concerns & Conversations; many of them being Impertinencys, & therefore may be dispos’d of as my Heirs think fit.” His disavowals are belied by his sustained effort of copying, and of arranging, indexing, and annotating both volumes in a manner which alludes to printed collections of correspondence and implies that he conceived this as a form of scribal publication, albeit for an audience restricted to his family.36 Moreover, his own notes (and those of his grandson, Sir John Evelyn) in the opening pages of both volumes draw attention to the most important letters for later readers. A note in Evelyn’s hand now bound at the end of 78298 but referring to letters in Book IV points to 438 to Pepys, discussing Evelyn’s history of the Second Anglo-Dutch War; 440 and 443 to Sidney Godolphin, laying out Evelyn’s case in his suit against William Prettyman; 555 to Thomas Osborne, accompanying a copy of Sylva; and 756 to William Wotton, providing biographical information on Robert Boyle (fig. 5).

34 Add 78309: f 69 (4.8.1690) for the version addressed to Spencer. The two letters are very similar, though in this letter Evelyn introduces some compliments to the Spencers and Althorp. 35 This reference to “two other Volumes” has been the source of considerable confusion. When the manuscripts were first housed at Christ Church only the second volume was initially included in the deposit. The first volume was subsequently discovered at Stonor Park, and later transferred to Oxford. This confusion led Beal to refer to three letterbooks in Index of English Literary Manuscripts (II.1.464). On the basis of the evidence of both manuscripts, it seems clear that Evelyn’s reference to two other manuscripts refers to Books I and II, and Book III of Add 78298. See the British Library catalogue description of Add 78298–9. 36 See Love, The Culture and Commerce of Texts, 42–4. Love describes manuscripts intended for a “closed circle of readers” as creating “a status delicately balanced between the public and the private” (43–4). The loss of the opening leaves deprives us of some evidence for understanding “the dress” (42) of the text, although its scale, and Evelyn’s editorial work on the letters suggest that he conceived the manuscript as having been, in a limited sense, “published.”

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Fig. 5 Add 78298: pastedown ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

Another note at the beginning of Add 78299 lists selections from Book III, including the letters on love and marriage to Robert Boyle (161–2); the appeal to Col. Herbert Morley to declare for the king (163); the “character” of Samuel de Sorbière addressed to Thomas Sprat (223); the appeal to Henry Howard soliciting the donation of the Arundel Marbles (294); and the submission to Sir Peter Wyche on “the improvement of the English tongue” (247).37 Evelyn’s prefatory notes also suggest a terminal date for the project. The second note in Add 78299, opposite the first numbered page, is dated 15 November 1699, and nothing after the penultimate letter to Sidney Godolphin (809) is entered in the index, although he refers in Memoires for My Grand-son to “severall more in loose papers which I intended to transcribe, but they grew to[o] fast upon me.”38 Unlike the diary, then, on which Evelyn continued to work almost to the end of his life and began to edit and recopy into another volume (Add 78325), his work on the letterbooks probably ceased before the turn of the century (fig. 6). Nonetheless, the letterbooks cover a period of more than fifty years. During this time, Evelyn’s confessional and political identities underwent some subtle but significant modifications. That he was a Royalist and an active lay member of the Church of England were constants. But the meaning of these terms, and their relationship to each other, were

37 Other lists seem to have been compiled by Evelyn’s grandson, Sir John Evelyn. 38 Memoires for My Grand-son, ed. Keynes, 64–5.

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Fig. 6 Add 78299: f ivv ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

subject to considerable negotiation.39 His experiences in Paris, in the household of his father-in-law Sir Richard Browne, the English resident from 1642 to 1657, seem to have been decisive in establishing his early attitudes. His theological mentors who preached in the chapel in Browne’s residence, particularly John Cosin and John Earle, inculcated in Evelyn a religious identity formed by the theology and ceremonial attitudes of the Laudian church. He also developed an intense devotional life which would later occupy him most emphatically during his spiritual friendship with Margaret Godolphin from 1672 until her death in 1678.40 His early confessional identity was reinforced by his sense of polemical engagement with opponents of the Church of England, certainly with the Presbyterians, Independents, and “phanatiques” who dominated the religious landscape of Interregnum England, but also with Roman Catholics, who occupied a strong place in the exiled court of Henrietta Maria, and whose numbers were augmented by recent converts (25 and 41). After Evelyn’s return to England in 1652, his relationship with Jeremy Taylor confirmed these attitudes (88), particularly during the period after 1655, when Cromwell’s government took more active measures against the (no longer) Established Church. Throughout his career, he remained active as a religious controversialist (307, 333), and as a theologically well-informed member of the laity (442, 543). He could also act at the behest of the church hierarchy: a flurry of correspondence from 1683 (465–8) between Evelyn and Christian Berkeley on the one hand, and John Fell on the other, shows him passing on concerns over her son’s exposure to Jesuit influence in Paris. Evelyn’s deep satisfaction with the Restoration did not, however, blind him to the flaws of Charles II’s court and his ministers, or to the ambiguous religious loyalties of many of its leading members. Over the course of the following twenty years his scepticism towards the culture of the court and many of its policies deepened. At the same time, he

39 See the discussion of Evelyn’s spiritual itinerary in Spurr, “‘A Sublime and Noble Service’: Evelyn and the Church of England,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 145–63; and Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646–1689, for the larger institutional and theological context. 40 See the discussion of their “Seraphic friendship” in Harris, Transformations of Love. Evelyn’s devotional manuscripts (Add 78360–92) are the largest single section of the British Library Evelyn Archive.

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began to develop an evolving flexibility towards accommodating “meere circumstantials” (403) in matters of religion, and to move towards endorsing a more expansive concept of Protestantism. Undoubtedly his relationship with Thomas Tenison and other theologians committed to a more inclusive understanding of the Church of England played an important role in his itinerary. But these attitudes were also reinforced by the arrival of religious refugees from France after the revocation of the Édit de Nantes in 1685, and contributed to a more critical attitude towards that country, its monarchy, and its culture. At the time of the fall of Danby’s ministry in 1679 (and unlike his brother George who was an MP and voted to exclude the duke of York), Evelyn aligned himself with those who would soon be known as Tories (403), as did Sidney Godolphin, with whom he had become more closely linked after the death of his wife the previous year. However, his religious convictions increasingly estranged him from the government, particularly when James II became more public in acknowledging his own Catholicism and in pursuing policies which, in Evelyn’s view, strengthened the Roman Church in England and abroad.41 He had been appointed a commissioner of the Privy Seal in 1685, but his letters to Godolphin (533) and Henry Hyde (530) show his increasing frustration with the religious policies of the king and his closest advisors (533). Thus, in 1688, his son joined the forces of the Prince of Orange (600), and Evelyn was prepared to acquiesce to the inevitability of the “approaching revolution” (603) and would evince no sympathy for the Jacobites in the aftermath of the transfer of power.42 In the letterbooks, Evelyn is careful in shaping his materials. Some aspects of his correspondence are excluded entirely, such as his letters to Sir Richard Browne, exchanged while he was in England from October 1647 to July 1649, and dealing with the political and military situation, often using ciphers.43 Other letters represent attempts to develop narratives to account for particular episodes in his life. One, which did not produce the results he had hoped for, was his attempt at the beginning of 1660 to persuade his childhood friend Col. Herbert Morley to declare for Charles II and to use the military forces at his

41 A leaf has been removed from Add 78299 between f 33 and f 34, and the text of two letters from October–December 1685 (512 to Pepys and 513 to his son, John Evelyn Jr) is missing. Both are listed in Evelyn’s index to the collection (Add 78299: f 165). Evelyn seems responsible for this excision, as the final lines of 33v have also been cancelled. The letter to Pepys may have been in response to their meeting after Pepys’s note of 2 October 1685 in which he summoned Evelyn to offer proof of Charles II’s Roman Catholicism at the time of his death. See Particular Friends, 159 (Letter C26). Evelyn notes in his diary that Pepys had informed him that “I have something to shew you, that I may not have againe another time” (Diary IV.475) before showing him a document in Charles’s handwriting repudiating the authority of the Church of England. Evelyn goes on to affirm his preference for James’s “free & ingenuous profession, of what his owne Religion is” and to praise his “most sincere, and honest nature, one upon whose word, one may relie” (479). He changed his opinion within several months. 42 For an account of Evelyn’s politics that seeks to place him in closer proximity to the Whigs, see Pincus, “John Evelyn: Revolutionary,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 185–219. Pincus’s argument centres on Evelyn’s letter to the anonymous “Incognitu” (597) in November 1688. 43 They are contained in Add 34702, Add 78221, and Add 15948. Nineteenth-century editions of Evelyn’s diary print selections from their correspondence. Evelyn includes one letter to Charles II (168) in the letterbooks in which he employs a cipher.

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disposal in support of the restoration of the monarchy (163). Another is his representation of his decision to abandon his translation and commentary of Lucretius (109 and 112). He first refers to it as his “Bratt” in a 1653 letter to Sir Richard Fanshawe (69). His edition of Book I was published in May 1656.44 By 1658, however, the project had been abandoned (136), even though other books had already been translated.45 Evelyn attributed this decision to his unhappiness over the errors introduced into the text on account of careless proofreading by Thomas Triplet. He reiterated this charge on numerous occasions in his later correspondence (445 and 788). But for all his considerable efforts to link his decision to this disappointment, the story as he represents it is not entirely plausible. The record of the diary undermines his claim to have been absent from London while the book was in the press. It seems more likely that he had begun to have serious doubts about the value of the translation in view of Lucretius’s obvious divergences from Christian orthodoxy, and that he turned instead to the project he called “A Rationall Account of the True Religion,”46 his translation of John Chrysostom’s Golden Book, begun after the death of his son Richard in 1658,47 and soon after to the also ultimately unfinished “Elysium Britannicum” (Add 78442–4).48 Other narratives unfold over longer periods of time. Two in particular represent Evelyn acting in defence of his family’s financial interests and property. The first, which extends over a period of more than fifteen years, relates to promises made and broken by the king, and a law suit brought by William Prettyman, his wife’s uncle, both ultimately stemming from expenses incurred by Sir Richard Browne when he was English resident in Paris, and represented most vividly through letters to patrons such as Thomas Clifford (347) and Sidney Godolphin (421 and 443).49 The latter exchange is also haunted by Evelyn’s invocation of Godolphin’s deceased wife, Margaret Blagge, whose voice Evelyn summons up to lend support to his appeals (440).50 These letters are highly wrought rhetorical performances; at the same time they cast light on Evelyn’s relations with some of the leading

44 An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura. Interpreted and Made English Verse by J. Evelyn Esq. (1656). 45 See Add 78353–6, which include translations and commentary on Books III–VI. For an account of the project, see the introduction to John Evelyn’s Translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura, ed. Repetzki, and Hunter, “John Evelyn in the 1650s: A Virtuoso in Quest of a Role,” in his Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 84–93. A note at the end of Add 78355 gives 11 September 1657 as the date of completion of the final section of Book VI. 46 Add 78637, published in the nineteenth century as The History of Religion: A Rational Account of the True Religion, ed. R.M. Evanson. 47 The golden book of St. John Chrysostom, concerning the education of children (1659). 48 This project survives only in fragmentary form (Add 78342–4). See Elysium Britannicum, or The Royal Gardens, ed. Ingram (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), an edition of Add 78342, and Harris, “The Manuscripts of John Evelyn’s ‘Elysium Britannicum.’” 49 The most succinct account of the complex web of promises, financial agreements, and law suits which comprise this long-lasting affair is found in a concluding note to Evelyn’s letter to Sidney Godolphin of 23 March 1682 (443). 50 For Evelyn’s relationship with Margaret Godolphin (1652–78; ODNB), as reflected in his diary, their correspondence, and his devotional manuscripts, see Harris, Transformations of Love.

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figures in the administrations of Charles II and James II, whom he “importuned” with appeals for support. A second episode pertains to the consequences of the deaths of his brother Richard and niece Anne Montagu (663). Richard’s widow had given Baynards, an estate owned by her husband, to her daughter, and it passed on her death to her husband William Montagu, breaking an entail that Evelyn and his brother George insisted required it to remain in the family. The affair had the added interest, from Evelyn’s perspective, of framing Montagu’s subsequent scandalous adulteries, culminating in “[t]he Infamous Tryal of my unworthy Nephew Montague at the Kings-bench” in 1690.51 There are also interesting differences between the testimony provided by the letters and the diary. Some characters are absent from one or the other, or appear in different roles. John Beale, for example, who is Evelyn’s most prolific correspondent on horticultural and scientific matters, is unmentioned in the diary.52 By contrast, in the particularly important case of Margaret Godolphin, whose presence in the diary is pervasive for several years until her death in 1678, there is only one letter to her in the letterbooks (385), and it records a difference between her and Evelyn on a matter of crucial importance to him, the reputation of the Royal Society. After her death, however, she is regularly commemorated in letters sent to her husband on the anniversary of her death. Evelyn may have conceived the diary and the letterbooks as parallel and complementary testimonies to his life, and as edited reshapings of primary materials. The diary describes a public existence. In contrast to Pepys’s diary, Evelyn’s gives little access to his interior life. It emphasizes much more his public career: as traveller, as close associate of public figures, and as member of the Royal Society. Its early sections, compiled long after the events, are often formally akin to memoirs, and make extensive use of guidebooks and other published materials; the later sections sometimes resemble chronicles, as he incorporates materials from newspapers and other public sources.53 The contrast between the letterbooks and the diary can sometimes be forceful. At the beginning of July, 1665, for example, Evelyn had accompanied Edward Mountagu, earl of Sandwich to Chatham where the captain of the Royal Prince had been knighted for his role in the Battle of Lowestoft. The diary treats the day as a public occasion and ceremony. On board ship, he notes, “we dined with many noble men, Gent: and Volunteeres; served in Plate, and excellent meate of all sorts: after dinner came his Majestie & the Duke & Prince Rupert.”54 This celebratory description provides a startling contrast to his urgent letter to Sir George Ayscue (249), also written that day from aboard the Royal Prince, which draws attention to the deteriorating condition of the sick and wounded under his care. In both works, Evelyn fashions his personae with care. But in comparison to the diary, the letterbooks display a more multifaceted personality, and incorporate a range of styles and genres that speaks powerfully to the status of the letter as a literary

51 Diary V.3 52 John Beale (1608–83; ODNB) in Add 78312–13 and 15948. See Leslie, “The Spiritual Husbandry of John Beale,” in Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, ed. Leslie and Raylor, 151–72. 53 See de Beer, Diary I.85–90. 54 Diary III.413.

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form as well as a communicative medium. Evelyn is also at pains to represent the social diversity of his correspondents, and his place in the complex systems of privilege and deference that define these worlds. He is particularly interested in framing significant moments in his life, in his various roles as witness and advisor to the powerful, as public servant, as fellow of the Royal Society, and as family man, and offers us in the two works sometimes either complementary or competitive accounts of such episodes.

III “A Jewell amongst friends” Two months later, on 10 September 1665, Samuel Pepys heard of the earl of Sandwich’s capture of several Dutch ships. Wanting to celebrate, he visited his friend George Cocke, whom he found with Viscount Brouncker and his mistress, and Sir John Mennes, Sir William Doyley, and “Mr. Eveling,” with whom he had corresponded on official business for several months but had first met the previous day. The good news “inspired into Sir J. Mennes and Mr. Eveling such a spirit of mirth, that in all my life I never met with so merry a two hours as our company that night was. Among other humours, Mr. Eveling’s repeating of some verses made up of nothing but the various acceptations of May and Can, and doing it so aptly, upon occasion of something of that nature, and so fast, did make us all die almost of laughing.”55 Readers of Evelyn’s diary may have difficulty recognizing this figure. For some of them, Virginia Woolf’s claim “that all that he wrote might be read aloud in the evening with a clear conscience to his children” and even her suggestion that “we wonder then, why we still trouble to read what we must consider the uninspired work of a good man” offer a quick if uncharitable assessment of the author of the diary, all the more if he is contrasted to Pepys.56 As Gillian Darley observes, Woolf’s Evelyn is a Victorian construct, praiseworthy for “his exceptional piety, his discretion and steely morality.”57 But even Woolf’s judgment is embedded within layers of doubt and qualification that find much support elsewhere in the Evelyn archive. For readers of his letters, in particular, this John Evelyn comes as less of a surprise. The letter writer is prone to break into occasional and even nonsense verse, whether in commenting on the situation of Royalists in 1650 (14) or recalling an evening of sack posset in 1664 (218).58 On other occasions, he moves exuberantly through panegyric to parody and invective, or from father admonishing his son and religious controversialist to observer of scandalous behaviour in Interregnum London. Evelyn’s tonal variety offers, to be sure, an interesting contrast to the more singleminded persona of the diary, but it also draws attention to his command of the early

55 Pepys Diary VI.220. 56 Woolf, “Rambling Round Evelyn,” IV, 91. 57 Darley, John Evelyn, xi. 58 Evelyn also transcribes most of his occasional verse into Add 78357, his verse miscellany, which also included his hymns and devotional verse.

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modern letter and its classical antecedents.59 His correspondence spans its generic range: from the Ciceronian alternatives of “familiare et iocosum” and “severum et grave”60 to more formal exercises in Plinean description and Senecan instruction. He particularly valued the intimacy and expressive power of the letter. As he noted in a letter to Charles Spencer of 15 January 1692 (665), “I am bold to affirme, that there is more good Learning to be gotten from Epistles, than from all the rest of their Workes, more of the Soule, and most intimate thoughts, and deepest knowledge of the writers: St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Hierome, etc. of the Fathers, Calvine, Melanchton, Vives, Politianus, Grotius, Salmasius, our owne Countryman Ascham, etc.” Although Erasmus offered him a crucial precedent and model, in both his theoretical writings and his collections of correspondence, Evelyn quotes more frequently from the more contemporary examples of Grotius, Scaliger, and Salmasius, and seems more indebted to arguments concerning the nature of epistolary rhetoric in Lipsius’s Epistolica Institutio.61 In this letter to the young Spencer, he provides his protégé with a survey of the letter as genre, from its classical origins to its current manifestations in various European vernaculars.62 Evelyn describes his work as pedagogue as almost finished: “Having now tempted, and sufficiently provok’d your Lordship in Plautus, Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Lipsius etc. (for your Lordship is master of all styles) I give it over.” Spencer has been instructed in the full range of the Latin letter, from Cicero’s familiares to Seneca’s philosophical essays, and from a Ciceronian style to a Tacitean, in the example of Lipsius, the most celebrated contemporary practitioner of that style. But even if he will write “hence foreward in my mother tongue,” Evelyn cannot offer Spencer adequate English models. In contrast to the range of examples in the various continental vernaculars, he can point only to Bacon and Donne in English (and Ascham in Latin), and to the (for Evelyn) flawed example of James Howell’s Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ (1645).63 Better then, he suggests, to glance at contemporary Italian and French practitioners such as Bentivoglio and Balzac, while continuing to be attentive to Erasmus’s De Conscribendis Epistolis and to Latin exemplars, both ancient and modern.64 In pointing to the absence of English examples, Evelyn does not explicitly address the explanation offered by Thomas Sprat in his biography of Abraham Cowley, published with his edition of Cowley’s work undertaken after the poet’s death. Addressing Martin Clifford, Sprat praises the “natural Easiness and unaffected Grace” of diction of Cowley’s adaptations of Horace. But this quality which he values in Cowley’s verse at

59 See Chambers, “‘Excuse these Impertinences’: Evelyn in his Letterbooks,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 21–36, and Guillén, “Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter.” 60 “familiar and jocular ... serious and grave.” Cicero, Letters to Friends, 48 (II.4) (Shackleton Bailey, trans. Loeb ed.) 61 Lipsius, Principles of Letter-writing. 62 The survey is based on his own extensive holdings of “epistolae” listed as “Libri Grammatici” in his 1687 library catalogue (Add 78632: ff 81–8). 63 Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. See Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation, 210–18, and Schneider, The Culture of Epistolarity, 248–52. 64 For the early Italian humanist context, see Clough, “The Cult of Antiquity”; for Erasmus, Gerlo, “The Opus de Conscribendis Epistolis of Erasmus.”

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the same time justifies his exclusion of Cowley’s familiar letters from the collection. The intimacy of the well-written letter ought not to be shared, on grounds that derive from a sense of the differences between letters and public speeches, and a particularly English sense of decorum: But I know you agree with me, that nothing of this Nature should be publish’d: And herein you have always consented to approve of the modest Judgment of our Country-men above the practice of some of our Neighbours, and chiefly of the French. I make no manner of question, but the English at this time, are infinitely improv’d in this way, above the skill of former Ages, nay, of all Countries round about us that pretend to greater Eloquence. Yet they have been always judiciously sparing in Printing such composures, while some other Witty Nations have tyr’d all their Presses and Readers with them. The truth is, the Letters that pass between particular Friends, if they are written as they ought to be, can scarce ever be fit to see the light. They should not consist of fulsom Complements, or tedious Polities, or elaborate Elegancies, or general Fancies. But they should have a Native clearness and shortness, a Domestical plainess, and a peculiar kind of Familiarity; which can only affect the humour of those to whom they were intended. The very same passages which make Writings of this Nature delightful amongst Friends will loose all manner of taste when they come to be read by those that are indifferent. In such Letters the Souls of Men should appear undress’d: And in that negligent habit they may be fit to be seen by one or two in a Chamber, but not to go abroad into the Streets.65

Evelyn does not, to be sure, respond directly to these objections. But the letterbooks can be understood as embodying a two-pronged response to such concerns, by providing En­ glish examples of familiar letters, but also by restricting their circulation to the members of Evelyn’s own family. Many of the individual letters can function as textbook-like models of epistolary “kinds.” They range across the three branches of rhetoric – the deliberative, the forensic, and the epideictic – but also demonstrate how the letter can complicate and even undermine these distinctions by achieving the “peculiar kind of Familiarity” that Sprat sees as crucial to its success.66 Evelyn’s letters provide numerous examples of his fondness for classical models, whether in the common analogies to Cicero’s Tusculanum and Pliny’s Laurentum in his praises of great houses (555), or in the learned essays to Pepys, which often fluctuate between Senecan high seriousness and the encyclopedic density of Aulus Gellius. The numerous letters of condolence offer a good example, and look back to such precedents as Pliny’s letter on the death of the thirteen-year-old Minicia Marcella (5.16) and Servius

65 Sprat, “An Account of the Life and Writings of Mr. Abraham Cowley,” in The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley (1668), d1. See also Nethercot, “The Letters of Abraham Cowley.” 66 The distinction between the letter and the oration was theorized in antiquity by “Demetrius of Phaleron,” and re-emphasized by Lipsius in his Epistolica Institutio. The 1614 Plantin edition reprints the passage from Demetrius in an appendix. See Chambers, “‘Excuse these Impertinences,”’ in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 30–1, and the treatment of the rhetoric and hermeneutics of intimacy in Eden, The Renaissance Rediscovery of Intimacy.

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Sulpicius’s letter to Cicero on the occasion of the death of his daughter Tullia (Fam 248/ IV.5). The earliest among the English letters is his 1652 letter to his brother Richard, on the occasion of the death of their sister, Jane Glanville (43). Many others, to friends and family, follow. The most important of these is the series of commemorative letters to Sidney Godolphin on 9 September, the anniversary of Margaret’s death. Evelyn also reflects explicitly on the issue of consolation in a 1685 letter to Godolphin, written in response to his letter of condolence after the death of Evelyn’s daughter Mary (498), and locating his own consolatory rhetoric in a tradition which encompasses both ancient and modern precedents: “But you will also call to mind that (though I am far from comparing my selfe to the meanest of them, save in my irreparable losse) it is but what the Parents of Cæsarinus, St. Augustin of his son Deodati: Nectarius to St. Basile of old: Julius Scaliger of his son Audectus, Monsieur Mauriere to the Learned Grotius, and severall others of late (not to speake of Heathens) Christian, modest, and indulgent Parents have don, not onely writing to their Private Friends, but publish’d what they writ, without reproach.” As earlier classical collections and more contemporary examples of the genre from Petrarch onwards had demonstrated, the selection of letters and their organization into sequences could create sophisticated literary effects. Evelyn exploits this potential at various points in the letterbooks. He adopts strategies based on juxtaposition and repetition, for example, in ordering the letters of 1665. Both Evelyn and Sir William Doyley, his companion in the reveries with Pepys, were members of the Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War, having been appointed to these posts in late 1664 in anticipation of the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War.67 By September 1665, their situation had become desperate. Evelyn lacked the resources to cope with the numbers of wounded and prisoners pouring into his zone of responsibility. But he was also now dealing with the plague, which had first been reported in London in July and was claiming several thousand lives a week by the beginning of September. In early August he had dispatched his son and his tutor to the safety of his brother’s estate at Wotton. At the ­beginning of September his wife had also left for the country. On 9 September, the day before his evening with Pepys, he had written desperate letters to George Monck and Henry Hyde describing the crisis and pleading for additional support (252 and 253). Three days later, he wrote again to Hyde, apologizing for “the Style, the Mistake, and the length” of this earlier letter (255), while continuing to bombard government officials with requests for additional support.68 But if the rhythms of his public responsibilities constrain his other interests, the Ev­e­lyn of these letters does not abandon them. On 20 June, he wrote to Sir Peter Wyche, explaining that his duties prevented him from participating in the committee established by the Royal Society to examine the state of the English language, and attaching extensive suggestions for linguistic reform (247). Nor was his correspondence with Henry Hyde confined to issues arising from his official role. The letter of 9 September also

67 See Darley, “‘Action to the Purpose’: Evelyn, Greenwich, and the Sick and Wounded Seamen,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 165–84. 68 The correspondence pertaining to Evelyn’s duties in this capacity is contained in Add 78320–2.

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describes the effects of the plague on the London book trade, and provides a glimpse of John Wilkins, Sir William Petty, and Robert Hooke at Durdans House in Surrey, in retreat from the plague, where “they are excogitating new riggings for ships, new Charriots, and new Ploughs etc; so as I know not of such another happy conversation of Virtuosi in England.” Evelyn also addressed Hyde on the topic of his translations of Jansenist polemics against French Jesuits, and, in a letter of 21 June, on the study of ancient history and ancillary resources for historical research (248). This is an early example of the letter as instructional essay, a form he would continue to explore, often in correspondence with Pepys, for the rest of his career. It also offers a model for retrieval and circulation of knowledge, through a circuit which begins in his library, passes through the records of his reading in his commonplace books, and reaches its destination through the letter. In Evelyn’s correspondence, such letters often privilege the catalogue-like list or, in a visual correlative he takes up in a 1667 letter to the earl of Clarendon (290), the portrait gallery. These impulses culminate in the famous letter of August 1689 to Pepys (619), which begins by recalling Clarendon’s gallery and goes on to survey and catalogue English collectors of portraits, medals, and manuscripts and printed books. The letters of 1665 have a powerful cumulative force, enabled both by the abrupt increase in the number of letters for this year, and the sense of unfolding disaster projected by Evelyn’s sequence of unheeded appeals to members of the government. By contrast, his treatment of 1688, the annus mirabilis which saw William of Orange drive out James II, works by delay and by withholding events which the reader inevitably anticipates. For much of the year, public affairs are kept offstage. Letters of consolation play a major role: to the widow of his brother Richard over the death of her daughter (578 and 579), and to Anne Spencer, countess of Sunderland, who laboured under the double burden of a son drinking himself to death in Paris (and succeeding by early September) and a husband who converted to Roman Catholicism in June (582). Much of the correspondence of the summer concerns Evelyn’s visit to Althorp, the Spencer estate, in August. But abruptly, in October, the focus shifts.69 A letter to Archbishop Sancroft, carefully avoiding references which might identify its author, congratulates the bishops on their acquittal of charges of seditious libel, and warns of Jesuit intrigues against the Church of England (593). It is followed by a very brief letter to Flower Hyde, countess of Clarendon, acknowledging the receipt of plants for his garden, and recalling that “Cicero (for you read his Worke and understand him too) Reproches you know, a Gentleman for being solicitous about his Fish-ponds, when the Common-wealth was in danger of Invasion” (594). Another letter (597), addressed to “Incognitu,” an anonymous purportedly noble addressee, lays out an extensive program for political and religious reform under the new government which he sees as the probable outcome of the “likely Revolution.”70 The year concludes

69 Evelyn notes in his diary that Thomas Tenison had informed him on 10 August that “there would suddainly be some greate thing discovered, which happened to be the P: of O: intended coming” (Diary IV.592). 70 See the discussion of this letter in Pincus, “John Evelyn: Revolutionary,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 185–219.

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with a lengthy letter to his son, who had joined the Prince of Orange, describing the final days of the Stuart court at Whitehall before James II’s flight (600), and a letter to Anne Spencer which attempts to impose closure on the year and offers “the pursuite of Moderate things for this Life” as an alternative to “this Conjuncture present, and approaching Revolution” (603).

IV Epistolary Circles The stylistic variety in Evelyn’s letters befits, in Erasmus’s words, “any good go-between (for the letter performs the functions of a messenger) ... [and] will take account of times and persons.”71 But this concept of the letter also figures Evelyn’s desire to fashion himself as an agent of social and cultural mediation. Two spatial metaphors define his place in the correspondence: he simultaneously occupies positions at the centre of several epistolary circles, and at the points at which these circles come into contact with each other. These contradictory locations facilitate a complex variety of mediations and acts of cultural brokering between different social and intellectual worlds. In a well-known essay, Michael Hunter has argued that Evelyn’s career in the 1650s was closely tied to his imagined role as a mediator between England and France.72 His earliest publications – the translation of La Mothe le Vayer’s De la Liberté et de la servitude (Of Liberty and Servitude [1649]), The State of France (1652), and his translation of Lucretius (1656) – bear out this suggestion. But his understanding of the logic and rhetoric of mediation, and of his own distinctive social location, remained in place throughout his career, even after his links with France had weakened. Many of the French-language letters in Book II are letters of introduction, in which his friend Jasper Needham and his brother-in-law William Glanville are recommended to some of his most important French contacts such as Abraham Bosse and Jean de la Quintinye. But the largely Huguenot composition of this list dictated that Evelyn’s links to French culture would become frayed as religious persecution intensified, and later letters (such as 619 to Pepys) recast his relationship to France in more critical and competitive terms. But he also reformulated his understanding of his position as mediator. Instead of emphasizing translation from one language and culture into another, Evelyn’s selections from his post-Restoration correspondence emphasize his role as broker and facilitator of cultural and social transactions between different social groups and cultural formations. Such mediation can take the form of relatively straightforward (if sometimes ethically dubious) acts of transmitting information or requests from one correspondent to another. We sometimes see him taking on this role on behalf of his patrons, whether acting on behalf of Henry Howard in trying to persuade his brother George not to stand for parliament (496),73 or on behalf of Robert Spencer in communicating the news to his unsuspecting

71 Erasmus, On the Writing of Letters, 19. 72 Hunter, “John Evelyn in the 1650s,” in Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 68–9. 73 De Beer says that this episode “seems to me the meanest action of his life” (Diary I.32 n. 1).

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friend Elizabeth MacCarty of the hasty marriage of Spencer’s eleven-year-old daughter to her sixteen-year-old son (493). In other examples, we catch glimpses of him brokering marriages, on behalf of his friend Elizabeth Mordaunt (81) or, again on behalf of Spencer, who had hoped to marry his wastrel son to the daughter of Sir Stephen Fox (428 and 429). Other letters represent him initiating a relationship between his patrons and their potential employees. Shortly after his return to England in 1652, he collaborated with Edmund Waller in obtaining a position as tutor for Christopher Wase in the household of William Cavendish (57). Later, he recommended him for the position of historiographer royal (314); subsequently he intervened with the authorities at Oxford to protect him from his creditors (510 and 548). Acting on behalf of his friend Samuel Tuke, he attempted to recruit William Croone as a tutor in Henry Howard’s household (207), reminding him that he “will here come into a most opulent, and worthy family, and in which I prognosticate (and I have it assur’d me) you shall make your fortune, without any farther dependances: For the Persons who governe there, have both the meanes to be very gratefull, and as generous a propensity to it as any family in England.” Such transactions were not confined to the civil sphere. Evelyn also took up an active role in obtaining clerical posts for some of his protégés such as William Strengfellow (602 and 608), and strongly supported the early career of Richard Bentley, whom he nominated to deliver the theological lectures endowed by Robert Boyle (691). However, in his exchanges with church leaders in such matters he almost inevitably played the role of the supplicant, petitioning on behalf of his protégés. Mediation and instruction are brought into a close relationship in the letters to younger acquaintances who had embarked on continental travel.74 Evelyn had been in Italy from October 1644 until May 1646, and in France immediately before this period and intermittently afterwards until February 1652. Subsequently, he corresponded with others who had undertaken tours of the continent. These letters combine, in various ratios, description, instruction, and admonition. In laying out itineraries, he draws on his own memories, but also on the secondary materials which he also incorporated into the descriptions of continental cities and monuments in his diaries.75 Some of these epistolary relationships are not well documented in the letterbooks: Francis Carter, whom Evelyn addresses in a single, misdated letter assigned to 1665 (266), is represented elsewhere in the archive in correspondence from Italy with both Evelyn and his wife. Benjamin Maddox, on the other hand, who visited France in the company of Evelyn’s friend Jasper Needham, is addressed in several letters (89 et seq.), and is also mentioned in a letter of introduction to Alexandre du Guernier (II.16). But not all young travellers profited from their excursions: his son John derived little benefit from his trip to Paris in the entourage of John Berkeley (381), while Walter Pope, the tutor and travelling companion for his nephew George, had to report that the young man “was not made for study.”76 Evelyn concluded eventually 74 See Chaney, The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion, and Stoye, English Travellers Abroad 1604–1667, for the emergence of the “Grand Tour” during this period. 75 For his use of such materials, see his letter to Pepys of 21 August 1669, which provides a guide for Pepys’s journey to Paris (Particular Friends, A28, 68–75). He also provided introductions to his French acquaintances for Christopher Wren in 1665 (238 and Darley, John Evelyn, 214–15). 76 Add 78317: f 42 (23.4.1664) and Letters 215 and 216.

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that the risks in permitting adolescents to travel “during the first fervours of their natural and impetuous Appetites” (406) outweighed the benefits. In a letter of 15 April 1679 to Anne Spencer, whose eldest son would eventually die in Paris, he recommended “sending them abroad rather at Ten or Eleven ’til 14 or 15 at farthest; whilst they are yet Innocent, tender, and flexible, and of more aptitude to acquire the Languages, and learne the Exercises of a forraine Country, and to speake genuinely” (406). Travel also contributed to new configurations of taste and consumption. Evelyn’s ­correspondence provides evidence for the dramatic reshapings of the relationship between cultures of knowledge and cultures of luxury consumption in the second half of the seventeenth century.77 His role as cultural and social mediator was performed against a backdrop of changes in all the phases of the life of luxury commodities, whether works of art, libraries, or the products of skilled craft labour. His actions in these spheres, as he represents them in the letterbooks, show him in relation to altered conditions of production, distribution, consumption, and preservation. Evelyn’s navigation of the “world of the book” provides particularly rich examples. Here his relations with his correspondents are, in a social sense, both vertical and horizontal. The letters document the mediation, with greater or lesser success, of the worlds of intellectual and mechanical activity which bring books into existence. But they also engage with the circulation of books and manuscripts in the marketplace and by gifting. Several letters accompany books, or acknowledge them as gifts. One which takes the latter form is his exercise in mock-panegyric addressed to Margaret Cavendish, and is represented as accompanying his gift of Sylva, in response to books received from her and the duke of Newcastle (368). But even before he was an author, Evelyn was already an enthusiastic collector and consumer of books. Although he continued to acquire them throughout his life, his catalogue suggests that much of his library was purchased during his time on the continent, particularly in Paris, and was probably brought back to England with Mary Evelyn and her mother in June 1652 (62). Transactions across the Channel were inevitable if sometimes fraught, not only because networks of scholarly publication extended across Europe, but also because of circumstances exacerbated by the Civil War. When Evelyn returned to Paris in July 1649 after a year and a half in England, he made arrangements for Jasper Needham to maintain contact for him with the English book trade, and immediately requested that Needham provide him with “a Metamorphosis translated by George Sandys,78 with the Cutts in folio: having newly presented one that I had, to his highnesse the Duke of York who had a minde to it” (19). Following quickly on his return to England in 1652, he was involved in failed attempts to sell John Cosin’s library to his cousin James Stephens and, later, to buy many of the books for himself on instalment. Although his ties with the continent loosened with time, he continued to have bindings made in France (II.13).79

77 See Peck, Consuming Splendor, and the larger issues addressed in Appadurai, The Social Life of Things. 78 George Sandys, trans., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished (1640; in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.b.54). 79 See Foote, “John Evelyn’s Bindings,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 61–70, and Evelyn’s correspondence with Claude Rousselle.

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Evelyn’s involvement with the book trade also inevitably brought him into contact with the world of publishers, printers, and booksellers in London. His own relationship to the mechanical arts was ambivalent, as his abandonment of his project on the history of trades suggests.80 In managing his relationship to the print trade, he sought the assistance of a series of socially ambidextrous assistants. One was Thomas Triplet, who subsequently played the role of scapegoat in the case of his abandoned translation of Lucretius in 1656–7. Another was Edward Phillips, Milton’s nephew. Evelyn had employed Phillips as a tutor in 1663, and subsequently recommended him for this role to the earl of Pembroke and to John Langham (293). They were also in contact again when Phillips solicited an account from Evelyn of his negotiations with Col. Herbert Morely immediately prior to the Restoration for inclusion in the continuation of Sir Richard Baker’s Chronicle that Phillips had undertaken.81 Subsequently, in 1677, Evelyn helped Phillips obtain a position in the household of Henry Bennet (388), as “a scholar to reade to & entertaine him some times.”82 Even later Phillips (as well as Richard Bentley) assisted him in seeing Numismata (1697) through the press,83 with results which recalled for him his treatment at the printer’s hands in 1656 (807 and the letter to Hans Sloane which prefaces his presentation copy).84 This potentially fraught relationship between intellectuals and mechanicals informs his proposal for an extensive system of licensing and quality control for the book trade, challenging the power of the Stationers Company in the wake of the Great Fire of 1666 (281).85 As the translator of Gabriel Naudé’s Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library [1661]), it is not surprising that Evelyn was also active in the creation and dispersal of libraries. In some cases, as in his 1652 negotiations with John Cosin, the stakes were personal. More typically, his role was advisory. Two letters of 1677 offer an instructive contrast. In Letter 388, he advised Henry Bennet to consider the purchase of Henry Oldenburg’s books; in Letter 389, he recommended to Thomas Osborne against the purchase of the library of the earl of Bristol. His grounds for both recommendations cast interesting light on his understanding of the nature of libraries. In the case of Oldenburg, “the few Bookes he left, were exceedingly Curious, as being the presents of all the greate Virtuosos abroad.” By contrast, although Bristol’s library contained “a competent number of Books,” it was both incomplete and out of date: “there are many of the Classic, and old Authors wholy wanting, which, even a reasonable Library cannot well be without; and such as are there, be for the greater part the old and first Impressions, most of them having bin since publish’d from newe and correct Copies, and with the Notes of learned-men upon them.” As Giles Mandelbrote has noted, “Evelyn 80 See the discussion of the relationship between mechanical and scientific knowledge in Smith, The Body of the Artisan, 226–34, and Evelyn’s correspondence with Robert Boyle, particularly Letter 114. 81 See Letter 163, n. 1 and Add 78684: f 128 (10.12.1664). 82 Diary IV.120–1. 83 See Add 78318: f 86 (7.8.1694). Henry Oldenburg may have played a similar role in seeing An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (1668) through the press. See Letter 281, note 7. 84 British Library C.71.g.3 85 For the larger context of these dynamics see Grafton, The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe, and Johns, The Nature of the Book, 74–108.

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seemed to have little antiquarian interest in books or manuscripts,”86 although he did provide a list of his manuscripts to be included in Edward Bernard’s union catalogue,87 and loaned Pepys manuscripts relevant to his research on naval history (438). He saw a library as akin to a garden, which required periodic pruning and replanting. He was well aware, however, that there were other uses for libraries, as he noted in 1666 in a letter to Samuel Tuke describing the books of Sir Kenelm Digby: “The Binding indeede is extraordinary, and for that fitter some noble person who loves Ornament and Out-side, or to furnish a Library by the Yard, as you know here they do: I would yet be glad to know what the price may be; because I may recommend them to another who seekes for a pennyworth” (285). In fact, many of Digby’s books were sold at auction in Paris. Those that remained in England were ultimately also sold at auction, in the sale that dispersed the library of the earl of Bristol.88 This points to one of the most significant developments in the English book trade in the final quarter of the seventeenth century: the emergence of the auction as the preferred method for disposing of libraries.89 As Evelyn noted in his famous letter to Pepys of August 1689 (619), “the humor of Exposing Books (sub hasta) is become so Epidemical.” But as this letter also demonstrates, Evelyn was also involved with other forms of cultural property, particularly those that circulated in the rapidly expanding art market, which was being transformed by the emergence of commercial dealers and by the increasing popularity of sales through auction.90 Much of his activity was shaped in one way or another by the transformative effects of the dispersal of the great English collections assembled in the first half of the seventeenth century, most importantly those of Charles I and Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel.91 In particular, much of his involvement happened “under the sign” of the Howard family, including the “Collector Earl” Thomas Howard, and his grandson Henry, who ascended to the restored dukedom of Norfolk in 1677. Evelyn’s involvement with Thomas Howard’s milieu began early, most likely at his estate at Albury, only a few miles from Wotton House, and was strengthened in Italy, when he visited Howard in Padua and shared accommodations there with his grandson.92 Many of Howard’s acquisitions were sold on the continent. Some, however, including 86 Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and His Books,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 75. 87 Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford, 1697), II, i, 93–5. 88 See Bibliotheca Digbeiana, sive Catalogus librorum in variis linguis editorum, the catalogue for the sale of 19 April 1680. 89 Hermann, “The Emergence of the Book-auctioneer,” in Property of a Gentleman: the Formation, Organisation and Dispersal of the Private Library, 1620–1920 (Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1991), and Myers, Harris, and Mandelbrote, Under the Hammer. 90 See Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs, Peck, Consuming Splendor, 162–79, and Schnapper, Curieux du grand siècle, II, 21–112. 91 See the discussion of the dispersal of both collections in Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs, 59–93; for Charles I’s collections see MacGregor, The Late King’s Goods, and Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, and the inventories of Charles’s collections in Millar, The Inventories and Valuations of the King’s Goods 1649–1651. 92 Harding, “John Evelyn, Hendrick van der Borcht the Younger and Wenceslas Hollar,” and Chaney, “Eve­ lyn, Inigo Jones, and the Collector Earl of Arundel,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 37–60; for some of the larger contexts, see Chaney, The Evolution of English Collecting.

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the famous Marmora Arundeliana, had remained at Arundel House in London.93 Evelyn is at pains to represent his role in arranging the donation of the inscriptions to Oxford by Henry Howard in 1667. This episode is treated as one of the most significant actions in his career, and documented in letters to Howard (294), and Oxford officials, including Ralph Bathurst (295) and Obadiah Walker (296), and in later responses to requests for biographical information (456 to Robert Plot in 1683). Subsequently, he was also involved in negotiations with Howard over the disposition of manuscripts from the library of Arundel House, which Howard had donated to the Royal Society at the beginning of 1667 (318).94 Evelyn’s letters also touch on his own activities as a collector, and as a virtuoso in various fields of the fine arts, including print-making, painting, and architecture. All were fields in which he published, in some cases by translating, and in others, most importantly Sculptura, his history of print-making, in original works.95 But unlike his acquisition of books, which continued throughout his life, his own purchases of prints seem largely to have come to an end in the 1650s (724). His involvement in print collecting happened at a relatively early stage in the development of English collections. By 1695, in his letter to William Lloyd (724), he points to the expanded market for prints in London, noting that “though I am not Acquainted with any one Print-Seller; Yet there being now more than ten for one of that Trade, than when I was a young Gatherer” and referring to “the daily Auctions” where prints could be purchased. The letterbooks represent him in relation to this collection more often as a donor, with gifts to the Bodleian Library (84 to Peter Pett and 92 and 135 to Thomas Barlow) and to Henry Bennet (388), as a connoisseur (724), and also in 1656 as the recipient of the dedication of an etching by Richard Gaywood based on Francis Barlow’s drawing of Titian’s Venus with an Organist (104; Plate 12).96 But on other occasions his letters show a more commercially inflected interaction with the art world. In 1658 he seems to have bought prints on behalf of Benjamin Maddox at the estate sale of Francis Cleyn (140). A letter of 1684 to Johan van der Does (472) describes an attempt to persuade Henry Howard to sell his Raphael drawings. Another, from 1691 (658 to Charles Chamberlain), shows him negotiating the sale of “one of the largest,

93 See Angelicoussis, “The Collection of Classical Sculptures of the Earl of Arundel,” and Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 5–54. 94 See also Letter 285, note 2; Howard’s letter of 11 September 1672 (Add 78317: f 136 [11.9.1672]); Bibliotheca Norfolciana (1681) and the account of Hooke’s relationship to the library in Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 343–7. 95 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (1664); An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (1668), both translated from works by Roland Fréart, Sieur de Chambrary, and Sculptura (1662). The latter omitted a section on the rolling press, translated from Abraham Bosse, which was not published until 1906 in Sculptura. With the Unpublished Second Part, ed. Bell. See the discussion of Evelyn as virtuoso in Hanson, The English Virtuoso, 59–69. 96 Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain 1603–1689 (London: The British Museum, 1998), cat. 109. Hollar had dedicated his engraving of Van Dyck’s Self-Portrait with a Sunflower (Plate 5) to Evelyn in 1644. See also Schnapper, Curieux du grand siècle, 247–55 for the development of print collecting.

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but one of the very best of Paulo Veronezes in Europe,” which he claims had come from the collection of the dukes of Mantua, and which he had owned for forty years.97 The letterbooks also reflect a wide-ranging engagement with portraits and the idea of portraiture. Evelyn represents himself as the subject of portraiture, both early in his career and at a point when his reputation was well established. In the case of the engraved portrait by Robert Nanteuil (frontispiece, vol. 1; Letter 24 to Jasper Needham), commissioned in 1650, the portrait substitutes for its absent subject. But portraits of his wife Mary are more often diverted from their intended destinations. Her portrait by Sebastien Bourdon fails to cross the Channel: it is taken by pirates and eventually restored to Eve­lyn through the intervention of the governor of Calais (61 to Mary Evelyn in 1652). In another case, Mary’s image is diverted in more socially consequential ways. Evelyn’s letter to “Cousin S” in 1655 (75) suggests that her portrait has been misappropriated and the image associated with forms of behaviour which detract from her carefully cultivated virtue. By contrast, the portrait of Mary provided by William Rand represents her as the successful return to native soil of an improved species: “A Gentlewoman, in whom the English Gravity, being moderately allayed, sweetened and spirited, by the mettlesome Aire and Education of France, has arrived to such a perfection, as to be no Hinderance, but a meet Help to her beloved Lord, in his most manly Concernments.”98 In yet another example (290) of the expansive associations of portraiture, and one which shows him as adviser to wealthy collectors, Evelyn provides Edward Hyde with a list of eminent Englishmen whose images he should acquire for his gallery in Clarendon House. But it is in the letter to Pepys of August 1689 (619) that ideas of portraiture take on the deepest resonances.99 Here, the portrait functions as both figure and ground. The letter opens with a description of portrait making: Pepys has commissioned Godfrey Kneller to paint Evelyn’s portrait, Sylva in hand (frontispiece, vol. 2). Feigning surprise that Pepys might include him in a gallery of virtuosos, Evelyn recalls the earlier collection of portraits, assembled by Edward Hyde, in his then newly constructed palace in Piccadilly. But Hyde’s gallery, demolished with the rest of Clarendon House in 1683, becomes a metaphor for the dispersal of collections, and the portraits themselves evidence of the complex relationship between commemoration and cultural loss. Of the many acts of mediation that Evelyn presents in his letters, he regarded his role in brokering relations between the Royal Society and its sponsors, supporters, and critics as particularly noteworthy. He had corresponded with Robert Boyle and Samuel Hartlib prior to its formation, proposing to the former in September 1659 (159) that he sponsor a “little foundation” made up of “Gentlemen whose Genius’s are greately suitable, and, who desire nothing more then to give a good example, preserve Science, and cultivate

97 Evelyn sold the painting bought for 100 guineas (£110) for £150 (Add 15857: f 177 [7.11.1691]). He had also contemplated selling it in 1658 (Add 78316: f 167 [25.8.1658]). The picture cannot be identified (see Letter 658, note 3). 98 Pierre Gassendi, The mirrour of true nobility & gentility (1657), A6. 99 See also Particular Friends, 188–204 and the text published in Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, II, 313–29.

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themselves.”100 Hartlib had sent Evelyn extracts from the letters of some of his correspondents, including Henry Oldenburg (167),101 and put him into contact with John Beale (157), who was until his death in 1683 Evelyn’s most active scientific and horticultural correspondent. Evelyn himself may have been responsible for the name of the Royal Society, and the first reference to it in print by that name is found in his dedicatory letter to the earl of Clarendon that prefaces his translation of Gabriel Naudé.102 Fragments from his early, abandoned project on the history of trades were presented at some of its early meetings, and the collaborative aspirations he entertained for this project also pointed forward to the more elaborate forms of coordination and collaboration he would envisage for his unfinished “Elysium Britannicum.”103 The letterbooks include a 1664 letter to Boyle (224) describing snow-pits in Italy, which Boyle printed in New Experiments and Observations touching Cold (1665; Plate 15). In 1667, Evelyn solicited verses from Abraham Cowley to preface Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society of London (1667) (288), a book whose frontispiece he had also designed (Plate 18). He also took it upon himself to defend the Society from its critics, whether they were ideological opponents such as Henry Stubbe (332 to John Beale) or close friends such as Margaret Godolphin (385). These defences are very different: to Cowley he writes a panegyric in praise of the Society’s achievements; to Beale, a piece of invective that draws on Thomas Nashe’s rhetoric in the Marprelate controversy in order to align Stubbe with earlier traditions of religious radicalism; and to Godolphin a contrast between the Royal Society and the culture of the court, and an exercise in antitheatrical polemic. After the publication of Sylva (1664), his fame as a gardener and arborist also put him in good stead in advancing the Society’s work. His own garden at Sayes Court in Deptford (Plate 14) was widely visited, and functioned as an important point of reference in contemporary English garden theory.104 He also consulted with members of the nobility on garden design, including George Digby (195), Henry Bennet (334), and Henry

100 See the discussion of this letter in Parry, “John Evelyn as Hortulan Saint,” in Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, ed. Leslie and Raylor, 130–5, and Webster, The Great Instauration, 96–9. 101 See the series of letters comprising such selections in Add 15948: ff 71–6. 102 Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library (1661), A3. At its meeting of 11 December 1661, the Society noted of Evelyn that “in an Epistle Dedicatory, addressed to the lord chancellor; in which, with great eloquence, and high expressions of esteem, he mentioned the society and its design, and most affectionately recommended it to his majesty and his lordship; the society were so sensible of the great favour done to them by this worthy person, that they ordered their thanks to be given him.” Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London, I, 67. 103 See Hunter, “John Evelyn in the 1650s,” and Chambers, “‘Elysium Britannicum not printed neere ready &c’: The ‘Elysium Britannicum’ in the Correspondence of John Evelyn,” in John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, 107–30. See Letter 165 to Thomas Browne, and Add 15950: f 143, the second of three versions of a printed prospectus for the work that Evelyn circulated to potential collaborators and assistants. 104 See Leith-Ross, “The Garden of John Evelyn at Deptford,” and Laird, “Sayes Court Revisited,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 115–44.

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Howard.105 The letterbooks include a 1661 letter to John Wilkins (177) “concerning the Anatomy of Trees,” which was read before the Society, and a letter to Francis Aston (474), the Society’s secretary, which was also published in Philosophical Transactions, describes the disastrous effects of the severe winter of 1683–4.106 There are also several letters discussing new agricultural technologies, such as the sembrador (discussed in 301 to Edward Mountagu),107 and the heated greenhouse (667 to Dudley Cullum).108 Such letters bring together the stratified social worlds of the mechanical arts and the natural sciences, and an expansive geography shaped by English colonization of the New World and accessible to Evelyn through his role on the Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations. In 1681 he received a letter from the Barbados, offering to provide the Society with plants and other materials, and promising a complete natural history of the islands. He immediately contacted Robert Hooke, the secretary of the Society (435, though the letterbook version of this letter is addressed to Christopher Wren, its president), and volunteered to respond to the correspondent, William London, concerning its deliberations (436). London’s letter is still in the Royal Society’s library; a note from Evelyn requesting its return clearly ignored.109 Subsequent letters of 1684 to Thomas Lynch, governor of Jamaica (473) and Peter Fountaine (488) solicit plants and other natural curiosities on behalf of the Society. Later, he would also be involved in the exchange of plants with a group in Virginia which included his cousin Daniel Parke, and some of the founders of the College of William and Mary (698, 704, and 705) in Williamsburg. From the vantage point of the circulation of cultural authority, the instructional essays to Pepys and other correspondents can be read as analogous acts of cultivation and exchange. Here Evelyn cast himself as an agent in the transmission of knowledge, which he represented as an organized process which moved from his library, through the commonplace books in which the results of his study were organized, and ultimately through his letters to his correspondents. A letter of 1658 to his brother George (143) offered to send him “the frame or Idea of my Adversaria,110 which after many tryals and reformations, I find to be most advantagious.” He went on to contrast his own highly organized method to more casual procedures: “There are, who do not oblige themselves to so much Method and orderly reduction; but transcribe their observations farraginously, and as they come to hand; but for my owne part who experiment the benefit of it, reading a page or two every day till I have finished, and frequenting this lecture, I am satisfied with the designe.” This 105 Chambers, “The Tomb in the Landscape,” and Laird, “Parterre, Grove, and Flower Garden: European Horticulture and Planting Design in John Evelyn’s Time,” in John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, ed. O’Malley, and Wolschke-Bulmahn, 171–219. 106 “An abstract of a Letter ... concerning the Dammage Done to His Gardens by the Preceding Winter,” Philosophical Transactions 14, No. 158 (20 April, 1684), 559–63. 107 This was also in Philosophical Transactions 1, no. 21 (1665), 390. 108 See Chambers, “John Evelyn and the Invention of the Heated Greenhouse.” 109 Royal Society EL/L5/114 (28 December 1680) 110 i.e., commonplace books. Although two of Evelyn’s commonplace books (Add 78332–3) are titled “Adversaria,” he is probably referring here to his “Loci communes” (Add 78328–31). See the British Library online catalogue description of Add 78330 and its organization into books and chapters for “the frame or Idea of my Adversaria.”

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activity had begun in 1649, with the assistance of his amanuensis Richard Hoare, when he decided that he would “have now tyme to reduce my studyes into a method” after his return to France.111 Several of Evelyn’s virtuoso projects were developed out of these materials, and some of his incomplete projects of the 1650s, the “History of Trades,” the “A Rationall Account of the True Religion,” and even the “Elysium Britannicum,” seem to have been abandoned at different stages in the process of moving from schema and notes to finished works.112 Such activities could be represented according to various models. Evelyn inherited a long-standing and sophisticated understanding of common-placing, which was heavily dependent on a horticultural vocabulary that aligned it with his own gardening interests. The library itself could be analogized to a garden, but so too could the process of selection and transfer of materials from books to notes. But other vocabularies emerged which recast these processes according to various schemes for the organization of knowledge, whether derived from Ramism or from the encyclopedic structures elaborated in more recent works like Johann Heinrich Alsted’s Scientiarum omnium Encyclopaediae (Herborn, 1630; Evelyn’s copy is BL Eve.c.6), which was Evelyn’s primary source for his first commonplace book, “Vademecum” (Add 78327). The stages in the elaboration of knowledge were also susceptible to several vocabularies, whether the fiscal language of Cicero, which represented it as like the movement from tally sheets or notebooks to financial ledgers (Quinto Roscio Comoedo 2.7, cited in 143 and in the note “De forma Locorum Communium” at the beginning of two of his commonplace books),113 or the language which Evelyn takes up in a 1661 letter to Henry Bennet (193), where he offers an alternative to a model based on common-placing and its related metaphors of plants and bees. Here, he replaces it with a language of scientific experimentation, and represents the transfer of knowledge as a distillation from its raw materials. Lord Arlington might wish to emulate the Maecenases who “could not Vacate to the turning over those many larger Volumes, which adorn’d their Libraries, and were daily presented to them; they had yet their Operators, who extracted for them the Elixir, and, by a more compendious Art, stor’d them with all those excellent notices” (193). And even if the idea of such an organized process seems to occupy a mental space somewhere between a model and a fantasy of the circulation of knowledge, it speaks powerfully to Evelyn’s representation of himself as a polymath conversant with the old and the new learning.114 The range of topics Evelyn addresses in his epistolary essays can be construed as an intellectual self-portrait. The earliest essay, from 1657, is a critical response to a manuscript by Edward Thurland on the value of prayer (107). Many later letters also address issues of theological controversy: two to Robert Heath in 1659 (153 and 154) examine the history of Hebrew vowel points, and consider its implications for arguments about biblical inerrancy, particularly in the wake of Walton’s Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1655–7);

111 112 113 114

See Add 78221: f 45 (14.6.1649). See Hunter’s discussion of these projects in “John Evelyn in the 1650s.” Add 78328: f 2v and Add 78329: f 1v. See Blair, Too Much to Know, particularly 80–93. See Levine, Between the Ancients and the Moderns, 3–32.

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another, drawing heavily on Jeremy Taylor, responds to the Irish priest Patrick Maginn in defence of the Church of England and its position on the Eucharist (333). In another case, a response to the Franciscan Christopher Davenport on the question of the invocation of saints, the letter seems to be a product of a collaborative effort, in which Evelyn drew on material from Edward Stillingfleet and Thomas Barlow (307 and 363). But he is also at pains to offer evidence of his classical learning. One letter of September 1659 (160) is an exercise in paradox which uses his research for “Elysium Britannicum” on garden history to show that the evidence of antiquity proves the gardener a better husband than the aristocrat. Another, of September 1685 (509), is a letter to Pepys which surveys the evidence for the uses of colours in the navies of the ancient world. But Evelyn’s presentation of himself as a late-Renaissance humanist is complemented by his equally powerful impulse to represent his deep engagement with the new world of experimental science. The latter image comes into view in the inclusion of his letters to Robert Boyle, or the biographical information on Boyle he provides to William Wotton in 1696 (756), his passionate defence of the Royal Society in response to Margaret Godolphin’s praise of The Virtuoso (385), or his learned discourse to Thomas Tenison on earthquakes and volcanoes (676). In 1656, William Rand dedicated his translation of Gassendi’s biography of Peiresc to “the ingenious and learned Gentleman, the worshipful John Evelyn,”115 identifying him as a model for a more intellectually engaged English gentry. Evelyn’s name circulates, says Rand, in the social spaces organized by the book trade. Searching for an appropriate candidate for his dedication, “it was my good hap, accidentally to over-hear the Character of your worthy self, so expressed in a Book-sellers shop in Cornhil, where I was then reading, that I concluded, you were the onlly man I ever heard of in England, whose Peireskian Uertues, did challenge this Dedication” (A3v–4).116 Evelyn fulfils this role because he offers a model of old and new learning conjoined. His example confirms that “the compleately-knowing man, must be Janus-like, double-fac’d, to take cognizance of Time past, and to understand the world from its cradle … as well as of the late-past, or present times wherein he lives” (A4). And his example also incites remediation for “the complaint of that most noble, ingenious, and pious Gentleman Mr. George Herbert ... as it is recorded in his Church-Porch ... where, after his most ingenious and pithie manner, he thus schooles and chides our English Gentry” (A4v).117 But the letterbooks also put forward a less bifurcated image than the Janus analogy implies. Evelyn certainly felt himself to be living at the beginning of a new era, and his relationship to the past was inevitably shaped by the possibilities and imperatives of the present. One of his later commonplace books begins with the observation that Till about 1648, it would have ben accounted a presumptuos thing to have attempted any Innovation in the Common course of Learning; they thought there could nothing comparable to 115 Pierre Gassendi, The mirrour of true nobility & gentility. Being the life of the renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius Lord of Peiresk, Senator of the Parliament at Aix (1657), A3. 116 Evelyn’s image circulated in the etched portrait by Richard Gaywood of 1654 (Plate 13), and his name also in the dedication by Francis Barlow to his and Gaywood’s etching of Titian’s Venus with an Organist in 1656 (Plate 12). 117 Rand cites Herbert, “The Church Porch,” The Temple (1633), 3–4.

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the Physics, and Courses of the Philosophie, and Sciences taught in the Universities; and one should have ben cried out upon as a vaine projector; to thinke that any thing could be added to their Hypotheses.118

Whether or not these charges accurately represent the intellectual landscape of the English universities, they do more than simply point to Evelyn’s knowledge of the old and new learning. They imply that he can also arbitrate between their claims.119 These two ambitions converge at several points, but nowhere more forcefully than in his 1696 letter to William Wotton (773) on the relative merits of “the Gardning and Husbandry” of the ancients and moderns, which praises the achievements of the moderns even as it looks back to the ancient world. Such a double-jointed intellectual stance bore real risks, of dilettantism obviously, but also of difficulties in assimilating the rapidly expanding knowledge in both spheres.120 Evelyn was certainly not blind to these dangers. In a 1694 letter to Pepys, he complains of the absence of tools for organizing such knowledge, but goes on to subsume other oppositions within a re-emphasized assertion of the priority of the relationship between words and things: I have a thousand times deplor’d, that there has as yet ben so little don towards the Ridding us of this monstrous and unprofitable Lumber ... Dr. Pell left a Diatyposis of what he pretended to have don in the Mathematic Cycle;121 and the late Bishop of Chester122 (our never to be forgotten Friend) in the prælimina[r]ie to his Essay of the Real Character, scor’d-out many most usefull Tables, preparatory to such a Work: I meane not to the Knowledge of Words and Language onely, but of real Things, greately conducing to such an undertaking.” (718)

In putting himself forward as he does, Evelyn was perhaps one of the last figures capable of imagining himself equally conversant with the ancients and the moderns, with verbum and res, and as one who could move between these increasingly divergent worlds of learning, and within the complex social networks of late seventeenth-century England. He intended his letterbooks to offer proof.

118 119 120 121

Add 78333: f 1. See Levine, “Evelyn between the Ancients and the Moderns,” 23–32. See Blair, Too Much to Know, 160–72. See John Pell, Idea of Mathematics (1639), published in 1650 in John Dury, The reformed librariekeeper (1679). 122 John Wilkins, An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (1668; Eve.b.37).

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Note on the Text

This is an old-spelling edition of British Library Add Mss 78298 and 78299.1 Its editorial principles were established by Douglas Chambers. They differ in some respects from those adopted by Esmond de Beer in his edition of Evelyn’s diary.2 As in The Diary of John Evelyn, no attempt has been made to modernize or normalize Evelyn’s spelling, capitalization, or punctuation, although square brackets are occasionally used to supply missing punctuation and to correct Evelyn’s spelling in instances where confusion seemed likely. In this text of the letterbooks, most abbreviations (including the ampersand) have been silently expanded, except in cases of those still in common use (Mr., Dr., etc.). Evelyn often abbreviates the dates provided for each letter, sometimes also using forms based on the Roman calendar beginning in March; these have also been silently expanded and normalized. We have also consistently changed his underlining to italics. This is not a facsimile of the manuscripts. In describing it as an edition, we situate it at some distance from their physical features and distinctive characteristics. One reason for emphasizing this distinction is the likelihood that the manuscripts will eventually be accessible to a wide audience in digital form, and that those whose needs cannot be met by our edition will have access to high quality images. Some elements specific to the manuscript form, such as Evelyn’s occasional use of catchwords and his more common repetition of the final word of a page at the beginning of the next, or his use of flourishes

1 Both manuscripts are 355 x 285 mm and were originally bound in blind-ruled calf, but have been rebound since entering the British Library. Add 78298 is foliated ff iv + 203; Add 78299 is ff iv + 167, and is also paginated by Evelyn. Both manuscripts are ruled in red ink, Add 78298 on all four margins, and Add 78299 on the left and right only. Add 78298: ff 173–202 are paginated 13–71 upside down on the bottom of each page, and subject headings from the letter A also written upside down on each odd-numbered page, as if intended for use in a commonplace book. For a detailed description of the manuscripts, see the entries in the British Library’s online catalogue. Although we diverge from some of his recommendations (on the treatment of deletions, for example), our editorial practice is informed by many of the distinctions established by Hunter in “How to Edit a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript: Principles and Practice,” Seventeenth Century 10 (1995): 277–310. 2 Diary, I, 48–51. The manuscripts of the diary are now Add Mss 78323–5. See de Beer’s account of the history of Evelyn’s compilation of the diary in Diary I.44–105. He determines that Evelyn began transcribing his notes after the Restoration, and that it was not until 1684 that the diary was more or less contemporary with the events it describes (see also the introduction, pp. xxii–xxv).

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and underlining in the headnotes, are not indicated. We have also replaced Evelyn’s index (Add 78299: 164–5v), which incorrectly numbers the letters, with our own, and have keyed it to the standard name forms used in our edition. We have added tables of contents to replace the anonymous eighteenth-century calendar of the second volume (Add 78299: ff 129v–44). We have not transcribed all of the notes on some of the prefatory and concluding leaves and pastedowns of both volumes (some in Evelyn’s hand and others in the hands of later readers) of “signal” or “remarkable” letters.3 Translations of the letters in Latin (Liber I) and modern European vernaculars (Liber II) have also been provided. These vary to some extent in their degree of literal fidelity to Evelyn’s text. His levels of linguistic competence were uneven: his Latin and French were strong, his Italian less so, and his German and Spanish (each represented by a single letter) much weaker. In the latter cases, the translations are looser. In addition, in these letters we have been less rigorous in expanding his abbreviations, either in cases where they are normally preserved (as in the salutations of the Latin letters), or in instances where his intention is unclear. In addition, it bears emphasizing that this is an edition of the letterbooks, and not a selected edition of Evelyn’s correspondence. If intending to produce the latter, most editors would use as copy-texts the versions of the letters received by Evelyn’s correspondents (as does de la Bédoyère in Particular Friends, his edition of Evelyn and Pepys’s letters) and collate variants with other surviving manuscripts such as the letterbooks.4 In the case of this edition, however, it is the letterbook versions themselves that are the focus of attention. These are already the product of editorial decisions made by Evelyn. This choice implies that the letterbooks have independent claims on our attention that are not exhausted by their potential role as secondary witnesses in reconstructing ­Evelyn’s ­correspondence. It is both desirable and probable that later scholars will edit Evelyn’s correspondence using the original versions, to the extent that they survive, and comparing them systematically to the letterbook texts. The letters have been renumbered. Evelyn’s own numbering is inconsistent, and is off by three by Letter 35, and by 100 from Letter 733 on. Both Evelyn’s own numbers and our corrected system are recorded in the head-notes and the lists of contents of each manuscript. The editorial head-note also identifies the addressee and provides a date for the letter. Each requires editorial decisions. In order to avoid confusion and maintain consistency across the edition, a single name form has been assigned to each addressee. This inevitably produces some anachronism, as in the citation of the dukes of Norfolk. In cases where Evelyn has left the addressee anonymous or has used a pseudonym, the correct name is used, if she can be identified through the index or by external forms of documentation (e.g., 96 to “Penthea” and 385 to “Electra”). In other cases, when identification has not been possible, Evelyn’s forms have been retained (e.g., 160 to “Cyparissa”). Questions of dating are more vexed, often for reasons stemming from the condition of Evelyn’s archive when he began his sustained period of editorial work. Sometimes Evelyn’s errors in dating are straightforward mistakes of transcription (1655 for 1645 in II.3).

3 See introduction, pp. xxvii–xxix for the lists in Evelyn’s hand. 4 See Hunter, “How to Edit a Seventeenth-Century Manuscript,” 283.

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In dealing with correspondents elsewhere in Europe, he is often uncertain about Julian and Gregorian calendars. But his most consistent source of confusion is in dating letters prior to 25 March of any year, which leads him either to misdate or misplace letters. In some cases, such as the letters to Jeremy Taylor and Benjamin Maddox, Evelyn was unable to reconstruct the chronological sequence of the letters. In others, such as the letters to Thomas Clifford, there is evidence to suggest that Evelyn’s own editorial intervention may have been far-reaching, and that some letters may have been extensively revised.5 When it can be demonstrated that Evelyn’s dating is wrong, and a definite alternative can be determined, the corrected date is provided, and is identified by “*.” Such cases are often errors arising from misdating letters written between the beginning of January and 25 March, and can be corrected on the basis of evidence from the diary, other correspondence, or other external sources. Otherwise, Evelyn’s date is retained, and ambiguities are discussed in the notes. In cases where such questions arise, the date is identified by “#.” Evelyn also makes considerable use of marginal annotations. These are printed in square brackets, and are identified as either RM or LM depending on whether they are found in the right or left-hand margin. Although many marginal notes were certainly added after the letters were first transcribed, typically to identify subsequent titles or offices held by the addressee, no attempt has been made to distinguish them by date. Evelyn’s handwriting presents some challenges. De Beer argues that he had several hands, including a book hand, a letter hand, and a hand he used for notes and annotations.6 In these letterbooks, he usually employed his italic letter hand, although some of the marginal annotations are less formal, and some of the letters in Latin and other languages employ a more elaborate hand than he typically used for the English letters. But his writing also changed over the period during which the letterbooks were compiled. As is also the case in the manuscripts of the diary, his writing becomes smaller. Although the first letterbook begins with approximately fifty-four lines per page, the writing becomes smaller after fol. 180 of Add 78298 (September 1669 in the sequence of letters), and subsequently each page typically consists of approximately seventy-five lines. He also reduced the space between letters, and often attempted to cram their final lines so as not to run onto the next page. But the letterbooks show less of the deterioration in his writing than the diary, continued until very shortly before his death, displays in the final years. The letters end in 1698, and the absence of marginal annotations referring to events or appointments after that date, such as the death of his son John Jr in 1699, suggests that Evelyn stopped making entries into his collection at approximately the same time. His note opposite the first leaf of Add 78299, dated 15 November 1699, may well correspond to the end of his work on the project. Several aspects of Evelyn’s text present special problems. His capitalization is often inconsistent and also sometimes indeterminate. De Beer hypothesizes that Evelyn had an

5 See de Beer, “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford,” and Harris, Transformations of Love, 138. 6 de Beer, Diary I.49.

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Note on the Text

intermediate form between the lower-case and the capital letter.7 Although this seems unlikely, if only because the uncertainties are typically confined to a small number of initial letters, it is often difficult to distinguish between them with confidence. The distinctions between lower-case and capital d, p, and s are particularly indeterminate, and give rise to ambiguities which can be accommodated more fully in manuscript than in print. Some aspects of his punctuation are also inconsistent or difficult, especially related to his uses of parentheses. Evelyn frequently begins a parenthesis with a bracket and ends it with a comma, or vice versa; we have changed to one or the other on the basis of what seems most congruent with the syntax; he also often starts a parenthesis but does not finish it, and we have finished it where appropriate or deleted it if it seems mistaken in the first place; where he uses both parenthesis and comma, we have deleted the one that seems less likely. No attempt has been made to annotate the letters to the level of detail provided by de Beer in the Diary, in large part because the very existence of his edition makes such repetition redundant. In particular, we have not attempted to provide comprehensive biographical information on Evelyn’s correspondents and associates. When someone is included in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB), we have indicated this, typically when he/she is first noted, and have often cited other sources (e.g., The Complete Peerage: P) which are identified in the list of abbreviations. Some of these are available in either book or digital form (e.g., The History of Parliament: H). In some cases, biographical information is derived from de Beer’s edition of Evelyn’s diary (Diary). We have tried to be consistent in the forms used to refer to individuals in the notes, typically by using the name under which the person is most commonly cited. We have not attempted to annotate all the names listed by Evelyn in the catalogues he incorporates into some of his epistolary essays (e.g., 619 to Pepys). Nor have we indexed the collection in the detail provided by de Beer, whose indexes to the diary comprise 587 pages, and offer as close to random access to its text as was possible in the pre-digital era. Both the financial exigencies of contemporary publishing, and the possibility of electronic searching of the text render such detailed indexing both less feasible and less appropriate. We have also attempted to place the letters in relationship to the chronology and often parallel presentation of events in Evelyn’s diary, and have often referred to passages in de Beer’s edition. We have also endeavoured to locate the letterbook texts within Evelyn’s surviving correspondence, and have whenever possible noted incoming letters and alternate versions of Evelyn’s texts. The correspondence with Pepys is a special case, because of both its scale and importance, and we have provided references to Particular Friends, the edition produced by Guy de la Bédoyère, who typically bases his text on the letter received by Pepys. References to letters from the Evelyn correspondence in the British Library indicate the volume and folio on which the letter begins, and include the date as provided in the manuscript. In the case of citations from longer letters, reference to the place of the cited passage is sometimes provided.

7 de Beer, Diary I.50.

Note on the Text

lv

Some of Evelyn’s essayistic letters are exercises in organizing and transmitting knowledge, often from his large (and well-documented) library and sometimes also from his commonplace books. His library was contiguous with the rest of his archive, and is also documented in several contemporary catalogues, as well as in the auction catalogues compiled at the time of its dispersal in 1977–8.8 We have therefore attempted to be specific in referring to Evelyn’s use of books, and to place his citations and allusions within the context of his own library. We have indicated wherever possible the nature of his own holdings of particular authors by citing his library catalogue of 1687 (Add 78632),9 the 1977–8 auction catalogue, and the holdings of Evelyn books in the British Library.10 We have also attempted to check his citations of classical authors against contemporary editions, particularly in cases where they differ from modern editions.

8 The Evelyn Library, 4 vols (London: Christies, 1977–8). 9 See de la Bédoyère, “John Evelyn’s Library Catalogue,” and Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and his Books,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 71–94. 10 This is listed in Hunter, “The British Library and John Evelyn,” in John Evelyn in the British Library, 82–102. Some additional items have been acquired since this list was published.

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Glossary

We have included words in this list that are now not in common use. These are typically words that occur more than once in the letters and that are not simply nonce words. The latter are footnoted where they occur in the letters. See also the list given under ‘Words’ in the index to the Diary VI.614–20. The words asterisked here are also in that list. accumulation: promotion admire: wonder (at) adventure: by chance advertise: suggest advertisement: suggestion aggravate: prosecute, deal with aggregate: v: to collect into one body; adj: sociable; having dependants; ­married; n: collection alexipharmacs: remedies against poison alkermes: a decoction made from an insect, the Ciccus Ilicis alumnus: pupil amerce: to punish by arbitrary fine animadvert: challenge *antepasts: foretastes apodictical: absolutely certain apprehended: taken apprehension: comprehension apt: easy, conducive, tractable arcanum: n: secret, mystery archetype: original pattern Aristarc(h): severe critic, pedant arrests: decrees, judgment *artificial: crafty, devious

*aspectable: visible assent: confirm, believe asseveration: assurance assoilment: absolution (from guilt or censure) bait(e): n: refreshment; v: to refresh, to repose Bartholomew baby: a puppet (from Bartholomew Fair) black-leade: pencil birding: n: snaring blanch: v: erase, omit, pass over bleb: a bubble of air in water, glass, or other substance bowels: compassion break bulk: open and sell (captured) cargo broker: middleman, legal agent (censorious) carpet-priest: boudoir-priest (contemptuous) catalysis: dissolution, destruction, ruin catastrophe: result, outcome

lviii

Glossary

cates: provisions, dainties cative (caytive): n: wretch; adj: wretched, vile cathedral: magisterial, professorial; extensive celsitude: dignity, eminence censure: judgment cerus(s)e: white lead (for face paint) character: short biography chargeable: expensive cicurate: domesticate, charm, stupify circumforaneous: wandering circumjacent: adj: adjoining, nearby; n: neighbour clancular: clandestine classes: elders or pastors of a parish, congregation clyster: enema coevous: contemporary cole-worts: cabbages colluctation: wrestling, struggle comitie: affability, friendship commute: give in exchange, substitute *compellation: name, title competency: n: sufficiency, fortune competent: sufficient compliment: n: flattery competent: adj: suitable, adequate, sufficient, fitting composition: contract for settling a difference conceit(e): conception, idea concredit: entrust condescention: (friendly or familiar) recognition *confragose: rough, uneven congee: choice congratulate: celebrate, share greetings consectary: adj: logically following consequent: seeker after conspurcate: adj: defiled consummate: complete, excellent contagion: plague convenient: useful

conversation: meeting, acquaintance country: county coursed: discoursed, counselled creditor: believer crisis: judgment (obs) debauch: v: convert to Roman Catholicism debilitate: weaken (by derivation or decoction) deduce: bring down, continue defalcation: diminution, reduction defeazance: discharge, rendering null and void deferent: bearer, messenger, intermediary defluction: a flow or discharge (in connection with a cold) deferrent: bearer, carrier dehort: dissuade delator: detractor delices: pleasures delict: offence demean: v intrans: behave demission: being sent back, removal, relinquishment deplore: commiserate deprehend: reprehend, seize, arrest desiderat(e): n: need desiderate: v: look forward to, anticipate; n: thing wanted *design(e): draw, sketch designer: draftsman detourne: prevent, put off devertise: to entertain or delight didaction: instruction diffide: v: to doubt, distrust diffidence: faithlessness, distrust discover: reveal dismission: conduct, (execution) dition: dominion, rule *document: warning dotterel: fool dress a snare: v: bait a trap

Glossary

ebullition: boiling effete: exhausted, worn out elect: choose electuarys: medicinal conserves or pastes *elogy/elogies: the character of a person elucubration: studying or writing by candlelight emballment: packing materials embase: corrupt, debase empiric(k): n: quack doctor emulate: strive to equal essay: experiment evacuating: diminishing eviction: proof exanimation: discouragement exception: objection, criticism excogitate: construct, devise exede: eat out, corrode (obs) *exinanition: the act of emptying or exhausting Express: n: express letter expugne: capture, overcome, expunge exquistely: thoroughly, in detail extan[s]ic: standing out, protruding [nonce] extend: prolong extenuate: diminish, weaken, criticize extravagancy: wandering exuberance: fertility facetious: urbane, polished, jocular fallacy: mistake, error fardle: bundle farraginously: indiscriminately fee-farm: a form of land tenure in which the owner and his heirs have absolute possession, subject to an annual fixed rent felator: informer figure flinging: astrological prediction, casting horoscopes fine: fee paid by a tenant flagitious: deeply criminal or wicked foible: character (trait)

lix

*fonds: foundation forehead: brashness, nerve foresters: forest trees fourb: cheat, impostor frontless(e): bold, shameless fucus: cosmetic, face-paint funest: fatal, disastrous gallimaufry: hotch potch gape (after): desire, be eager for Gazetts: newspapers genius: character, temper; interest, practical turn of mind Grecian: a scholar of Greek hap(p)ly: accidentally, by chance, perhaps hecatomb: a great public sacrifice hobby horse: adj: ridiculous, artificial; n: foolish obsession hortensile: of or belonging to a garden [nonce for hortensial] Hungary water (or Queen of Hungary’s water): a spirit of wine infused with rosemary flowers hyemation: overwintering ichnography: plan immarcessible: unfading, incorruptible impertinent: irrelevant impetrating: claiming import: mean imported: led improve: take advantage of improvement: increase incompetent: unequal indenizon: naturalize [nonce] *indicible: unspeakable, inexpressible indiction: prohibition indifferent: neutral indignity: unworthiness indulgence: gift ingenuity: ingenuousness ingenuous: ingenious

lx

Glossary

*in precinct to: about to Instant: adj: present (be) instant: be assiduous *institution: rule, instruction; employment; beginning, establishment insulse: dull, stupid, insipid, absurd *intenerate: make tender, soften interest: personal connection, friendship; gain, reward intermesses: intermezzi, interludes, diversion intermission: lapse of time between events, pause interposure: intervention invidious: enviable ( jealous) irremedilesse: irremediable [nonce] Ismael: outcast jack-pudding: buffoon jade horse: an inferior breed of horse, a hack *jealous: careful, apprehensive of losing advantage jovial: magisterial jurate: municipal office laschete/y: laxity *lecture: n: course of reading lenifie: moderate lenitive: salve letation: fertilizing levity: being carefree libration: oscillation? licentiate: licentious, freed from rules lixivium: a solution obtained by separating a soluble substance from an insoluble logodædalus: cunning in words; wordmaker sit loose to: have no worry about luciferous: illuminating *luculent: bright, shining lux: luxury

marish: marshy mendicity: beggarliness, supplication metaschematise: change the form of disease [nonce] micography [micrography]: description or depiction of what can be seen only through a microscope mind: v: remind mixen: dunghill, filth morigeration: obedience, compliance *nasute: keen-sighted, sagacious neighbourhood: the act of being a neighbour (a translation of French voisinage) neoterique: modern, recent nice: exact nicenesse: scrupulousness noncupation: reference, designation notorious: noteworthy nuncupate: refer obduce: cover, take away, relieve obelize: mark a word or passage; condemn it as spurious objurgative: rebuking oblivion: forgetfulness obnoxious: exposed to (danger); susceptible; likely to be infected or bothered obsequious: obedient, deferential oeconomie: domestic business, household management ominate: v: prophesy oneirocritics: interpreters of dreams onerary: burdensome opinionate: adj: conjectural, uncertain oppugn: attack, assail oppugnd: attacked, resisted oscitancy: drowsiness ostentous: ostentatious (obs) outlandish: foreign paralogisme: illogical or specious ­argument

Glossary

paranymph: best man or bridesmaid partial: one-sided pass(e) not: care not patrocinie: patronage, protection peculiar: special, particular perduce: bring on, lead on, induce perfid: perfidious, faithless perflatile: exposed to wind perile: comprehensive [from ‘perileptic’: a nonce Evelyn word] period: end, conclusion, place, juncture; passage pernicity: perniciousness perrerration: mistaken journey *perstring: censure, criticize perversion: corruption; conversion to Roman Catholicism perverted: alienated, turned away from, converted to Roman Catholicism pervious: discernible pesant: n: weight; adj: weighty pest-ship: ship for plague victims pismire: ant pitiful: generous placit: agreement, approval; commonplace poiz(e): weight politure: polish polity: prudent management porpensity: propensity practice: v: encounter, deal with practised: experienced praemonish: warn præponderate: v: weigh more pragmatical: unduly or improperly busy *in precinct to/for: about to pregnant: promising, growing presse: adj: compressed, compact, exact (obs) prestely: strongly pretend: intend, claim, be interested in pretense/pretence/pretensions: claim prevent: precede promiscuous: mixed

lxi

propense: disposed, favourable proplasma: pattern, model prostitute: dishonour, expose publican: collector of toll or taxes puntillo: punctiliousness; minor objections purgaments: cast-offs quadrant: an instrument for taking altitude (used by Evelyn in astrological sense) qualify: modify quotidian: daily radicated: rooted rally: tease, play with recension: enumeration, survey render: reduce recesse: withdrawal reciprocate: to give or receive in return recuded: restamped or recoined [nonce] refer(re): recapture regale: feast regiment: n: control, regimen relate: refer to; send remitt: to give up remora: delay, hindrance repullulate: bud or sprout again resent: v: to feel deferential or grateful, acknowledge, reward; convey, retell resent(i)ments: different feelings, ­regrets; anger retort: to return or pay back retribution: repayment revenge: pay back or repay (in a positive sense) reverberate: retort, echo rota-men: members of a political club salience: quality of leaping or springing up sapinitie: wisdom [nonce] sculps: engravings searcher: inspector

lxii

Glossary

seasonable: opportune secesse: withdrawing, retirement sectator: follower, disciple sedulity: care, attention sensible: deeply felt, affected, sensitive sentiment: sense, reflection sequestration: appropriation of income to satisfy a claim serous: relating to serum serratifolia: having a jagged or serrated leaf sigillary: having to do with legal seals simoniacal: engaged in swelling ecclesiastical offices or benefits sophisticated: mixed with a foreign substance *spagyrical: alchemical, having to do with alchemy specious: attractive, plausible, careful (usually with negative overtones) sphalma/sphalmata: mistake in transcription spire: to suspire or expire sprunkenst: adj: (from “sprunking”): personal adornment steened: lined with stone, as in a well or excavation stillatim: drop by drop stout: proud strangure: urinary disease stretcher: exaggerator, liar subact(ed): controlled, disciplined, well cultivated subdolously: craftily subsidiaries: documents, proofs substruction: foundation, basis suffrage: testimonial; support, assistance; intercession, prayer superfoetation: excessive production supine: lazy, inadequate suppose: intend surcharging: overwhelming, excessive susceptor: godfather

suttler: n: provisioner to the army *symbol(e): contribution (sometimes to a feast) synchronism: treatment of details according to similar periods tarpaulin: common sailor tedious: time-consuming temararious: rash tertian: a fever, ague testimony: witness through-paced: thoroughly trained titulate: titled [nonce] tonsile: trimmed, pruned traduction: translation trained: entrained, led trajected: passed or travelled across (as a sea) transcendancy: excellence turgid: swollen tyro: beginner umbratile: dark unanimadverted: unchallenged univocal: unambiguous use to: v: are accustomed to vacate: have the leisure, be free to valetudinary: infirm, of weak health; desirous to be gone velitation: wordy dispute, wrangling vended: completely sold, sold out vernacular: common vernility: slavishness, servility versatile: changeable viaticum: sustenance (sacrament) villa (of an English house): first used by Evelyn in a letter of 1646 voisinage: neighbourhood voluptuous: dedicated to the senses, luxurious vomite: emetic vote: vow, wish

Glossary

whiffler: swaggerer, braggart whiskers: blusters, winds whither: whether wind: v: smell yerst: formerly

Common Latin Phrases ab origine: from the beginning actum agere: to do what has already been done actum est: done, finished adversaria: notes; memoranda bene-placit: good words/offices biscoctum: twice-cooked deleatur: let it be deleted et tamquam: and as I might say; in the same way; for example; as though extra oleas: beyond (my) efforts faber fortunae: maker of his own fortune fide digna: worthy of trust horrendum informe: horrible to relate

lxiii

in deliciis: in pleasure in fine: in the end in puntillo: correctly instar omnium: the equal of all jacta est elea: the die is cast juro sancte: by my solemn oath Maecenas: patron par oneri: equally pergo amare: I continue your friend; yours truly praefiscine: beyond my efforts pro hic et nunc: for here and now (for the time being) raptim: in haste rasa tabula/ tabula rasa: blank slate rebus sic stantibus: things being as they are res angusta domi: things of a small household sic parvis componere [magna solebam]: thus I have been accustomed to compare great [things] with small. Virgil Eclogues 2.4 sub hasta: at auction tanquam explorator: as an explorer tanto: sufficient, sufficiency

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THE LETTERBOOKS OF JOHN EVELYN

Volume I

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BOOKS I–III British Library Add Ms 78298

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BL Add Ms 78298

*  corrected date #  questionable date ff 1–3

[Epistolarum Liber Primus]

Fol f 1 f 1 f 1v f 2 f 2 f 2v f 2v f 3

NAME/PLACE/DATE Nicasius Le Fèvre, Sayes Court, 4 April 1655 Christopher Wase, Sayes Court, 5 May 1656 Christopher Wase, Sayes Court, 4 Aug. 1656 Jasper Needham, n.p., 22 Nov. 1657 [cancelled] Bernard Martin Berenclow, Sayes Court, 8 May 1659 Christopher Wase, Sayes Court, 2 Feb. 1663 Edward Richards, Sayes Court, 9 Jan. 1664 [cancelled] John Berkeley, Berkeley House, London, 1675#

ff 23–8

Epistolarum Liber Secundus

Fol f 23 f 23 f 24 f 24 f 24 f 24v f 24v f 25 f 25 f 25v f 25v f 25v

NAME/PLACE/DATE Mr Borgi, Rome, 26 Nov. 1644 Robert Heath, Rome, 18 March 1645* George Rogers, Padua, 14 June 1645* Thomas Bartholin, Venice, 5 Sept. 1645 Thomas Bartholin, Padua, 12 Sept. 1645 [   ], Padua, 16 Sept. 1645 Thomas Bartholin, Padua, 23 Sept. 1645 [   ], Venice, 1 Oct. 1645 [   ], Venice, 4 Oct. 1645 Mr Port. Palatinat, Paris, 1 Dec. 1650 Mr Zanchio, Paris, 30 March 1650 Giovanni Juliano, Paris, 31 March 1650

Ms Num xxxv xxxvi xxxvii xxxviii xxxix xl xli xlii

Num I.35 I.36 I.37 I.38 I.39 I.40 I.41 I.42

Ms Num i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii

Num II.1 II.2 II.3 II.4 II.5 II.6 II.7 II.8 II.9 II.10 II.11 II.12

6

f 26 f 26 f 26v f 26v f 26v f 27 f 27v f 27v f 27v f 28 f 28 f 28v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Claude Rousselle, Tunbridge, 20 June 1652 Nicasius Le Fèvre, Sayes Court, 28 July 1652 Abraham Bosse, Wotton, 4 Oct. 1652# Alexandre du Guernier II, Wotton, 4 Oct. 1652# Abraham Bosse, Sayes Court, 26 Jan. 1654* Charles de Broussel, Sayes Court, 5 March 1661 Anne Montagu, Sayes Court, 15 Nov. 1664 Jean de la Quintinye, Sayes Court, 20 April 1669 Robert Nanteuil, Sayes Court, 20 April 1669 Abraham Bosse, Sayes Court, 19 July 1669 Giovanni Juliano, London, 10 April 1675 Antonio Verrio, Whitehall, 2 Feb. 1686

xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii 23 24

II.13 II.14 II.15 II.16 II.17 II.18 II.19 II.20 II.21 II.22 II.23 II.24

Ms Num 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

Num 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

ff 38–203v Epistolarum Liber III Fol f 38 f 38v f 39 f 39 f 39v f 39v f 39v f 40 f 40 f 40v f 40v f 41 f 41 f 41v f 42 f 42 f 42 f 42v f 42v f 42v f 43 f 43 f 43 f 43v f 44 f 45v f 45v

NAME/PLACE/DATE John Crayford, Venice, 2 June 1645 Thomas Henshaw, Venice, 31 June 1645 Thomas Howard, Paris, 8 Aug. 1646 John Robinson, London, 10 May 1648 Mary Cotton Evelyn, London, 14 July 1648 Edmund Waller, Paris, 20 Dec. 1649 Ann Bodvel, Paris, 20 Dec. 1649 Kenrick Eyton, Paris, 7 Feb. 1650 Catherine Scott, Paris, 9 Feb. 1650 Mr Clarke, Paris, 12 Feb. 1650 James Scudamore, Paris, 12 Feb. 1650 Ann Bodvel, Paris, 10 March 1650 James Scudamore, Paris, 26 March 1650 Kenrick Eyton, 26 March 1650 George Evelyn, Paris, 13 April 1650 Thomas Keightley, Paris, 17 April 1650 Elizabeth Browne (Montague), Paris, 17 April 1650 Edward Kendrick, Paris, 20 June 1650 Jasper Needham, Paris, 26 Nov. 1650 Frances Carey, Paris, 30 Nov. 1650 Richard Evelyn, Paris, 3 Dec. 1650 [G. Langton], Paris, 3 Dec. 1650 Robert Heath, Paris, 19 Dec. 1650 Jasper Needham, Paris, 19 Dec. 1650 Thomas Keightley, Paris, 25 March, 1651 Richard Owen, Paris, 12 April 1651 Samuel Tuke, Paris, 28 April 1651

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 46 f 46 f 46v f 46v f 47 f 47 f 47v f 47v f 47v f 48 f 48 f 48 f 48v f 49 f 51v f 52 f 52 f 52v f 52v f 53 f 53 f 53v f 53v f 54 f 54 f 54 f 54v f 54v f 55 f 55 f 55v f 55v f 56 f 56v f 57 f 57v f 57v f 58 f 58 f 58v f 59 f 59 f 59v f 59v

Jane Glanville, Paris, 17 June 1651 John Cosin, Paris, 28 July 1651 Samuel Tuke, Paris, 29 July 1651 Edmund Waller, Paris, 29 August 1651 Jane Glanville, Paris, 6 Sept. 1651 Gervase Elwes, Paris, 6 Oct. 1651 Jane Garrard, Paris, 9 Oct. 1651 Robert Spencer (Teviot), Paris, 13 Oct. 1651 [Cousin E.S.], Paris, 27 Oct. 1651 William Glanville, Paris, 18 Nov. 1651 Jane Glanville, Paris, 26 Nov. 1651 William Prettyman, Paris, 2 Dec. 1651 Thomas Radcliffe, Paris, 2 Dec. 1651 John Cosin Jr, Paris, 1 Jan. 1652 John Millington, Paris, 10 Jan. 1652 Richard Evelyn, Paris, 10 Jan. 1652 William Glanville, Paris, 10 Jan. 1652 Philadelphia Carey, Paris, 22 Jan. 1652 Richard Browne, Calais, 4 Feb. 1652 Mary Evelyn, London, 12 Feb. 1652 Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 14 Feb. 1652 Conrad Burgh, London, 18 Feb. 1652 Henry Hildyard, Drury Lane, 8 March 1652 George Goring, London, 12 March 1652 Henry Stanley, Sayes Court, 13 March 1652 Elizabeth Browne, Sayes Court, 13 March 1652 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 20 March 1652 Henry Hildyard, Sayes Court, 31 March 1652 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 3 April 1652 Edmund Waller, Sayes Court, 13 April 1652 Edward Thurland, London, 25 April 1652 John Cosin, Sayes Court, 25 April 1652 Mary Evelyn, Sayes Court, 28 April 1652 Mary Evelyn, Sayes Court, 10 May 1652 Mary Evelyn, Sayes Court, 24 May 1652 Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 25 Aug. 1652 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 30 Aug. 1652 Edward Hyde, Sayes Court, 1 Nov. 1652 Edward Hungerford, Sayes Court, 14 June 1653 Jasper Needham, Sayes Court, 16 June 1653 Mary Evelyn, Woodcote, 4 July 1653 Richard Fanshawe, Sayes Court, 7 Oct. 1653# Edmund Waller, Sayes Court, 12 Nov. 1653 Henry Hildyard, Sayes Court, 7 Feb. 1653#

7

26 27 28 29 30 31 32 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

8

f 60 f 60 f 60v f 60v f 62 f 62v f 62v f 63 f 63 f 63v f 63v f 64v f 65 f 65v f 65v f 66 f 66v f 67 f 67v f 68 f 68 f 68v f 69 f 69v f 69v f 70 f 70v f 70v f 71 f 71 f 71v f 72 f 72v f 73 f 73v f 74 f 76 f 76 f 76v f 77 f 78 f 78v f 79 f 79

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Evelyn of Godstone, Sayes Court, 21 Jan. 1655* Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 9 Feb. 1654# Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 24 May 1655 [Cousin S.], Sayes Court, 13 July 1655 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 15 July 1655 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1655 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 7 Sept. 1655 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 12 Sept. 1655 Mary Evelyn, London, 4 Oct. 1655 Edward Hales, London, 15 Dec. 1655 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 3 Feb. 1656* Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 20 Feb. 1656* Peter Pett, Sayes Court, 21 Feb. 1655 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 1 March 1656* Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 12 March 1656* Mary Tuke, Sayes Court, 16 March 1656* Jeremy Taylor, London, 18 March 1655# Benjamin Maddox, Sayes Court, 17 Jan. 1657* Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 4 March 1656 William Rand, Sayes Court, 4 March 1657* Thomas Barlow, Sayes Court, 17 April 1656 [Mr N. N.], Sayes Court, 25 April 1656 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 27 April 1656 Nicholas Crisp, Sayes Court, 16 May 1656 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 19 May 1656 Benjamin Maddox, Sayes Court, 11 June 1656 Charles Harbord, Sayes Court, 11 Sept. 1656 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 18 Sept. 1656 Thomas Triplet, Sayes Court, 18 Sept. 1656# Benjamin Maddox, Sayes Court, 21 Sept. 1656 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 9 Oct. 1656 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 15 Dec. 1656 Francis Barlow, Sayes Court, 23 Dec. 1656 Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 23 Dec. 1656 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 16 Jan. 1657* Edward Thurland, Sayes Court, 20 Jan. 1656# Commissioners of the Navy, Sayes Court, 21 Jan 1656 Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 12 Feb. 1657* Obadiah Walker, Sayes Court, 7 March 1656 Benjamin Maddox, n.p., n.d. [March 1657]# William Rand, Sayes Court, 9 April 1657 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 9 May 1657 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 9 May 1657 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 11 May 1657

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 79v f 80 f 80 f 80v f 80v f 80v f 81 f 81 f 81v f 82 f 82 f 82v f 82v f 83 f 84 f 84 f 84v f 85 f 85 f 85v f 85v f 86 f 86v f 86v f 87 f 87 f 87v f 88 f 88v f 89 f 90 f 90v f 90v f 91 f 91 f 91 f 91v f 91v f 92 f 93 f 93v f 94 f 94 f 94v

Edward Snatt, Sayes Court, 17 May 1657 Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 8 June 1657 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 9 June 1657 George Tuke, Sayes Court, 9 June 1657 Jacques Le Franc, Sayes Court, 18 June 1657 Charles Harbord, Sayes Court, 21 June 1657 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 28 June 1657 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 30 June 1657 Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 2 Sept. 1657 Edward Reynolds, London, 3 Dec. 1657 Philip Stanhope, London, 6 Dec. 1657 Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 6 Jan. 1657 Thomas Henshaw, Sayes Court, 6 Jan. 1657# Benjamin Maddox, Sayes Court, 10 Jan. 1657# Conrad Burgh, Sayes Court, 12 Jan. 1657 John Barkstead, Greenwich, 14 Jan. 1656# Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 14 Feb. 1658* John Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 24 Feb. 1658* Richard Browne, Sayes Court, 20 March 1658* Thomas Barlow, Sayes Court, 5 April 1658 Peter Pett, Sayes Court, 5 April 1658 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 12 June 1658 Thomas Henshaw, Sayes Court, 22 June 1658 Richard Evelyn, Sayes Court, 2 July 1658 Benjamin Maddox, Sayes Court, 13 July 1658 Philip Stanhope, Wotton, 30 July 1658 Philip Stanhope, Wotton, 10 Aug. 1658 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 15 Oct. 1658 Peter Pett, Sayes Court, 16 Oct. 1658 Edward Thurland, Sayes Court, 8 Nov. 1658 George Tuke., Sayes Court, 13 Jan. 1659 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 13 Jan. 1659 Elizabeth Puckering, Sayes Court, 14 Jan. 1659 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 1 Feb. 1659 Edward Hales, Sayes Court, 18 Feb. 1659 Richard Evelyn, Sayes Court, 18 Feb. 1659 Herbert Morley, Deptford, 19 Feb. 1659 Robert Heath, Sayes Court, 26 Feb. 1659 Robert Heath, [Sayes Court], 3 March 1659 Willem Nieupoort, Sayes Court, 23 March 1659 Jacques Le Franc, Sayes Court, 6 July 1659 Samuel Hartlib, Sayes Court, 8 Aug. 1659 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 8 Aug. 1659 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 3 Sept. 1659

9

113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 151 152 153 154 155

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159

10

f 96 f 97 f 99 f 99v f 100v f 101 f 102 f 102 f 103v f 104 f 104v f 105 f 106 f 106 f 106v f 106v f 107v f 108 f 109 f 110 f 110 f 110v f 111 f 111 f 111v f 112 f 112v f 113 f 113 f 113v f 114 f 114 f 115 f 115 f 116 f 116 f 116v f 116v f 117 f 117v f 118 f 118v f 118v f 119

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

[Cyparissa], [Sayes Court], 14 Sept. 1659 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 1 Oct. 1659 Robert Boyle, Covent Garden, 1 Dec. 1659 Herbert Morley, Covent Garden, 12 Jan. 1660 Elizabeth Puckering, Covent Garden, 12 Jan. 1660 Thomas Browne, Covent Garden, 28 Jan. 1660 John Beale, Covent Garden, 1 Feb. 1660 Samuel Hartlib, Covent Garden, 4 Feb. 1660 Charles II, Covent Garden, 16 Feb. 1660 [cancelled] Richard Browne, Covent Garden, 18 Feb. 1660 William Coventry, Sayes Court, 23 July 1660 Edward Nicholas, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1660 Richard Spencer, Sayes Court, 25 Aug. 1660 John Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 28 Aug. 1660 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 1 Sept. 1660 Philip Warwick, Sayes Court, 2 Sept. 1660 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 3 Feb. 1661* John Wilkins, Sayes Court, 29 Jan. 1661* Samuel Tuke, London, 8 April 1661 William Fuller, Sayes Court, 9 July 1661 Jeremy Taylor, Sayes Court, 9 July 1661 Henry Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 23 July 1661 John Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1661 Mary Evelyn, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1661 Jane Needham, Sayes Court, 12 Aug. 1661 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 12 Aug. 1661 George Evelyn, nephew, Sayes Court, 24 Aug. 1661 James Thicknesse, Sayes Court, 5 Sept. 1661 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 13 Sept. 1661 William Petty, London, 16 Sept. 1661 William Compton, Whitehall, 4 Oct. 1661 Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 7 Oct. 1661 William Coventry, Sayes Court, 12 Oct. 1661 Henry Bennet, London, 7 Dec. 1661 Elizabeth Mordaunt, London, 1 Jan. 1662 George Digby, Westminster, 3 Feb. 1662 James Butler, Hampton Court, 12 May 1662 Kenelm Digby, London, 15 May 1662 John Cosin, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1662 Mary Cotton Evelyn, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1662 Johan van der Does, Sayes Court, 13 Sept. 1662 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 29 Jan. 1663 Abraham Cowley, Sayes Court, 20 March 1663 Robert Breton, Sayes Court, 29 March 1663

156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200

160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 119 f 119v f 119v f 120 f 120v f 120v f 121 f 121v f 122v f 123v f 123v f 124 f 124v f 125v f 126 f 126v f 127 f 127v f 127v f 128 f 129v f 130 f 130 f 130v f 130v f 131v f 131v f 132 f 132v f 133 f 133v f 133v f 134v f 136 f 136v f 137 f 137v f 137v f 138 f 138 f 138v f 138v f 139 f 139

Abraham Cowley, Sayes Court, 28 May 1663 Nicholas Crisp, London, 7 June 1663 Philip Warwick, Sayes Court, 9 July 1663 William Croone, Sayes Court, 11 July 1663 Abraham Cowley, Sayes Court, 11 July 1663 Samuel Tuke, [Sayes Court], 24 May 1663# George Evelyn, nephew, Sayes Court, 5 Aug. 1663 Thomas Pierce, Sayes Court, 20 Aug. 1663 Thomas Pierce, London, 17 Sept. 1663 John Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 24 Jan. 1664 Joan Warwick, Sayes Court, 1 Feb. 1664 George Evelyn, nephew, Sayes Court, 30 March 1664 Walter Pope, Sayes Court, 30 March 1664 Anthony Bateman, Sayes Court, 20 April 1664 Elizabeth Carr, Sayes Court, 2 May 1664 John Beale, London, 23 July 1664 Richard Evelyn, Sayes Court, 9 Aug. 1664 George Carteret, Sayes Court, 22 Aug. 1664 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 19 Sept. 1664 Thomas Sprat, Sayes Court, 31 Oct. 1664 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 31 Oct. 1664 Edward Hyde, London, 1 Nov. 1664 Thomas Povey, Sayes Court, 6 Nov. 1664 William Brouncker, Sayes Court, 9 Nov. 1664 Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 23 Nov. 1664 William Davenant, London, 29 Nov. 1664 Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 29 Dec. 1664 John Strode, Sayes Court, 29 Dec. 1664 Elias Ashmole, Sayes Court, 2 Jan. 1664 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 2 Jan. 1665* Silius Titus, Sayes Court, 2 Feb. 1665 Thomas Chiffinch, London, 7 Feb. 1665 Henry Hyde, London, 9 Feb. 1665* Roger L’Estrange, London, 24 Feb. 1665* Christopher Wren, Sayes Court, 4 April 1665 Thomas Clifford, London, 20 April 1665 Michiel van Goch, Whitehall, 27 April 1665 George Monck, Dover, 30 May 1665 John Strode, Deal, 10 June 1665 Henry Bennet, Deal, 13 June 1665 Joseph Williamson, Deal, 13 June 1665 Thomas Clifford, Painters Hall, London, 9 June 1665* John Earle, Sayes Court, 18 June 1665 Peter Wyche, Sayes Court, 20 June 1665

11

201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245

204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247

12

f 140v f 141v f 141v f 142 f 142v f 143 f 144v f 145 f 145v f 146 f 146v f 147 f 147v f 148v f 149 f 149v f 150 f 150v f 151 f 151v f 152v f 153 f 153v f 153v f 154 f 155 f 155 f 155v f 156 f 156 f 157 f 157v f 159v f 160v f 161v f 161v f 162 f 162v f 163 f 163 f 164 f 165 f 165 f 165v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Hyde, Cornbury, 21 June 1665 George Ayscue, on board the Prince, 1 July 1665 William Coventry, Sayes Court, 5 July 1665 George Carteret, Sayes Court, 14 Aug. 1665 George Monck, Sayes Court, 8 Sept. 1665 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1665 William Doyley, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1665 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 12 Sept. 1665 Edward Mountagu, Sayes Court, 18 Sept. 1665 George Monck, Sayes Court, 24 Sept. 1665 Philip Warwick, Sayes Court, 30 Sept. 1665 William Coventry, Sayes Court, 2 Oct. 1665 Edward Hyde, Sayes Court, 2 Oct. 1665 George Monck, Chatham, 20 Oct. 1665 John Griffith, Rochester, 20 Oct. 1665 Anthony Ashley Cooper, Sayes Court, 26 Oct. 1665 Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 26 Oct. 1665 William Morice, Sayes Court, 1 Nov. 1665 Francis Carter, Sayes Court, 27 Nov. 1665# Francis Clerke, Sayes Court, 12 Dec. 1665 Elizabeth Carteret, Sayes Court, 14 Dec. 1665 William Craven, Sayes Court, 16 Dec. 1665 Matthew Wren, Sayes Court, 22 Dec. 1665 Francis Clerke, Sayes Court, 23 Dec. 1665* Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 20 Jan. 1666 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 3 Jan. 1666 William Swan, Sayes Court, 8 Feb. 1666 John Wilkins, Sayes Court, 12 March 1666 Thomas Colepeper, Sayes Court, 31 March 1666 George Monck, Sayes Court, 29 May 1666 George Evelyn, Whitehall, 18 July 1666 Abraham Cowley, Sayes Court, 24 Aug. 1666 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 27 Sept. 1666 Edward Hyde, Sayes Court, 27 Nov. 1666 George Douglas, Star Chamber, 7 Dec. 1666 Philip Dumaresq, Sayes Court, 17 Dec. 1666 Henry Oldenburg, Sayes Court, 22 Dec. 1666 Samuel Tuke, Sayes Court, 24 Dec. 1666 Ralph Bathurst, Sayes Court, 20 Jan. 1667 Richard Evelyn, Sayes Court, 8 Feb. 1667 Abraham Cowley, Sayes Court, 12 March 1667 George Mackenzie, London, 15 March 1667 Edward Hyde, London, 18 March 1667 Ezerel Tonge, Sayes Court, 25 April 1667

246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288

248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 165v f 166 f 166 f 166v f 167 f 167v f 168 f 168v f 168v f 169 f 169 f 169v f 169v f 170 f 170 f 170v f 171 f 172 f 172v f 172v f 174 f 174v f 174v f 175 f 176 f 177 f 177 f 178 f 178 f 179 f 179v f 180 f 180 f 180v f 180v f 181 f 181 f 181v f 181v f 182 f 182v Add 78317 f 184v f 184v

William Penn, Star Chamber, 11 July 1667 John Langham, Sayes Court, 31 July 1667 Henry Howard, Sayes Court, 4 Aug. 1667 Ralph Bathurst, London, 9 Sept. 1667 Obadiah Walker, London, 9 Sept. 1667 John Fell, London, 11 Sept. 1667 Samuel Tuke, London, 26 Sept. 1667 Edward Evelyn, London, 27 Sept. 1667 Thomas Sprat, Sayes Court, 12 Nov. 1667 Edward Mountagu, Sayes Court, 13 Dec. 1667 Robert Moray, Sayes Court, 13 Dec. 1667 Ralph Bathurst, Sayes Court, 20 Feb. 1667 George Mackenzie, Sayes Court, 11 April 1668 William Davenant, Sayes Court, 25 March 1668 Joseph Glanvill, Sayes Court, 24 June 1668 Edward Stillingfleet, Sayes Court, 4 Aug. 1668 Edward Mountagu, Sayes Court, 21 Aug. 1668 Richard Stokes, London, 21 Aug. 1668 Joseph Glanvill, Sayes Court, 26 Aug. 1668 John Beale, Sayes Court, 27 Aug. 1668 Obadiah Walker, Sayes Court, 20 Sept. 1668 Thomas Lloyd, Sayes Court, 16 Oct. 1668 Joseph Williamson, London, 17 Oct. 1668 Obadiah Walker, London, 19 Oct. 1668* Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 1 Feb. 1669 John Fell, Sayes Court, 12 March 1669* Henry Howard, Sayes Court, 14 March 1669 Isaac Basire, London, 6 May 1669 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 8 June 1669 Henry Bennet, London, 11 June 1669 Obadiah Walker, Sayes Court, 21 Aug. 1669 Edward Hyde, [Sayes Court], 14 Sept. 1669 Meric Casaubon, Sayes Court, 17 Jan. 1670 Meric Casaubon, Sayes Court, 24 Jan. 1670* William Rand, Wotton, 20 March 1669 Ralph Bathurst, Sayes Court, 21 Aug. 1669 Paul Neile, Covent Garden, 21 Sept. 1669 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 12 Sept. 1669 Thomas Barlow, Sayes Court, 12 Dec. 1669 Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 20 Jan. 1671* John Beale, Sayes Court, 27 July 1670 Patrick Maginn, 27 Sept. 1670# Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 28 Oct. 1670 Thomas Hanmer, Sayes Court, 13 Dec. 1670

13

289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 310 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332

292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335

14

f 185 f 185 f 185 f 185 f 185v f 186 f 186 f 186v f 186v f 187v f 187v f 188 f 188v f 189 f 189 f 189v f 189v f 190 f 190 f 190 f 190v f 190v f 191 f 191 f 191 f 191v f 191v f 191v f 192 f 192 f 193 f 193 f 193v f 193v f 194 f 194 f 194v f 194v f 194v f 195 f 195 f 195 f 195v f 195v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Joseph Glanvill, Sayes Court, 15 Dec. 1670 Matthew Wren, Sayes Court, 2 Jan. 1672# Dennis Gauden, Sayes Court, 2 Jan. 1672# John Dolben, Sayes Court, 17 Feb. 1672* James Hamilton, Sayes Court, 27 April 1671 Edward Thurland, Sayes Court, 3 May 1671 Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 14 July 1671 George Lane, Sayes Court, 17 July 1671 Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 31 Aug. 1672* Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 28 Aug. 1671# Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 14 Nov. 1671# Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 28 Jan. 1672# Anne Sylvius, Sayes Court, 27 July 1672 John Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 29 July 1672 John Durel, Whitehall, 2 Aug. 1672 Robert Holmes, Whitehall, 23 Aug. 1672 Craven Howard, Whitehall, 23 Aug. 1672 Henry Savile, Rochester, 8 Sept. 1672 Henry Hyde, Whitehall, 17 Sept. 1672 John Breton, Sayes Court, 28 Dec. 1672 Thomas Osborne, Whitehall, 2 Jan. 1673# Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 21 June 1673 Dorothy Graham, Sayes Court, 23 June 1673 Thomas Clifford, Sayes Court, 21 Aug. 1673* Henrietta Yarborough, Whitehall, 22 Nov. 1673 Obadiah Walker, London, 22 Dec. 1673 Richard Hunt, Sayes Court, 16 Dec. 1673 Christopher Davenport, Sayes Court, 12 Jan. 1674# Elizabeth Howard, Sayes Court, 21 April 1674 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 17 May 1674 Anne Lewknor, Sayes Court, 17 May 1674 Ralph Bathurst, Sayes Court, 6 June 1674 Margaret Cavendish, Sayes Court, 15 June 1674# Robert Boyle, Sayes Court, 20 June 1674 Meric Casaubon, Sayes Court, 15 July 1674# Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 18 July 1674# John Maynard, Sayes Court, 12 Sept. 1674 Samuel Benson, Sayes Court, 2 Jan. 1676* John Berkeley, Whitehall, 12 Feb. 1676* Robert Vyner, Sayes Court, 26 Feb. 1675 Dorothy Graham, Sayes Court, 16 March 1675# Christian Berkeley, London, 13 April 1676* Ralph Bathurst, Whitehall, 17 Sept. 1675 John Beale, Sayes Court, 25 Nov. 1675

333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376

336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 195v f 196 f 196v f 196v f 197 f 197 f 199 f 199v f 199v f 200 f 200v f 200v f 200v f 200v f 200v f 201 f 201 f 201v f 201v f 201v f 201v f 202 f 202 f 202 f 203 f 203

Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 28 Nov. 1675 John Evelyn Jr, Sayes Court, 31 Jan. 1676 Thomas Butler, Whitehall, 21 Feb. 1676 Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 18 June 1676 Charles Mordaunt, London, 30 June 1676 Margaret Godolphin, Sayes Court, 18 July 1676 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Sayes Court, 16 June 1677# Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 22 June 1677 Henry Bennet, Whitehall, 19 Sept. 1677 Thomas Osborne, London, 18 Dec. 1677 Adam Littleton, Sayes Court, 12 Feb. 1678 Richard Owen, Sayes Court, 11 April 1678 Richard Talbot, Whitehall, 22 June 1678 Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 1678 [after 14 Aug.]# Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 3 Dec. 1678 Flower Hyde, Sayes Court, 21 Feb. 1679 Sidney Godolphin, Whitehall, Feb. 1679 Anne Spencer, n.p., n.d. [March 1679]# Charles Bertie, Whitehall, 15 Feb. 1679 Henry Capel, Sayes Court, 16 Feb. 1679 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 27 Feb. 1679# Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 28 Feb. 1679 Flower Hyde, Sayes Court, 6 March 1679 Sidney Godolphin, London, 12 March 1679 Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 4 April 1679 John Evelyn Jr, n.p., n.d.#

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377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402

380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405

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Z 1

Nicasius Le Fèvre1 Letter I.35 April 4, 1655 f1

Epistle XXXV2 Nicholao Fabro. S.

Facta mihi occasione literas ad Dominum Rousellum3 mittendi non potui pro meo erga te affectu celare desiderium quo teneor vestros labores egregios videndi. Audio It is likely that these Latin letters were part of a larger collection, as their numbering suggests, and as the absence of a title-page or more elaborate heading, such as opens Books II, III, and IV, also implies. Evelyn’s index to the letterbooks (Add 78299: f 165v) lists the addressees of the earlier letters in the sequence. The list includes his father, his brothers Richard and George, John Earle, and his old schoolmaster Edward Snatt. See fig. 7. 1 Nicasius Le Fèvre (c.1610–69; ODNB). He was demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi, Paris (1650) and in England after 1660 when he became professor of chemistry to Charles II (1660), apothecary in ordinary to the royal family (1660), and manager of the laboratory at St James’s Palace. Evelyn had studied chemistry with Le Fèvre in Paris in 1647 and 1651 (see Letter 40). Le Fèvre responded in Add 78316: f 90 (30.7.1655). See also Letter II.14 and letters from Le Fèvre in the archive including Add 78316: f 27 (23.3.1652); f 40 (25.5.1652); f 42 (3.6.1652); f 116 (13.9.1656). See also Taylor, “The Chemical Studies of John Evelyn.” 2 To Nicholaus Faber, greetings When an occasion came about for me to send letters to Master Rousselle, I was not able, on account of my affection towards you, to hide the desire by which I am held to see your excellent labours. I hear that the Course of Lectures on Chemistry has now been published, or at least submitted to the press. As soon as they are printed. I firmly request that you send me a copy. Meanwhile, you can do something that will be greatly appreciated by me, and, on account of your singular kindness, I trust that you will do so. If you remember, my wife was disturbed at one time by a certain impetigo spreading around the middle of her waist, which, indeed an evil, was fortunately cured by you, or at least (for the time being) suppressed. Now, however, it has broken out again. Therefore, I entreat you to explain to us what the remedy was that you applied at that time. We do not easily hope that such prompt and reliable aid can be brought from elsewhere. With this done, you will render me much obliged to you, and similarly you will bring it about that I, who have been well disposed towards your skill for a long time, will admire no less the kindness of your spirit. Farewell. May you greet the most excellent Dr. du Clou with my words. May your affairs prosper, and may you purpose well. From your most faithful friend, farewell. From Sayes Court, April 4. 1655 3 Evelyn’s correspondent is probably Claude Rousselle, a goldsmith, originally from Besançon. He is recorded as in attendance at the marriage of the painter Sebastien Bourdon in 1641, and his goods were confiscated in 1652 on account of his Protestantism. In that year he taught Mary Evelyn enamelling (see Letter 60 and Brune, Dictionnaire des artistes et ouvriers d’art de la Franche Comté [Paris, 1912], 256, and Ponsonailhe, Sébastien Bourdon: Sa vie et son oeuvre [Paris, 1886], 278–80). He is cited in 1653 as having sent Evelyn “a small phiole of his Aurum potabile, with a letter shewing the way of administering it” (Diary III.86). See Letter II.13 and Rousselle’s correspondence with Evelyn (including Add 15948: f 55 and Add 78316: f 47 [22.9.1652]; f 89 [26.7.1655]).

18

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Cursum Chymicarum Prælectionum jam publici juris factum, aut certè prælo subjectum.4 Quarum ut mihi copiam facias, quam primum in lucem proderint, obnixè postulo. Interim aliud mihi gratissimum præstare poteris, et pro singulari tuâ humanitate facturum te confido. Si meministi Uxor me impetigine quâdam circa medium singulum serpente aliquando inquieta facta est, quod quidem malum a te feliciter curatum, aut saltem (pro tempore) suppressum est. Iam verò iterum erumperti occurrendum est. Flagito igitur ut quidnam id fuerit remedii, quod tum temporis adhibuisti, nobis explicare digneris. Non facile promittimus aliunde tam præsens et certum auxilium afferi posse.

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Fig. 7 Add 78299: f 165v (index of Book I) ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved 4 Le Fèvre’s Traicté de la Chymie was not printed until 1660. See also the English translation, A compleat body of chymistry: wherein is contained whatsoever is necessary for the attaining to the curious knowledge of this art (London, 1664).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

19

Hoc facto, me tibi multùm obstrictum reddes, et idem efficies ut qui jamdudum arti tuæ faverim non minus candorem animi mirer. Vale. Salutes meis verbis clarissimum Doctorem du Clou.5 Benè rem geras, et benè velis, Amico tuo integerro benè Vale. Ex ædibus nostris Sayenis. Aprili IV. MDCLV.

Christopher Wase1 Letter I.36 May 5, 1656 f1

Epistle XXXVI2 Christophoro Vaseo. S.

Dolendum esset certè et a me, et ab omnibus quibus tam cari capitis absentia (amissio possem dicere) in pretio est; nisi novi suscepti muneris impendium et a te maximè prius 5 Samuel Cottereau Du Clos (1598–1685). A physician to the king, and, like Le Fèvre both a chemist and a Protestant, and the author of Observations sur les eaux minerales de plusieurs provinces de France (Paris, 1675). 1 Christopher Wase (1627–90; ODNB). Wase was related to Mary Evelyn and had been tutor to Evelyn’s nephew George and William Cavendish, later 1st duke of Devonshire, as well as to William Herbert, eldest son of the earl of Pembroke. From 1655 to 1662 he was headmaster at Dedham Free School, Essex, near Colchester. In 1671, he was named a supervisor of the press at Oxford. 2 To Christopher Wase, greetings It would certainly have been a cause for grief both for me, and for all those for whom the absence (the loss, I should say) of a person so dear is a concern, if the salary of the new position which has been taken up, and which was greatly sought by you previously, had not provided us some small solace. Now indeed you are not able to be diverted by any arguments from your plan, either by me, or still less by your other friends. What should I say? I should say with Terence: May these things turn out well for you, and may whatever you would wish to encounter be fortunate and auspicious. Thus because, at the advent of my Lucretius, you sang so honourably and in such a friendly manner, I easily and more justly turn back praises towards your recent divining. You rightly remember what I was requesting of you as you were departing from Deptford, and, in accordance with your wish, I visited Master Dugdale, a man whom (even if nothing resulted from my inquiry which might give me instruction) I found truly to be consistent with your depiction: learned indeed, and thoroughly civilized in every way. However, time and business got in the way, so that I was less able on that occasion to enjoy my great profit in the desired manner, since the short time I was given ended so quickly. Meanwhile I have sampled the new commentaries on Warwickshire which have now come to light. And how it captivated me, the diligence of this learned man; certainly very much deserving both from our own country and from the whole of our Britain, whose antiquities, hidden away and almost submerged, he has fortunately restored. How I long to gaze in his illustrations upon the monuments of St. Paul’s and the once proud mausoleums, now indeed (a cause for grief!) neglected. From so great a man, and so great a subject, nothing except great things is to be expected. But it had nearly perished. Master Triplet, still relying with great hope that, by the strenuous labours of his friends, the opportunity of carrying out his office would again follow, seems to frustrate all my efforts towards increasing your charge. Nonetheless, if even the smallest opportunity arises, I shall move every stone that you might bring about your wish and my desire. Farewell. From Sayes Court, on the Nones of May, 1656

20

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

expetitum, aliquod nobis solatiolum præbuisset:3 Nunc verò cum nec a me, nedum ab amicis tuis cæteris, ullis argumentis deverti possis à proposito: quid dicam? dicam cum Terrentio – Bene tibi vortat hæc, faustum sit et auspicatum, quicquid obire volueris: Ita quod in Lucretii nostri4 adventum tam honorificè, tamque amicè cecinisti,5 in augurationis nuper tuæ laudes facilè, et major jure retorqueo: Probe meministi quid tibi quidem Deptfordiâ discedenti expetebam; et ego, juxta nutum tuum Dominum Dugdallum6 adii, quem (et si de quæsito meo nihil occurebat, quo me instructionem faceret) hominem verè Tabellæ tuæ respondentem inveni; doctum scilicet et undique perhumanum. Tempus verò et Negotia obstiterunt, quo minus potui occasione istâ majori meo lucro frui, et exoptatam consuetudinem tam brevi momento perficere. VVarvicensis interim Com: [sic] Commentarios nunc luce donatos degustavi;7 et ô quam me rapuit, eruditi hominis industria; sane, optime meritus est et de Patriâ, et de Britanniâ nostra totâ, cujus reconditas et penè summersas antiquitates feliciter recuperavit. Aveo quam plurimum Paulinæ Ædis monumenta, et olim superba Mausolea, nunc verò (preti Dolor!) squalida reliquiæ in ipsius Chartis intueri.8 De tanto Viro, et Argumento, nil nisi magna expectanda. Sed pene exciderat, Dominus Tripletius9 maximâ tandem spe fretus strenuis amicorum auxiliis, se munus exercendi iterum veniam consecuturum, conatus meos omnes ad provinciam tuam augendum, frustrare videtur: si tamen vel minima dabitur occasio, omnem movebo lapidem, ut voti tui, et mei desiderii compos efficiaris. Vale. Ex ædibus Says v. Nonas Maii M.DC.LVI

3 a reference to Wase’s new position as headmaster of Dedham Free School, which he took up after having been tutor to Evelyn’s nephew George; see Letters 56 and 57. 4 Evelyn’s translation of the first book of Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura was published on 12 May 1656. See Diary III.173 and Letter 94. 5 Wase had contributed a dedicatory poem to Evelyn’s Lucretius translation. See An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656), B3. See also Bodleian MS Add. b. 5: f 34v. 6 William Dugdale (1605–86; ODNB). Evelyn records a visit to Dugdale on 6 May (Diary III.171). 7 Evelyn is referring to Dugdale’s The antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated, from records, leiger-books, manuscripts, charters, evidences, tombes, and armes (London, 1656). 8 William Dugdale, The history of St. Pauls Cathedral in London, from its foundation untill these times: extracted out of originall charters. Records. Leiger books, and other manuscripts. Beautified with sundry prospects of the church, figures of tombes, and monuments (London, [1658]; in the 1687 library catalogue). See 158–71 for an account of the ruinous state of the cathedral, which was also used as a stable by Cromwell’s troops in 1648. In a letter to Sir Richard Browne of 18 December 1648, Evelyn notes that soldiers have garrisoned “Paul’s Church, which, with London House, they have made stables for their horses, making plentiful fires with the seats” (Diary [1887], III, 33). 9 Thomas Triplet (1602–70; ODNB). See Letter 100. In 1656, Triplet was the resident teacher in the Dutch embassy.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Christopher Wase Letter I.37 August 4, 1656 f 1v

21

Epistle XXXVII1 Christophoro Vaseo. S

Suffundor certè rubore maximo priùs me literas accepisse tuas quam vel gratias ad te debitas persolvissem, pro tanto in me amoris humanitatisque, specimine, dum in Rure vestro aliquantisper commorabar: Sed ut negotia plurima, quæ me mei esse juris vix finunt, aliquid excusationis consequtura spero; ita post hac, frequentiores et promitto, et fideliter persolvam; neque enim immemortalis beneficii ero; aut tui semper erga me propensique studii. Gratulor quam plurimam tantæ spei Adolescentis tuâ sub tutelâ nuperum adventum. Quid dicam? profecto, non potuit pater, eum locare vel cum doctiore, vel candidiore te in Universo nostro orbe Britannico, qui cum et cultior indies, et eruditior exa[r]surus est, adeoque omnibus numeris absolutus, ut non illi Academia opus erit; siquidem illum vel consummatum magis, vel magies naturis nullus mortalium reddere potest laudo igitur Institum tuum; sed non laudo quæsitum, cum à me tam indocto concilium velis petere: 1 To Christopher Wase, greetings I am filled indeed with the greatest shame that, before I received your letters, I had not even paid the thanks owed to you in return for the great example of love and kindness shown towards me while I was staying for some time at your country home. But as I hope that many items of business, which scarcely allow me to be my own master, will be equal to some sort of excuse, so that after this I promise that I shall give thanks more frequently and faithfully. Nor will I be unmindful of your favours, or of your continual willing devotion towards me. I congratulate to the utmost the recent arrival of a young man of such great promise under your tutelage. What should I say? Indeed, his father could not place him with someone more learned or more upright than you in the whole of Britain, with whom he will blaze out more cultured and more learned day by day, to the extent that, once he is fully developed in all subjects, there will be no need for him of the academy. Since no mortal is able to render him either more perfect, or more distinguished, I therefore praise your instruction, but I do not praise your inquiry, since you wish to seek advice from me who am so unlearned. And it is far from the case, my dearest Wase, that a teacher should expect anything from a pupil, except the free acknowledgement of divine favour accepted. I hope to send you the third book of Lucretius, translated by me into the vernacular, or at least offer it, around Advent. Meanwhile I shall never release you from your promise about the history of libraries, since from so great a burden, which presses on me heavier than Etna, I will have been relieved by your friendship towards me, nor, I am certain, will you flee from the labour, for I have acquired such great faith in your kindness, that there is nothing I would not be completely confident that I would receive from you. Perhaps I am excessively bold; but I shall love to display my impudence. You know the unscrupulousness of the printer (I should almost have said the shamelessness of Thomas Triplet) which drives me entirely unwilling to this second edition. But I deafen you excessively. Farewell, dearest one. My wife greets you most humbly. I implore that you should greet your guest, the good old man, and may God favour all your prayers. While I write these things, behold! My dearest wife comes to your region with the newlyweds, our neighbours and relatives, the Tukes, either for the sake of delighting the heart, or that she might humour them. You ought to receive these things from her also, for it is among the instructions that, as soon as she reaches Colchester, she will send a message to you. Perhaps you will not consider it unworthy to visit her, because she will show more of my excellent love towards you. Farewell again, and love us. From Sayes Court, four days before the kalends of August

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tantumque abest mi charissimus Vase ut Magister à Discipulo, præter ingenuum confessionem divini beneficii accepti, quicquam expectare debeat. Lucretii librum tertium a me Vernaculâ lingua conversum circa Domini Adventum spero ad te mittere vel saltem deferre:2 Interim a promisso tuo de Bibliothecarum historiâ nunquam liberabo te;3 cum a tanto onere quod Ætna gravius mihi incumbit, tua erga me amicitia levatus fuero; neque laborem refugies certus scio, tantum enim charitatis vestræ fiduciam cepi, ut nihil non à te me impetraturum planè confidam. Audax fortasse nimis sum; sed patere amabo ἀναίδειαν meam. Nostri Typographi Improbitatem (pene T. T. dixissem negligentiam)4 quæ me ad hanc secundam editionem invitum omnino impulet. Sed ego nimis te obtundo. Vale Charissime. Uxor mea te humillime salutat; salutas observo hospitem tuum, bonum senem, Deusque tua omnia vota secundet. – Hæc dum scribo, ecce Conjux mea charissima cum Nuptis nuperis affinibusque nostris et propinquis Tukeis vel animi oblectandi gratiâ! vel, ut morem illis gerat, in vestras venit partes,5 à qua et has debes recipere, nam in mandatis est, ut statim atque nacta fuerit Colchestriam Nuntium ad te mitteret. Eam fortasse non dedignaberis visitare, quia et plura de summo meo erga te amore tibi explicabit. Vale iterum, et nos ama. Ex ædibus nostris Sayinis. IV. Kal. Augusti: MDC.LVI

Jasper Needham1 Letter I.38 November 22, 1657 f2

Epistle XXXVIII Gasparro Needhamo. S. M.D.

[Although this letter has been entirely crossed out, it is possible to make out that it is 2 Evelyn only published the first book of his translation. Books III–VI exist in manuscript (Add 78354–6). See John Evelyn’s Translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De rerum natura, ed. Repetzki. 3 The project Evelyn refers to cannot be identified. It may be, however, that some of this research was used in his Considerations concerning free-schools, as settled in England ([Oxford], 1678). 4 Evelyn alludes to what he felt was Thomas Triplet’s negligence in seeing his edition of Lucretius through the press. See Letter 109. 5 George Tuke, cousin of Mary Evelyn and elder brother of Evelyn’s close friend Samuel Tuke, had married Mary Fountaine, née Papillon on 5 July 1656 (Diary III.181). Mary accompanied them on a visit to Essex in September (182) and would have been near Dedham, where Wase’s school was located. 1 Jasper Needham (c.1623–79: Diary, M). A close friend, Needham was MD (Cambridge) 1657; fellow of the Royal Society 1661; and fellow of the College of Physicians 1668, and a frequent correspondent, both during Evelyn’s time in France and after his return. Needham is the most frequently addressed correspondent in the index to the Latin letters (Add 78299: f 165v; fig. 7).

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23

partly about Evelyn’s Lucretius edition. Needham was in France with Benjamin Maddox, after having returned from France in June 1656.]2

Bernard Martin Berenclow1 Letter I.39 May 8, 1659 f2

Epistle XXXIX2 Dr. Berenclow M.D. S.

Binas a te dudum accepi, ex quibus speratum peregrinationis tuum successum grato animo intellexi, literasque nostras ad Baronem Ducæum3 commendalitias, supervacuas non 2 See Letter 97 and Diary III.175. See also Evelyn’s letters of introduction for Needham to Abraham Bosse and Alexandre du Guernier (II.15–16). 1 Bernard Martin Berenclow, the father-in-law of Humphrey Wanley’s wife, whom he married after the death of her first husband, Bernard Martin Berenclow, the musician. Wanley says of his wife’s fatherin-law: “Dr. Berenclow was born in the duchy of Holstein near Toninghen; his mother was a Berchem, a family sufficiently eminent both in the Upper and Nether Germany. He married Katherine, one of the daughters of Mr. Laneir, clerk of the closet to king Charles the First. He was professor of physic in the university of Padua, and practised with success and reputation in Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Flanders, and England. And notwithstanding his frequent journeys and removals, died rich in ready money, jewels, plate, pictures, drawings, &c. of great price and curiosity; which his widow, notwithstanding (by true pains-taking) made a shift to overcome, and utterly squander away in about five years after his decease.” Cited in Hawkins, General History of the Science and Practice of Music (London, 1853), II, 653. Evelyn is replying to Berenclow’s Latin letters, Add 78316: f 169 (April 1659) and f 171 (1.5.1659). Berenclow was a frequent correspondent of Evelyn’s, sometimes in connection with buying and selling works of art, although he is unmentioned in the diary. 2 To Dr Berenclow, greetings A little while ago I received two letters from you, from which I have learned with grateful heart of the hoped for success of your travel, and that our letters of recommendation to Baron Ducie were not in vain, although you have no need of our testimonials, since you have in you qualities which, since they are known to all, they will judge to be a better introduction than any letter. [Nothing, however, will be more pleasing to me than that you should fulfill this duty for Sir Gabriel Lowe also, as soon as it happens that we see the most excellent Lady Cotton, which you can expect soon. Meanwhile, it grieves me not a little that I have no Bristolian acquaintance, to whose friendship I could open the door for you. But you yourself will bring this about by the outstanding endowments of your mind without our help. But lest it should escape us, that old man from the Isle of Wight fell upon me in that very moment when he was already prepared and was thinking about departure. I asked him to write to you, and I did this so that you might know that no opportunity passes me by in which I am able to make you certain that I remember you. Here, everything is held in indifference by the powers that be – this belongs to the retribution of the most just Lord, and certainly it is marvelous in our eyes; but I have seen this storm from the watchtower, and may God bring better things here. Because hope is the work of prayer. Farewell. From Sayes Court, eight days before the Ides of May, 1659 3 Sir William Ducie, Viscount Downe (c.1615–79). He bought Charlton House from Henry Newton, husband of Evelyn’s friend Elizabeth Puckering, in 1657. He had an important art collection (Diary II. 549–50).

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fuisse, tametsi, nostris elogiis tu non egeas quum habeas in te, quas, quum omnibus nota fuerint συστατικώτερα πάσης ἐπιστολη˜ς esse judicabunt; nihil tamen mihi jucundius erit, quam vel hoc officium et equiti Gabriel Lowe4 tibi præstare, quam primam lectissimam Dominam Cottonum videre nobis contigerit, quod et brevi expectare poteris.5 Interim, haud mediocritum dolet, quod apud Bristolianum Consuetudinem nullam habeam, ad cujus amicitiam portam tibi aperirem:6 Sed in ipse hoc efficies insignibus animi tui dotibus sine adjutorio nostro. Sed ne nos effugeret: Oppressit me in isto momento, Senex iste de Insula Vectis, quam jam esset in procintu, et de profectione cogitaret: ut ad te brevi scriberet, illum rogavi; atque, hoc feci, ut scires, me nullam occasionem præterire, in qua possum tibi fidem facere, me meminisse tui. Quod omnia susque déque feruntur hic apud magnales etc. – justissimi Domini retributonis est; et certe, mirabile in oculis nostris; sed ego procul tempestatem hanc de specula prospexi, et Deus ad huc meliora. Quod εύχη˜ς ἡ ἐλπίδος ἔργον ἔσ[τ]ιν. Vale. Ex Ædibibus nostris Sayinis: VIII Idib. Mayas, M.DC. LIX.

4 Sir Gabriel Lowe (1618–1704), who was distantly related to Evelyn. Evelyn’s elder brother George had married as his second wife Mary Cotton, née Offley, whose mother was the daughter of Sir Thomas Lowe, lord mayor of London (1604–5). 5 Mary Cotton (d. 1664), whose title came from her first husband, Sir John Cotton (see Diary II.537, n. 2). 6 Berenclow was based in Bristol for much of this period.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Christopher Wase Letter I.40 February 2, 1663 f 2v

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Epistle XL1 Christophero Waseo. S.

Mitto tibi Tukii nostri Comediam, [LM: being his play cald The Adventure of five houres]2 quæ sexcenties feliciter in scenam prolata, Amici quotquot omnes, et Auditores, ut publici juris fit facto summopere expetunt: quo nitore, quâ gratiâ, quibus denique elogiis effulsit (adeo ut Editionem haud vereatur), nostri satis; sæculi tamen huius livorem, pravorumque hominum dicacitatem haud ignoras; Orat itaque quod et Ego ejus nomine obnixe precor, ut eo quo polleas iudicio, eâ styli Elegantiâ, et arte Pöema hoc diligenter perlustrares; non ut illud officiosè (quod moris est) probares, sed ut severè potius propter Amicitiam examinares, interpolares; et quoties Res id, aut materia postulaverit, Spongiæ tuæ haud peperceris; Nostrorum enim omnium partes agit, nec fas est, ut quod judicii tui folio submittatur, inanimadversam vacuumque rediret: Fac igitur ut ultimam manum (nostroque Apelle dignam) in Tabulam hanc imponas, qua tuâ inspectione, nostroque ad summum Amicum affectu digna evadens, prodeat in lucem: Quod si Suffragialia tua Carmina insuper addideris, gratissimè meritus sis, et Coronidem imposueris.3 Vale. Ex ædibus Sayinis: 2 Februarii 1662/3

1 This letter is partially cancelled, and is not entirely legible. To Christopher Wase, greetings I send to you the comedy of our Tuke which has been produced successfully on the stage sixty times, and all his friends, however many they are, and the audience, wish very much that it should be published. That it shone forth with such elegance, such charm, and finally with such maxims that he would not fear publication was justification enough for us. You are not unaware of the envy of this age and the raillery of wicked men. He begs therefore, and I strongly entreat in his name, that you should diligently examine this poem with that judgment in which you are proficient, and with that elegance of style, and with skill, not so that you might officiously (as is the fashion) approve it, but so that you might examine it strictly on account of friendship, and emend it; and as often as the matter or the occasion demands, you should not spare your sponge. For it carries out the duties of us all, and it is not right that those pages submitted to your judgment should return unnoticed and empty. Bring it about, therefore, that you might place the finishing touches (worthy of our Apelles) on the play, which leaving your inspection might come to the light worthy of our affection towards the best of friends. But if moreover you would add your applause to the poem, you would be deserving of the greatest gratitude, and you would have crowned the achievement. Farewell. From Sayes Court February 2, 1662/63 2 Samuel Tuke, The adventures of five hours. See Letters 201 and 209. 3 An invitation to Wase to contribute a dedicatory poem, which was included in the second edition, The adventures of five hours (London, 1664), a1v–a2

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Edward Richards1 Letter I.41 January 9, 1664 f 2v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XLI2 Edwardo Riciardo S.

Literas tuas, perquam humanas (Juvenis erudite) cum voluptate perlegi tum quòd ex illis valetudinis tuæ certior sim factus: tum etiam quòd constet te ad bonas Artes literásque grassavi, et in dies anhëlare. Adenim quod in Laudes meas calamum illum per se felicem, et egregiè institutum permittere, incitare, et enixius effundere volueris, vel plane reprehendo, vel hactenus laudo, ut fecundi ingenii luxuriam, quam dies si minus recidat, saltem ad optima quæque dignis præconiis celebranda aliquando transferet. Interim tibi dictum audi; Scena manet dotes grandis, amice, tuas.3 Tantum ætatem fugitivam, ut facis, retrahas, et animum, dum vacat, optimis studiis instruas atque exornos: imò jam nunc mente culmen illud præcipias quò te perventurum, nisi tute tibi defueris, non temere coniicis Fautor his studiocissimus Ex ædibus Sayinis 9 Januarii 63/4

1 The Richards of Yaverland in the Isle of Wight were doubly related to Evelyn on his mother’s side. (Diary II.22, n. 1). Elizabeth Hungerford was the second wife of Sir John Richards (d.1626). Her elder son Edward was Lord of the Manor of Yaverland when Evelyn visited it in 1638. The Edward of this letter is probably his son. 2 Evelyn is replying to Richards’ Latin letter of 23 December (Add 78317: f 39 [23.12.1663]). This letter had a large X written across it, but is still legible. To Edward Richards, greetings I read your extremely refined letters (learned young man) with pleasure, as much because I was made more certain from them of your good health, as because it is evident that you are proceeding towards liberal arts and literature, and are eagerly striving every day. As to the fact that you are willing to permit, encourage and zealously pour forth that pen, fortunate in itself and excellently taught, in praise of me, I either completely reprehend, or praise insofar as it may at some time transfer the luxury of a fertile intellect, if time should not reduce it, at least to the best things, or to those which are to be celebrated with worthy proclamations. Meanwhile I give you a saying: “A great stage awaits your talents, friend.” You should draw back your fleeing age, as you are doing, and while there is time, you should instruct and adorn your mind with the best studies. Even now you should not think it rash for you to anticipate in your mind that summit whither you will arrive, if you do not neglect yourself. Your most eager supporter. From Sayes Court 9 January, 1663/64 3 “A great stage awaits your talents, friend.” Ovid, Tristia 1.9.48 (Wheeler, trans.)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Berkeley1 Letter I.42 1675#2 f3

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Epistle XLII3 D.D. Baroni de Berkeley etc. Ad Regem Christianissimum Legatum Extraordinarium4

Letterà Excellentiae Vestrae utroque Idiomate exarte tardè, sed tandem vero ad manus pervenerunt: Miror equidem scribendi facultatem tam cultè, tamque comiter, post talem 1 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1607–78; ODNB). Evelyn was Berkeley’s agent during his embassy (Diary IV.77–8) and corresponded frequently. Evelyn’s correspondence with Berkeley and his wife is in Add 78308. He offers another perspective on this experience in Letter 596. 2 This letter is not easy to date. The so-called Great Fire of Southwark was 26 May 1676. The letter, reflecting concern for Lord Berkeley’s health, seems likely to have been written after Berkeley’s attack of apoplexy on 27 October 1675 (Diary IV.77). In any case, there would have been no need for Evelyn to send him London news until the following year as Berkeley did not leave Dover until 14 November 1675 (79). 3 To Baron Berkeley Ambassador Extraordinary to the Most Christian King [i.e., Louis XIV] The letters of Your Excellency set down in both languages have slowly but finally truly reached my hands. I am amazed indeed at the ease with which he writes in such a cultivated, such an elegant fashion, after such inactivity, and after being tangled up in such important matters of business, were not the excellent and illustrious talent of Your Excellency known to me, a talent which has never succumbed to age. Indeed nature herself arranged the life of man in this way, that the first age might be assigned to language, the middle to eloquence, and the last to employment and common advantage. But, that the individual things come together in one man is a thing entirely worthy of amazement. From so great an envoy, so skilled and so prudent, and in such important matters of business, by a multi-faceted experience of matters, not so much growing old as becoming fully knowledgeable, what more fortunate outcome is to be hoped for! I certainly congratulate the worth of Your Excellency, and the wisdom of his Royal Majesty, that has chosen so great a man, from whose favourable prudence we trust everything will proceed felicitously, since in place of the olive of peace (how much hoped for, and as though descended from heaven) he will bear in a short time the crown of Eternal Life you will merit, with the help of Great God the Highest having been called upon, without whom all human industry is wasted. There is nothing new (Illustrious Lord) with which I would be able to repay Your Excellency equally in turn, since for one looking back from afar nothing is new. Your Excellency shows us, by marvellous art, as in a mirror, a summary of things to be done in lands across the sea, which struggle wretchedly everywhere. I would wish that from here it might be allowed to bestow something better, since with another conflagration, I say with foreboding, a great part of Southwark has been consumed, and lies buried in ashes. What should I say? An angry God still has the strength to compel us, still not noticing so many opportunities, into the lesson of amending our lives. But I am unwilling, my Lord, to dwell upon these things for longer, since I confess that I owe so much to Your Excellency on account of his great kindness towards me and mine that never by words but, I should wish, assuredly by deeds, shall I be able to imitate him. Goodbye, most illustrious Lord, and may Great God the Highest preserve you unharmed, and may he grant at some time a favourable return. Meanwhile, what the situation is with Your Excellency, I have given in more words more ample, in accordance with my habit, than it would be suitable to express here, and so that I might avoid the weariness of repetition, I make an end. London Berkeley House 1675 4 Berkeley had been appointed an English ambassador to the peace negotiations at Nijmegen, but did not receive his commission to go as ambassador extraordinary to France until 17 October 1675. He was in

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desuetudinem tantisque negotiis implicatum, nisi eximium Excellentiae Vestrae Ingenium atque illustre nobis innotesceret, quod ævo nunquam succumbit. Natura quidem ipsa hominis vitam ita dispertivit, ut prima ætas linguæ, media Eloquentiæ, postrema usui, et communi utilitati tribueretur; sed ut singula in uno convenirent, res plane stupenda est: A tale legato, adeo instructo, tamque prudenti, et in summis negotiis, multiplicique rerum peritiâ, non tam consenescente, quam pernoscente, quid non felicioris exitus sperandum! Gratulor certe si Excellentiae Vestrae Dignitatem, et Regiæ Majestatis sapientiam, quod talem Virum elegerit, a cui, prudentia fausta, felici atque omnia expedire confidimus, cum pro Olivâ Pacis (quam optatam, et tanquam Coelo delapsum) brevi afferet Vitae Eternae5 coronidem mereberis, Deum Optimum Maximum implorato auxilio sine quo, irrita est omnis humana industria. Nihil hic novæ res (Illustre Domine) quibus Excellentiam Vestram vices æque rependerem, cum tam eminus p[r]ospicienti nihil novum. Breviarium rerum agendarum transmarinis in oris, undiquæque misère conflictantibus, tanquam speculo miro artificio nobis præbuit[.] Excellentia Vestra Optarem ut hinc aliquid melius impertire liceat, quandoquidem iterata Conflagratione, magna Southwarkiæ pars dico omine consumpta, cineribusque sepulta jacet:6 Quid dicam? Iratus Deus, nec adhuc tot animadvertendos occasiones nos in emendationis vitæ disciplinam coercere valet: Sed nolo Domine, his diutius immorari, quippe pro summâ et in me, et meos humanitate, tantum me debere fateor Excellentiae Vestrae ut nunquam verbis, factis utique optarem, consequi potero. Vale, Illustrissime Domine Deumque Optimum Maximum incolumen servet, felicemque reditum aliquando concedat: Rerum interim Excellentia Vestra quis fit status, amplioribus verbis, et pro mane meo, dedi, quam hic fas fit exprimere, itaque ut repetendi tædium vitarem, finem impono: Londinium IX Ædibus Berkeleanis 1675

France from November 1675 until October 1676 when he proceeded to the peace conference. He was accompanied to France by Margaret Godolphin and John Evelyn Jr. 5 abbreviated V.E. in the manuscript, in contrast to the abbreviated address E.V. (Excellentia Vestra) 6 The “Great Fire of Southwark” began on 26 May 1676, and burned for seventeen hours, destroying five hundred houses.

EI EPISTOLARUM LIBER SECUNDUS

Mr Borgi1 Letter II.1 November 26, 1644 f 23

Epistle I.2 Al Signor Borgi.

Molto Reverendo Mio Signore Da che mi son partito di Fiorenza, ho esperimentato la Città di Roma esser cosi approportionata all mio Genio, che non mi posso indurne a volerme licentiare da quà cosi presto come vorrei: E per tanto hara mi scuso a lei, per non haver corrisposto alla mia promessa; imperoche stimo di dover qui passar l’inverno.3 In quanto a quelle statue,4 si sarranno finite, Ecco che con questo Signore Jo mando il danaro, e la prego caldamente di procurare con ogni diligenza che siano rinchiuse in alcune Scatole, che lo possino conservare da’ogni pericole di rompersi nel camino; e cosi rinchiuse, la pregaro di consegnarle

1 possibly “Vincetio Brocchi” from whom he purchased statues in Florence. See below note 4. 2 To Mr Borgi My Most Reverend Sir, Since I have departed from Florence, I have found the city of Rome to be so in harmony with my mind that I cannot bring myself to wish to turn away from here as soon as I would like. And for this reason I must excuse myself to you, for not having lived up to my promise; as a result, I expect to have to pass the winter here. Regarding those statues: if they are finished, note that with this gentleman I send the money, and I warmly beg you to ensure – with every diligence – that they be enclosed in several boxes, in order that they may be preserved from any danger of being broken on the road. And thus enclosed, I will beg you to deliver them to Miss Anna. She will look after them, along with the other things that I have left in her hands, until I write to her again. In the meantime, if you, Sir, should turn up any gallantries of crystal, or mosaic, I hope that we will see each other in the spring. At this time I cannot assure you of my return. For now, begging you to excuse me for the inconvenience, I kiss your hands, most Illustrious Sir. Your humble Servant, J.E. From Rome, November 26, 1644 3 Evelyn arrived in Rome on 4 November 1644 and remained there until 18 May 1645, except for an excursion to Naples in February (Diary II.212–406). 4 Evelyn records that on his visit to Florence in October, he had “bespoke 4. rare small statues of stucci made onely by that rare Artist Vincetio Brocchi” (Diary II.198). In describing his return to Florence in May 1645, he adds that Brocchi “makes those small statues in Plaster & Pastboard which so resemble Coper, that till one handles them they cannot be distinguishd” (Diary II.417). These statues are probably the “statues of Florence representing Hercules & ye Centaur” mentioned in a 1702 inventory of Wotton. See Radcliffe and Thornton. “Evelyn’s Cabinet,” 257.

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alla Signora Anna.5 La quale ne ferrà cura di quelle, con l’altere cose che ho lasciate in man’sua, in fino che ’io di nuovo scrivero ad Essa. In quest mentre, se Vostro Signore capitarà in qualche Galanteria di christallo, o Mosaico, Jo spero che ci videremo alla prima vera. In fino all’hora, non posso accertarla del mio ritorno. In tanto pregandola di havermi scusato per l’incommodo gle bacio le mani Del Vostro Signore Molto Illustre humile Servitore J.E. Da Roma Li 26. di Novembre 1644.

Robert Heath1 Letter II.2 March 18, 1645* f 23r–v

Epistle II.2 Al Signore Roberto Heatho.

Il nostro silentio fin hora è stato tanto prolisso, quanto è longa da di Adanza di Luoghi che è tra di noi; ma stando l’obligo che à lei tengo di renderli conto del mio esser, in 5 Anna Barettier. In Add 78315: f 49 (4.4.1645) she says, “for your figures, I shal send them tomorow to Ligorne.” 1 Robert Heath (b. c.1620; Diary, V). He was a schoolfellow of Evelyn in Lewes, and was admitted as fellow-commoner to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1638. See also Letters 23, 153, and 154 and his poem “On Travel to R. Heath Esq.,” included in his manuscript verse miscellany (Add 78357: f 17r–v). 2 To Mr Robert Heath Our silence until now has been so prolonged that it is as lengthy as the distance between the places separating us. But, given the obligation I have to tell you about my state of being – in whatever land or language I find myself – I would rather dare offend you, Most Illustrious Sir, with the roughness of my pen than with the absence of my debt to you. My language will easily enable you to perceive that I have changed climes and feasted my curiousity upon the sight of many vanities; you will see the ruins of Roman splendour. Truly, in my opinion, you (if you found yourself here) would say that where one sees such noble footsteps it is as though at one time they were the most beautiful face of things, if one is permitted to adduce the whole from the part. You, Illustrious Sir, have always been a great friend of poets, nor less intimate with the most famous orators. But you would feel a different pleasure were you to find yourself here, at one moment in the Gardens of Mæcenas and at another with Cicero on the Capitoline Hill. The remains of the baths, the Column of Julius [Cæsar], the amphitheatres and the triumphal arches would be able to impress upon your soul some idea of the height of the other edifices that here adorn this distillate of human greatness. But enough of Rome; it is not accepted enough to be named in England. The furthest limits of my travels in Italy were to famous Naples, where I lamented my Ne plus Ultra and where with little travail I enjoyed the pleasant view of the Elisian Fields, as Aeneas had done before me. I entered the Cave of the Cumæan Sybil; I did not disturb with my hand a single leaf among those on which she (surprised by divine madness) alone could scribble. Then this: to a Cerberus I offered a bone most deadly to him, in the Cave of the Dog; and after having seen with horror Avernus and Mount Vesuvius (frightening, truly a spectacle) we moved on to the pleasantest beaches of the bays, visiting all the places named in the fourth book of the travels of our own George Sandys (where you will be able to read more fully the tale of those places that to me were only permitted the briefest of time). Finally, I returned by way of Lavinia,

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q­ ualunque terra, o lengua che mi trovo, Io più tosto pigliarò ardir di offender Vostro Signore Illustrissimo con la ruvidezza del mio stylo, che con la mancanza del debito mio verso di lei. Il mio Linguaggio mi darrà facilmente ad intender, che habbi mutato clima, e pasciuto la Curiosità con veder molte Vanità. Mirai li avanzi della Romana magnificenza.3 In vero a mio creder lei (se qui se trovasse) direbbe che ove si veggono pedate si nobili, fosse etiandio un tempo, bellissima facia di cose; se è lecito l’argumentar dalla parte al tutto. Vostro Signore Illustrissimo è stata sempre mai Amicissimo de i poëti, ne meno intrinseco a li Oratori più celebri. Ma sentirebbe altro gusto, se qui presenta si trovasse, Hora nelli, Horti Mecæna, et hora con Cicerone nel Campidolio. I vestigij delli Bagni, Colonne Gulia, Amfiteatri, Archi-Triumfali poterebbero imprimere nell animo vostro un’Ideä della Altezza delli altri edificij che quà abbelirono questo ristretto della grandezza humane. Ma questo bastera di Roma, che non è cosi accetata di esser mentione in Inghilterra. L’ultimi confini delle miei viaggi fu, In Italia, la famosa Napoli, ove piantai il mio Ne plus Ultra 4 and drank to your health in Salerno, passing through innumerable places in order to satisfy my curiousity. Whatever happiness I may have enjoyed was due, Illustrious Sir, to your companionship which, though absent from me in body, was nonetheless always most present in my soul. But to what end do I give you such a long essay of my vanity? You in your house can benefit from all these sights, and with much less expenditure and danger. Not all of us are ruled by Mercury. No, you are of a stronger constitution that does not otherwise require these alterations of the sky. But, between us, we understand each other: They change their clime, not their mind, who rush across the sea. I do not know, however, what benefit the place where one remains adds to every person’s mind, [whereas] I do know how erudite would be the superlative pleasure you would take [from being] in these regions — superlative to [that of] so many others, just as [you are superior] in erudition. But now, let us end it. I still claim to write a letter and not tales of travels. Until now I have not determined where I shall direct myself after my departure from Italy. I will do as will be counseled by the continuation or dissipation of these Boreal winds in England, which I cannot mention without sighing. I therefore find myself much apart, and my little boat sails better in a peaceful sea. God knows what welcome will be made me by my homeland, and whether she might not be so harsh as to wish not to recognize her absent sons, showing herself to be so cruel towards those who are [in her arms]. Oh, the madness of people! I cannot truly form the concept of ever having tasted true happiness, since we have not wanted to recognize it — not even now, in order to repent of our own ignorance. But with good will I will pass by this subject, because the pen is trembling in my hand while I am writing about this. But my dearest and most Illustrious Sir, I wanted to send you this portrait of my current condition. When I change sojourns I will demonstrate to you that I have not changed friends. Thoughts of peace will have me thinking about my return, and until then – [along] with a remembrance to pay my respects to all our friends – I kiss your hands with the greatest affection. Go with God. From Rome, March 18, 1644 3 De Beer discusses Evelyn’s sources for his descriptions of monuments in Diary I.85–90 and II.569–79. See also John Evelyn in Naples, and Chaney, The Grand Tour and the Great Rebellion. Evelyn took some pains to document his experience of Italy and his developing awareness of ancient art. He commissioned a drawing from Carlo Maratti of the triumph of Vespasian as depicted on the Arch of Titus (Plate 2), and subsequently turned drawings he had made on his trip to Naples (Plate 1) into a series of six etchings dedicated to his travelling companion Thomas Henshaw (Plate 3). 4 “Nor more beyond.” Inscribed on the Pillars of Hercules, as marking the limit of the known world. Evelyn arrived in Naples on 31 January, and refers to it as “the Non ultra of my Travells” (Diary II.354). This was also the occasion of the composition of an ode, included in censored form in the diary (354–5), and printed in The State of France (London, 1652), B6r–v. See John Evelyn in Naples.

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e dove con minor travaglio godei l’amena vista delli campi Elisëi, di quel che fece gia Ænëa. Entrai nel Antro della Sybilla Cumana, non mi palpito nel’mani alcun’ foglio di quelli che’ essa (sorpresa da divine furore) schiccherare solena: gesto si che ad un Cerbero porgessi un’ossa a lui funesta, nella grotta del Cane; e doppo haver veduto con horrore l’Averno, et il Monte Vesuvio (spaventoso in vero spattacolo) Varcassimo alli amænissime piaggie delle Baie, visitando tutti quei luoghi rinomati nel quatro libro delli viaggi di George Sandys nostro;5 ove lei potrà più ampiamente leggere il racconto di quelle che a me permette la brevità del tempo. Finalmente, ritornai per Lavinia, è bebbi all’Sanita di Vostro Signore Illustrissimo in Salerno scorsando luogi innumerabili por sodisfare alla curiosità. Qual felicità Jo godëi fu con compagna di Vostro Signore Illustrissimo la quale se ben in quanto al corpo à me assente; nondimeno da per tutto nel animo sempre mi fù presentissimo. Ma à che fin, do à lei si gran saggio della mia Vanità? Lei in Casa sua puo fruire tutti questi spettacoli, e con multo minore spesa e pericolo. Non tutti sono dominati da Mercurio. No, lei è di più soda tempra, che non richiede altrimenti queste mutationi di Cielo: ma, fra di nos, s’intendiamoci cælum, non Animum mutant qui trans Mare currit.6

Però, il luogo ove si dimora aggiunge non so che da Vantaggio al Genio d’ognuno, et io so quanto erudito sarebbe il gusto superiore che lei pigliarebbe in queste contrade, se come en eruditione e superiore a tanti altri. Ma hormai finiamolo; Io pretendo già di scriver una lettera e non racconti di viaggi: Ove mi indrizzero nella mia partita d’Italia, per ancora, non ho stabilito. Farà come verrò consigliato dalla continuatione o deleguatione di queste Boralche in Inghiterra, la quale non posso mentionare senza sospiri. Io mi trouo indi molto discosto, e la mia Navicella velaggia meglio in un pacifico Mare. Dio lo sa, qual accoglienza mi si faranno nella mi patria; e se quella non sarà tanto sovera di non voler ricognoscere li suoi figlio assenti mostrandosi così crudele verso quelli che li sono in braccia. O pazzia della gente! non posso veramente, non formar il concetto d’ averci mai goduta vera felicità, gia che non habiamo voluto ricognoscerla, ne meno al presente ravederci della nostra ignoranza. Ma di buona voglia, faro passaggio da questo soggetto, perche mi trema la penna in mano; mentre che sto per scriverne di quello: Ma Signor mio Charissimo e molto Illustrissimo Io’ ho voluto inviarlo questo ritratto della mia presente conditione: Quando cangierò seggiorno, li darò di vedere, di non haver cangiato amico: Pensieri di pace mi faranno pensare al ritorno, e fin hora, con la ricordanza delli miei ossequij a tutti i nostri Amici, la bacio con ogni maggior affeto le mani. Adio. Da Roma. 18: Marzo: 1644.

5 George Sandys, A relation of a iourney begun an: Dom: 1610. Foure bookes. Containing a description of the Turkish Empire, of Ægypt, of the Holy Land, of the remote parts of Italy, and ilands adioyning (London, 1610; Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists the 1637 edition). See Diary II.578–9. 6 “They change their clime, not their mind, who rush across the sea.” Horace, Epistulae 1.11.27 (Fairclough, trans.)

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Plate 1 © Trustees of the British Museum

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George Rogers1 Letter II.3 June 14, 1645* f 24

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle III.2 Al Signore Rugiero

Le stravaganze di Padova3 sono ben attraversate da le avvedimento e prudenza de Governatori. Manca la robba, e anco i ladri perche alcuni sono gia presi. Se Vostro Signore Illustrissimo non se deletta di studiar troppo la notte (cosa contra la Sanitá) puo venir senza pericolo. Cosi stanno le cose per adesso, e questi sono i mei avvisi, ed ella non ha servidore che più appassionamente desidera la sua compagnia di me. Vero è i miei amici son partiti; ma non tutti, perche Vostro Signore Illustrissimo rimane sempre in Italia, e li pensieri non i quali me godo de la sua persona, me n’accompagniano, che non resto solo. Quand a Vostro Signore Illustrissimo piaccia, impiegare la sua penna in una sugetto tanto indegno puo scriver al suo servidore. Ma Vostro Signore si duole perche m’ama, da questo mi rincresce, ed haverei più da lamentarmi se non meritassi meglio. Aspetto la sua Esplicatione, e viva felice. Adio Padova. 14 Gunio 1655 [sic]

1 George Rogers (1618?–97; ODNB and Diary), who received his BA (Oxford) in 1638, MA in 1641 and BM in 1642. He was elected consul for the English nation in Padua in 1645 and received his MD from the university in 1646. See Evelyn’s commemorative poem on the occasion (Add 78357: f 4). 2 To Mr Rogers The extravagances of Padua are well tempered by the vigilance and prudence of the governors. Goods are lacking, as are thieves, since some are already taken. If you, Most Illustrious Sir, did not delight in studying too much at night (which is counter to [good] health) you could come without danger. This is how things stand for now, and this is my advice. And she [health] has no servant who more passionately desires her company than me. It is true that my friends have departed, but not all, since you, Sir, still remain in Italy. And these thoughts (though not those I enjoy from [the presence of] your person), accompany me so that I do not remain alone. When it is pleasing to you, Sir, to engage your pen in a subject so unworthy, you may write to your servant. But if you, Sir, regret that you love me, for this I am sorry – and would have more to complain of, if I did not deserve better. I await your explanation, and live happy. Go with God. Padua, June 14, 1655 3 Evelyn travelled from Venice to Padua for the celebration of the feast day of St Anthony of Padua (Diary II.452).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Bartholin1 Letter II.4 September 5, 1645 f 24

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Epistle IV.2 Al Signore Dottore Bartholino

La più parte de gli huomini è gattiva, donde questi tristi effetti resorgano, manca la verità di tutti i nostri avvisi; perche manca la Carità. Pur le Novelle d’Inghilterra, quest’ ultima settimana passata non ha produtto verune, il che mi fa credere che le Cose vanno male della parte del Ré– e quest’osservatione ne ho falta dal principio delle nostre disturbanze. Domane esspeltaremo qualche particolarità; ed Jo non mancero di communicare à Vostro Signore Eccellentissimo quel’che ne sento. Per il resto. Questa matina ha ben confirmata le sue pensieri, e m’ha falta recordare della stagione già soppravenute, e del provisione proprie per il tempo. Il sole del Inverno è un’ buon Fuoco, questa per l’Esterno è l’anima del Corpo: è quel liquido Ornamento delle Cantine per l’interna: di questi duoi, ne farò ben provedere; ed so non darrò più fastidio a Vostro Signore Eccellentissimo che a desiderar’ il godimento de la sua persona, e staremo alegramente. A Dio. Di Vinetia 5 Settembre: 1645.

1 probably Thomas Bartholin (1616–80) who was in Padua and Venice in 1643–5, when he was a student of Johnann Vesling and consul to the German nation at the university. He returned to Copenhagen in 1646, where he was appointed professor of philosophy, and published his ground-breaking account of the lymphatic system in 1652. Evelyn lists four of his works in his 1687 library catalogue (Add 78632). 2 To Dr Bartholin The larger part of men is evil – it lacks the truth of all our warnings because it lacks charity – whereby these sad consequences reoccur. The news of England, this past week, still produced nothing, which makes me believe that things go badly on the part of the King – and I have made this observation from the outset of our troubles. Tomorrow we will expect some details, and I will not fail to impart to you, Most Excellent Sir, what I hear. For the rest: this morning has well confirmed your thoughts, and has made me recall the season already past, and the proper provisions for the weather. The sun of winter is a good fire. This one is the soul of the body for the exterior; it is that liquid adornment of the cellar for the interior. I will do well to provide for these two, and I will not bother you further, Excellent Sir, but to wish you your own pleasure, and that we will be happy. Go with God. From Venice, September 5, 1645

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Thomas Bartholin Letter II.5 September 12, 1645 f 24

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Epistle V.1 Al Signore Dottore Bartolino

Tutta la Melodia consiste nelle muovimente e Vostro Signore Eccellentissimo (che e dedita alla Musica) ama quest’attività non per altero che per nobiltà della sua natura. Ogn’uno e capriccioso, e che può vivere à suo modo non stimo per felice; ma chi puo regular i sue piacere è beato. La vita nostra è veramente un pellerinaggio, e noi ne faciamo un’passatempo. Non dico questo di Vostro Signore Eccellentissimo che sa temperare i suoi appetiti; ma di quelli che non v’hanno per esempio, ed jo ho determinato d’accompagnarla non solamente con pensieri ma’anche colla Persona, essendo mi tutto dedicato alle suoi commandi. Vero è che rari sono l’intendenti, e per questa ragione pochi scolari; perche non è dotto che frequenta le scole; ma che le frequenta ad imparare. Il Cucullo non fa il Monaco; e per il più i men’Intendenti portano la Toga. Queste sono formalità, aspettiamo le cose reale. Signore mio, ogni giorno accresce al numero dall’Uditori, e la sua letera le mie osservanze. Adio. Da Padoüa 12 Settembre: 1645.

1 To Dr Bartholin All melody consists of movements and you, Most Excellent Sir (who are dedicated to music) love this activity not for any other reason than for the nobility of your nature. Everyone is fickle, and he who is able to live in his own way I do not judge as happy, but he who can govern his own pleasure is blessed. Our life is truly a pilgrimage, and we make of it a pastime. I don’t say this of you, Most Excellent Sir (who know how to temper your appetites), but of those who do not have you as an example. And I have determined to accompany you not only with my thoughts but also with my person, being entirely dedicated to your commands. It is true that those who understand are few, and for this reason there are few students. For he who attends school is not learned; rather he attends school in order to learn. A habit does not a monk make; and, for the most part, those who understand least wear the professor’s gown. These are formalities; we await the real things. My dear Sir, every day the number of listeners grows, and this your letter [does so as well], with my respects. Go with God. From Padua, September 12, 1645

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Letter II.6 September 16, 1645 f 24v

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Epistle VI.1 [name deleted]2

Intendo la malatia della sua Consorte; non potiamo sempre esser sani; j mali per il più vengono quando meno s’aspettano; e, perche sono accompagnati per il più da pericoli, sto con gelosia del sua stato, e vorrei sentire novelli prosperi di quello che’amo: Idio con un colpo affligge molti, e pèro la prego à darme di questo accidente minuto avviso, dicarandomi per ogni caso partecipe della fortuna che prosperè, o infelici possano intorbidare la tranquilità de i suoi pensieri. Qui a Padoüa si comminciano gli studij, s’aprono l’Hessademia la Citta è nondimeno desolata assai;3 perche non si tralasse cio; che ha introdotto il Costume. Si sono recitate l’orazioni che’invitano la gioventà alla Sienze. Poche Uditori, e più rari l’intendenti. Questo è quanto ho da scriverlo in questo punto: Per l’avvenire, se non havero altro suggetto, lo prendro dal piacere che ho seco di parlare con la sua penna. A Dio Da Padoüa 16 Settembre: 1645.

1 I have heard of the illness of your consort. We cannot always be well; illnesses for the most part come when we least expect them and, because they are usually accompanied by dangers, I am jealous of your state and would like to hear good news of he whom I love. God with one blow afflicts many, and nevertheless I beg you to give me detailed news concerning this adversity, declaring myself in any case a sharer in the fortune which, whether favourable or unhappy, is able to disturb the tranquility of your thoughts. Here at Padua, studies are beginning; the academies are opening. The city is nonetheless desolate enough, because no one takes note – which is what has introduced the habit. The lectures that invite the youths to the sciences are being recited. [There are] few listeners, and fewer still who understand. This is what I have to write to him at this point; for the future, if I do not have another subject, I will take it from the pleasure that I receive with him from conversing with your pen. Go with God. From Padua, September 16, 1645 2 In the index to the collection (Add 78299: f 165v; fig. 8), the addressee is identified as “Farello.” 3 Evelyn matriculated at Padua on 30 July (see Diary II.464–6), intending to study “Physic & Anatomie, of both which here were now the most famous Professors then in Europe” (464–5). In early 1646 he describes attending the anatomy lectures of Johann Vesling, and observing three dissections (Diary II.475–6). Edmund Waller was also in Padua at this time, and wrote a poem praising Vesling. See de Beer, “An Uncollected Poem by Waller.”

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Fig. 8 Add 78299: f 165v (index of Book II) ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Bartholin Letter II.7 September 23, 1645 f 24v

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Epistle VII.1 Al Signore Dottore Bartolino.

È un tempo che non si vede il Signore Consigliere, faceva la dimora in Fiorenza; doverebbe esser di ritorno: e sentire insieme con ogni gusto Jo desidero di viderlo, asspetto che me ne faccia avvisato, e sentire insieme con ogni gusto le novelle ò che scrive, ò che porta. Noi siamo fra le piogge, il sole fà sempre le Mascare: Cosi potiamo dire che nell’aria sia comminciata il Carnovale: questo mi resta solo di rammentare, a Vostro Signore Illustrissimo che non si scordi mai della mia riverenza con la quale sarro sempre ossequioso a suoi nobilissime Commandi. Le nuovi sono che’ il Turco fa il Diavolo; la Canëa è in malôra, e ogni giorno si crede peggio.2 Noi siamo lontani, e potiamo dubbitare della verità; Ella dimora in Venetia, e per consequenza fra le Nuove. Tutti scrivano, e rari sono le penne che non lasciano impressa nella Carta, il veleno del Cuore: L’esser ostinato à credere è gran vizio, e l’esser troppo facile non è Virtù. Vostro Signore Illustrissimo mi cavi di questo Laberynto, che ogn’ora mi sembra un secolo nell’ aspettare la sua risposta. A Dio: Da Padova 23 Settembre: 1645

1 To Dr Bartholin It has been some time since Sir Counsellor has been seen. He was dwelling in Florence; he should have returned [by now]. and I will hear with the same great enthusiasm I desire to see him; I am waiting for when he informs me; and I will hear with the same great enthusiasm the news he either writes or brings. We are amidst raindrops, the sun still masked. Therefore we may say that in the air carnival has begun. This leaves me only to lament to you, Illustrious Sir, who never forgets my reverence (due to which I shall always submit to your most noble commands). The news is that the Turk plays the devil; Chania is in ruins and every day it is believed to be worse. We are distant, and can [thus] doubt the truth. She [the truth] stays in Venice, and thus in the news. Everyone is writing, and none are the pens that do not leave an impression on the paper; poison of the heart. To stubbornly [resist believing] opinion is a great vice, and to too easily [accept it] is not virtue. You, Sir, draw me out of this labyrinth, for every hour I await your response seems to me a century. Go with God. From Padua, September 23, 1645 The daughter of the Grand Duke shall be the wife of the Prince of Innsbruck, and they are therefore beginning to make great preparations for the solemnities. Concerning England we have received bad news, because some say that Chester has been taken. If it is true, no more adverse fortune could befall our poor King. But then God, the more He manifests himself, the less He is expected; He maintains the rulership of the universe and I remit myself to his good judgment. 2 The Fifth Ottoman-Venetian war (Guerra di Candia) began with an attack on Heraklion in Crete (Candia) by the Ottoman fleet. See Letters 1 and 2.

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La Figliola del gran Ducca sarra Sposa del Prencipe d’ Insprück, e però, si comminciano, à fare grande preparatione per la sollennità.3 D’Inghilterra habbiamo recevuti gattivi avvisi; perche alcuni dicono la Cestria esser presa:4 Se è vero, non si puo accadere fortuna più auverso per il povero nostro Rè: Ma allora Iddio più se manifesta quando meno si asspetta: Egli tiene il reggimento del Universo, ed Jo mi rimetto al suo bene Placito.

Letter II.8 October 1, 1645 f 25

Epistle VIII.1 [name deleted]2

È passato all’altera vita il Signore Cæsare; e habbiamo perso un commune Amico, e però certo questa novella sarra da lei receuvta con ogni amarezza: come Jo scrivo più colle Lagrime che coll’Inchiostro. Vostro Signore Illustrissimo e tenuta di Consolare il suo Fratello. Veramente la morte ed il dolore in quanto sono à tutti communi, in tanto più sono supportabile: ma la perdita d’un tanta persona come era il Signor Cesare è cosa invero di tutto, perche non habbiamo perso solamente un ’huomo; ma un grand Vertuoso, e molto caro Amico. Questo debito alla Natura è la maggior perdita che puo mai sustinere il mondo quando ne esce cosi un’huomo di bene. Allora (dice’il Filosofo) è il proprio tempo per morire, quando non potiamo vivere più commode. Questo secolo è gattivo, egli è felice. Il suo fratello carissimo e molto Illustrissimo non mancara d’essere ben’ consolato mentre che si contempla i meriti dell Passato. In ogni caso pèro ha ella presso, che sa il modo e puo adoperare ed Jo sono sempre per servirla. Adio. Di Vinetia 1. d’Ottobre: 1645.

3 Anna de’ Medici (1616–76), the daughter of Cosimo II de’ Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, married Ferdinand Charles, archduke of Further Austria (1628–62), in June 1646. 4 The siege of Chester began in February 1645, and ended with the defeat of the Royalist forces on 24 ­September 1645. 1 Mr Cesare has passed to the other life and we have lost a common friend. And though this news shall surely be received by you with great bitterness, I likewise write more with tears than with ink. You, Sir, are bound to console your brother. Truly death and pain, in so much as they are common to us all, the more they are bearable, but the loss of a person as was Mr Cesare is something truly grievous, because we have not lost only a man, but a great man of virtue and a very dear friend. This debt to nature is the greatest loss that can ever be borne by the world, when such a good man departs from it. This (says the Philosopher) is the right time to die, when we cannot live more comfortably. This age is wicked; he is happy. His dearest and most illustrious brother shall not want for being well consoled while he contemplates the merits of this departure. In every case, however, he has her near [who] knows the way and can employ it, and I am always in your service. Go with God. From Venice, October 1, 1645 2 In the index (Add 78299: f 165v; fig. 8), the addressee is identified as “Castellando.”

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Letter II.9 October 4, 1645 f 25

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Epistle IX.1 [name deleted]2

Oggi ho sentito la Figlieta (se non havessi cognosciuto suo Padre il Signor Domenico)3 direi, d’Apolline: mi pare’esser venuta da Parnasso; e veramente, per cosi dire meritò l’esser annoverata tra le stesse Muse. Jo non voglio discorrere de diversi stromenti li quali Ella toccava con tanta esquisitezza, come se fusse nata senz ’ossi ne ditti. Non si trova cosa nessuna sinonque il pensiero solo, che potesse accompannarla soppra il Gravicembale, e la Teorba. Ma la Voce ed il cantare hebbe tanto divina, che la Natura non ha onde vantarsi d’haver mai perfetta fatta cosa perfetta, si non ne produrre questo miracolo. Egli non ha bisognio d’argumenti chi vuole sapere se il’ Alma fosse composto d’Armonia, quando la ’haverebbe sentito. Signore mio Ilustrissimo resto rapito, e non vi era corda che toccava la Donna co’ditti, la quale non mi ligass’il cuore chi dicto più Felice è il suo Padre più felice il dotissimo Marito; felicissima la posseditrice di tanta Virtù. Non diro altrò: ma, quando volessi comprendere tutto le perfezione che possoni abbelire una Donna, diro La Signora Emilia. Questa testimoniaza Vostro Signore Illustrissimo. Sempre porta seco, come anch’ Jo la sua memoria, e Resto etc. Adio. Di Vinetia 4. d’Ottobre: 1645.

1 Today I heard that daughter (if you have not met her father, Mr Domenico) whom I would call [daughter] of Apollo. She seems to me to have come from Parnassus and truly, so to speak, merited being numbered among its same Muses. I do not want to speak about the various instruments which she touched with such daintiness, as though she had been born with neither bones nor fingers. There is nothing – with the sole exception of thought – that could accompany her better than the harpsichord and the theorbo. But her voice and her singing were so divine that nature would have no good reason to boast of having ever produced a perfect thing, had it not produced this miracle. He who wishes to know whether the soul is composed of harmony has no need of arguments once he has heard her. My Most Illustrious Sir, I remain enraptured, and there was no string the woman touched with her fingers that did not bind my heart, such that I would say more happy is her father; more happy [still] her doting husband; most happy the possessor of so much virtue. I will say no more. But, when I wish to take in all the perfections that can grace a woman, I will say: Lady Emilia. Bear this testimony with you always, Illustrious Sir, as I too [bear] your memory, and remain yours. Go with God. From Venice, October 4, 1645 2 In the index (Add 78299: f 165v; fig. 8), the addressee is identified as “Trevizano Marchese.” 3 Domenico Bassano. In the diary for the fall of 1645, Evelyn describes sharing a house in Padua with other Englishmen, including Thomas Henshaw and Henry Howard, grandson of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. Here “I learned on the Theorba of Signor Dominico Bassano, who had a daughter, married to a Doctor of Laws, that played, and sung to 9 severall Instruments, with that skill, & addresse, as few Masters in Italy exceeded her, she likewise Composd divers excellent pieces” (Diary II.473). Evelyn names her here as Signora Emilia.

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Mr Port. Palatinat Letter II.10 December 1, 1650 f 25v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle X.1 A Monsieur Port: Palatinat etc.

Myn Here, Zu rechter zit als ich zu hause gecomen bin, Ich habe der Here antworden gemacht aber nichts alls das er begeret, oder fordet mir, niches desto weniger, ich werde maken das miner mueglich ist zusamen mit ales die minege Disen sien die celde iberflissige das wen sie sallen duren lunge zeit ferderben sollen alles denen Winebergen; uber die orme Zeile, bliben sollen die grosserest theil gesterben einer fon Ungern, die ander fon sorgen; firnemlighe, in diesen ysen zeit; so das, das nichts bringen sol keine ander gudt, als die pest zu zirugetragen, welche gespritet ist genugh um die lundten, endt nichts alein im diesen, aber in ander auch. Ich mir befehle à siner zierlichkeiten Ihr Willigster Diner Evelynus Paris 1 December: 1650:

1 To Mr Port. Palatinat etc. Dear Sir Immediately [at the right time] when I came home, I answered you but I did not respond to everything you wanted or asked from me. Nevertheless, I shall do what I can together with all of my people. Those could do without the cold; if it should last long all the vineyards will be destroyed. About the poor people, most of them will have died, some from hunger, the others from worry; especially in these iron times, which will bring nothing good but the Black Death which was carried here, and which has spread out enough in the lands, not alone in these ones but also in other ones. I recommend myself to your elegancies your most willing servant Paris: December 1, 1650:

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mr Zanchio Letter II.11 March 30, 1650 f 25v

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Epistle XI.1 Al. Signor Zanchio

Signor mio Yo quiero tomar empressa de cumplir su deseo, mientras esso es tras lo que yo andara, estendo todos d’acuerdo que la paz sea hecha en Flandes; mas yo dudo muchio que no sea una fingida para encaminar aquellos Esquadrones à Bordeäux contro los Cuydadanos, los quales han hecho largo tiempo la guerra contro su Rey:2 pues deeno ser gastigades, paraque un altro vez apprenden ser fielos à sus Sennores. En breve tiempo pèro veremos la intencion del una y otra parte, y entonces, ado devens acabar estas miserias Quedale à Dios Segnnor. Da Parigi 30: Marzo: 1650.

1 To Mr Zanchio Dear Sir I want to take this opportunity to fulfill your wish, being all in agreement that peace will be made in Flanders. I am almost sure that it is a ruse to send the squadrons to Bordeaux against the citizens there, as they have been at war with their king for a long time. They will be punished so that they learn to be faithful to their masters in the future. We shall soon see the intentions of both parties, and then see how these misfortunes will end. Go with God, Sir. From Paris March 30, 1650 2 Evelyn alludes to the Fronde in Bordeaux which had first broken out in 1648 and continued until 1652 under the leadership of the “parti de l’Ormée.”

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Giovanni Juliano Letter II.12 March 31, 1650 f 25v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XII.1 Al Signore Juliano

Il suo consiglio sarebbe opportuno, se i miei infortunij, più che la mia incredulita non m’inganassero. La Carità comincio à Casa (vero è) ma non vi si firma;2 e per questo moto tanto tranquillo sarebbe più tosto abbrusciare quella sfere senza intelletto, che continuarlo nel suo proprio corso. Tocca ’o ognuno la cura del suo Microcosmo. In ogni modo l’Inghilterra a quando ne he intesa le ragione del disordine, jo ne trovero bene per tornarmine. I fatti d’armi sono varij, e che vuole gloria, non teme Marse: Tutta via quell’tagliarsi a pezzi l’uno l’altro è crudeltà, non è guerra. Amo la Pace: j mei Amici, e Lascia Vostro Signore Illustrissimo i Triomfi. A Dio. Parigi ultimo di Marzo: 1650.

1 To Mr Juliano Your advice would be timely if my misfortunes, more than my disbelief, were not to deceive me. Charity begins at home, it is true, but it does not stop there, and for this reason it would be rather more peaceful to burn that area without intellect, than to continue it along its current course. It is everyone’s responsibility to look after his Microcosm. Howsoever England, as far as I understand the reason for [this] disorder, I shall find it well to return there. Feats of arms are changeable, and he who wishes glory does not fear Mars. Nevertheless, this tearing of each other to pieces is cruelty, not war. I love peace, my friends, and I leave you, Illustrious Sir, the triumphs. Go with God. Paris, March 31, 1650. 2 “But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voyce of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his owne executioner.” Browne, Religio Medici, Part 2, Works, I, 77.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Claude Rousselle1 Letter II.13 June 20, 1652 f 26

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Epistle XIII.2 A Monsieur Roussell

Monsieur J’ay receu le vostre du 12 Juin,3 et suis marry de m’estre tant mespris dans la garniture de ce livre le qelle je croyois ne pouvoire passer la somme de 40 ou 50 livers mais puisque vous l’avez commences, come je ne souhaite pas que vous perdiez, aussy je vous priery q’il coust le moins qu’l sera possible:4 Je donneros volontiers la somme de 8 ou 9 pistoles, ce qu’est autant que le livre merite a mon advis. J’ay tout prest 50 livres pesant de la matiere que sçauez, la moitie de cela, ou le tout si vous voulez j’envoyeray par la premiere occasion: Cependent, mandez moy (s’il vous plaist) a qui pourray l’ addresser avec sureté a Dieppe. Je me sens fort vostre obligé, tant pour le Miroir ardent,5 que pour toutes vous

1 Claude Rousselle. See I.1. Rousselle was a goldsmith, and Mary Evelyn’s tutor in enamelling (Letter 60). 2 To Mr Roussell Sir I have received your letter from the 12th of June and I am sorry to have been so mistaken in the fitting of this book, which I believed could not be more than 40 or 50 pounds. But since you have started on it, and since I don’t want you to suffer any losses, I kindly ask that it cost as little as possible. I will gladly give the sum of 8 or 9 pistoles, which is in my opinion as much as the book warrants. I already have 50 pounds ready: half of it, or the whole if you would like, I will send at the first opportunity. However, please let me know to whom I can safely address it in Dieppe. I feel very much in your debt, as much for the burning-glass as for all your favours to my wife, who has safely arrived here. I recommend us to you, to Mademoiselle your wife and to her little mistress l’Emailière. We will not be in London for at least another two weeks, having been delayed by a stop to drink the medicinal waters in Tunbridge, a very famous place. But as soon as she is there arrives in Lond she will not fail to find Mr Le Roy and give him the little box of gems; and I will not fail to answer to encourage him Mr Briseaux as soon as I find the slightest hope to motivate him, on which I will actively work when I return to London. In the meantime, I remain yours and your wife’s Sir, your very etc., From Tunbridge June 20, 1652 3 See Add 78316: f 44 (12.6.1652). 4 This suggests that Rousselle was involved in book fitting (“garniture de livre”) and binding for Evelyn, who had recently returned to England. In a letter to Evelyn of 31 August, his father-in-law Sir Richard Browne notes that “Mons. Russill” “is in hand with your books” (Add 78306: f 11 [31.8.1652]). See Foot, “John Evelyn’s Bindings,” in Harris and Hunter, ed. John Evelyn and His Milieu, 61–70. 5 Parabolic burning mirror; on 12 April 1656, Evelyn noted that he “presented Dr. Wilkins with my rare Burning-glasse” (Diary III.170) when he, Robert Boyle, and Jeremy Taylor dined at Sayes Court.

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faveurs envere ma femme, la quelle estant heureusement arrive icy,6 je reccommend a vous, a Madamoyselle vostre femme, et a sa petite Maistresse l’Emailiere. Nous ne serons pas encore a Londres d’icy a quinze jours; ayant esté retarde sur le chemine pour boire les eaux medicinalls a Tunbridg, lieu fort celebre: mais aussy tost q’elle y sera arrive a Lond elle ne manquera pas de trouver Monsieur Le Roy, et luy bailler la petite Boite de joyaux; et ne failleray poynt a rendre Response pour l’encourager a Monsieur Briseaux7 sy tost que je trouve la moindre esperance pour l’encourager, sur quoy je travailleray avec plus de vigeur a mon retour a Londres: En attendant, je demeure a vous, et a vostre chere moitié Monsieur le tres etc. De Tunbridg: ce 20: Juin: 1652.

Nicasius Le Fèvre1 Letter II.14 July 28, 1652 f 26r–v

Epistle XIV.2 A Monsieur le Febure.

Monsieur Je vous suis infiniment redebuable pour vostre lettre du huistieme de juins pour quelle

6 Evelyn was waiting for Mary Evelyn when she arrived at Rye on 11 June, and then took her to Tunbridge Wells to recuperate. 7 Etienne de Ville-Bressieux was a Parisian lens-maker who collaborated with Descartes and is mentioned in the correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. See Burnett, Descartes and the Hyperbolic Quest, 84–5. Rousselle later notes him going to Grenoble, Toulouse, and Bordeaux, and hoping to go on to London under the patronage of Sir Kenelm Digby (Add 78316: f 21 [7.1.1653]). Additional references to him are in Rousselle’s letters (Add 78316: f 47 [22.9.1652]; f 89 [26.7.1655]), and in the correspondence of Henry Oldenburg and Samuel Hartlib. 1 Nicasius Le Fèvre (c.1610–69; ODNB). See Letter I.1. 2 To Mr Le Febure Sir I am most grateful for your letter of the 8th of June and for all the civilities that you have shown my wife and myself. I would have conveyed my thanks sooner if the times had been more favorable to convey all the gratitude I have expressed on several occasions. It has been at least six weeks to two months since I have heard from our friends in Paris, which has surprised and saddened me, fearing that this misfortune is caused by the present unrest. I assure you that I am very much obliged to Dr. du Clos for the favour he granted me by giving his recipe and I am waiting for an opportunity to show him my gratitude. As for the gold stones near Dover, I would have already diligently gone to get them if I had found passage safe enough to send them to you; this is also the reason why I have not sent Claude Roussell the material which I have been keeping for him these past two months. Regardless, as soon as he tells me to

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obligation,3 et pour des autres civilities qui vous m’ avez non seulement si aboundamment tesmoignes; mais pareillement a ma Femme: Je vous aurois plus tost rendu mes remerciements si le temps estoit si favourable de vous convoyer toutes les recognitions que je vous ay faict, selon toutes les occasions: Il y’a bien six sepmains au deux mois passez depuis que j’ay eu nouvelles de nos Amis de Paris; ce que non seulement m’a beaucoup estonné; mais aussy m’a rendu bien trist et afflige. craignant que ce malheur ait este causé par les disordres qu’y sont a present.4 Je vous assure Monsieur je suis extremement obligé a Monsieur le Docteur du Clos pour la faveur q’il m’a faict en donnant son Receipt:5 et je souhaite seulement une occasion de luy en reccompenser: Quant a ces pierres d’or proche Dover, je les aurois bien diligement scherché long temps passé si j’eusse trouvé les passages assez libre pour vous les envoyer; qui a esté aussy un obstacle que je n’ay pas mandé a nostre Claud Roussell cette matiere que je luy ay guardé, pluis que deux mois entiers. Non obstant si tosts qu’il plaira de me faire sçavoire a qui de ses correspondents je les addresseray, je ne manqueray pas les y fair transporter comme je luy ay auparavant signifié par mes lettres plus expressement. Selon vostre ordre j’ay envoyè vostre derniere lettre A Monsieur vostre Frere, ayant este aussy fort pressant, a un de mes Amis a Glocester, qui m’a mande come il s’en suit. Monsieur: Selonque vos commandements j’ay esté en Personne pour parler à Monsieur le Docteur du Moulin;6 mais il y a bien du temps qu’il n’a pas esté en Glocester: J’entends neantmoins qu’il est en bonne santé, avec Madame sa Femme depuis pou a Store (qui est quelques sept lieux de cette ville en allant a Bristolle) la ou il l’a espousé. Elle estoit vesue de Monsieur Robert Wise, et est luy une fort bonne partie: Le Docteur estant aussi en grand esteeme et respect icy; et quoyque je ne pouvois pas parler a luy

3 4 5 6

whom I should address them, I will not fail to send them as I have assured him in my previous letters. In accordance with your request, I have sent the last letter to your brother to one of my friends in Gloucester who has sent me the following: Sir, in accordance with your request, I have been in person to speak with Dr du Moulin but it has been some time since he has been in Gloucester. I have however heard that he is in good health and residing with his wife in Store (which is seven leagues in the direction of Bristol) where he had married her. She was the widow of Mr Robert Wise and is a very good match for him as the doctor is also greatly esteemed and respected here. Even though I was unable to speak to him directly, the apothecary Whittington (with whom he resides when in town) has sent his letter and has promised me to advise him of the content of your letter so that he can satisfy his brother-in-law in France as you wished. Gloucester. May 30th, 1652 Old Style Here is what I have done to assist you and, in every occasion, you will see by my actions rather than my words that I am truly Sir Your etc., From Sayes Court near London July 28, 1652 Old Style Le Fèvre had sent two recent letters to Evelyn: Add 78316: f 40 (25.5.1652); f 42 (3.6.1652) Communication between France and England was difficult because of the Fronde and the First AngloDutch War. Samuel Cottereau Du Clos (1598–1685). See Letter I.1. probably William Molins (1617–91; ODNB), of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company. See Diary II.553–4.

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moy mésme, Monsieur Whittington l’Apothecaire (chez chi’il reside quelque fois icy) a envoyè sa lettre et m’a aussy promise de luy faire sçavoire ce qui contient la vostre, a fin qu’il peut satisfaire a Monsieur son Beau-frere en France selonque vostre desire. Glocester ce: 30me: de May: 52 Style Vieux Voicy Monsieur ce qu’j’ay fait pour vous servir, et en toutes les occasions que rencontrerez vous verrez par des effects plustost que par de parolles, que je suis veritablement Monsieur Vostre etc. De Says-Court proch Londres 28 Julis 1652. Style Vieux

Abraham Bosse1 Letter II.15 October 4, 1652#2 f 26v

Epistle XV.3 A Monsieur du Bosse

Monsieur Le porture de ceus Monsieur Needham,4 mon Amy particulier, m’a prie de luy reccommender a quelques uns des mes Amis a Paris, cest’ pourquoy, j’ay pris la hardiesse de

1 Abraham Bosse (c.1604–76). A prolific engraver and author, and a founding member of Cardinal Mazarin’s Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and, like most of Evelyn’s other closest French associates, a Huguenot. Evelyn translated part of his Traicté des manières de graver en taille-douce (Paris, 1646), intending to publish it as the second part of his Sculptura (London, 1662). 2 This letter is misdated, if the “personne de qualitie” is Benjamin Maddox, who is named in II.16, another letter of introduction assigned the same date. Needham accompanied Maddox to France in 1656–8. But since Bosse mentions Needham in a letter of 20 May (Add 78316: f 104 [20.5.1656]), it is more likely that the letter introduces someone other than Maddox, whom Neeham had accompanied on some earlier tour. 3 To Mr Bosse Sir The bearer of this, Mr Needham, my particular friend, has asked me to recommend him to some of my friends in Paris. For this reason I have the boldness of asking you to treat him as one deserving of the favours that love of me will inspire. Mr Needham is a learned and ingenious man. He is the governor of a person of quality who also possesses an inquiring mind. I kindly ask that you show him all sorts of favours during his stay in Paris, and especially that you introduce him to my other good friends. I have also written to Dr du Clos and to Mr de Febur, and I remain Your etc., From Wotton October 4, 1652 Old Style 4 Jasper Needham (c.1623–79: Diary, M). See Letters I.38 and 19.

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vous supplier de le traicter comme un qui meritera bien les faveurs que vous le monstrera pour l’amour de moy. Monsieur Cest une personne qu’est bien sçavant, et qu’est extremement ingenieux. Il est Governeur d’une personne de qualitie, qu’est aussy fort curieux. Je vous prieray Monsieur de luy mostrer toute sorts de faveurs pendent son sejour a Paris; et en particuliere, de luy donner la cognoissanc de mes autres bonne Amies. J’ay aussy escrit a Monsieur le Docteur du Clos, et a Monsieur de Febur,5 et suis Monsieur Vostre etc. De Wotton: Style Vieux 4 Octobre 1652.

Alexandre du Guernier II1 Letter II.16 October 4, 1652#2 f 26v

Epistle XVI.3 A Monsieur du Guernier

Monsieur Je n’aurois pas besoigne de faire beaucoups de paroles pour vous reccomender cet gentillhomme,4 porteur de ce lettre: puisq’ il vient avec Monsieur Maddox,5 qui est si proch parens a Madame Gerrard: mais outre toute cela, estant homme de grande Merite, et mon fort chere Amy, je vous suppliera Monsieur de le recevoir en vostre bonne graces particulieres, et de luy aider en tout ce qu’il reqireray, pendent sa demeure a Paris, et en ce faisant, vous m’obligeras eternellement, en qualite Monsieur de Vostre etc. 5 Samuel Cottereau Du Clos and Nicasius Le Fèvre

De Wotton 4: Octobre 1652. Style Vieux

1 Alexandre du Guernier II (d. 1665). Guernier had been Mary Evelyn’s drawing instructor, and Evelyn kept up their correspondence. See Add 78316: f 55 (22.8.1653) and f 56 (20.9.1653). 2 See Letter 15. This letter is probably misdated. Maddox left for France in 1656 and returned in 1658. See Letter 97 et seq. 3 To Mr. du Guernier Sir Few words will be necessary to recommend this gentleman, bearer of this letter, to you since he comes with Mr Maddox who is such a close relation to Mrs Gerrard. But apart from that, being a man of merit and a very dear friend of mine, I entreat you to receive him in your particular good graces, and to help him in everything that he will require while residing in Paris. In doing so, I will be eternally obliged to you Your etc., From Wotton October 4, 1652 Old Style 4 Jasper Needham. See Letter II.15. 5 Benjamin Maddox (1638–1716; Diary). The son of Benjamin of Boughton Monchelsea, Kent, and grandson of Lady Jane Garrard (1593–1673; Diary) of Lamer, Hertfordshire.

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Abraham Bosse Letter II.17 January 26, 1654* ff 26v–7

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XVII.1 A Monsieur du Bosse

Monsieur J’ay receu le vostre du 28me d’Octobre2 passé, et me trove extremement obligé du ressouvenir que vous avez de moy, absent comme je suis, et retire en ma pauvre Maison, pendent ces commotions de nostre ingrat Royaume Pai ou il n’y a (a present) ni Eglise, ni Roy, ni Loy: mais il y faut soustenire tout, tant q’il plaira a Dieu. Au rest, il est vray, que pour me devirtir en ce temps de destruction, je me suis mise a traduire, et amasser ensemble quelque pieces d’Architecture, pour tacher (si je puis) de corriger un peu l’ignorance que je trouve communement parmy nous Ouvriers, et de mettre en reputation la cognoissance de une Arte si belle et necessaire pour la noblesse:3 Mais ayant sçeu par la Vostre, que vostre Liver des Ordres s’aprost pour estre bien tost mis en lumiere, j’ay tout a fait quittè la designe que j’avois jusques a tant que je aurois la bonnheure de voire vostre travaile et sentiments la desus. Monsieur je vous rends Graces du promesse que m’avez fait de m’envoyer vous deux belles Ouvrages de vostre Seconds partie de la Perspective, vous suppliant bien humblement de me commander franchement et sans ceremonie, s’il y a aucune chose icy dont je pouray vos servire quisque cela serra le commerce le plus a desirer et agreable du mond a Monsieur Vostre etc. De Says-Court proch Londres ce: 26me: Janvier 1653 Style Vieux

1 To Mr Bosse Sir I have received yours from the 28th of October and I am very much obliged of the remembrance that you have of me, absent as I am and removed in my house during the commotions of our ungrateful country where there is (currently) no Church, no King, no Law: but we must bear it all as long as God pleases. Besides, it is true that, to entertain myself in this time of destruction, I have started to translate and to gather together some pieces of architecture, to try (if I am able to) to correct a little of the ignorance that I commonly find among our tradesmen and to give a better reputation to the knowledge of an art so beautiful and necessary to the nobility. But having learnt from your letter that your Livre des Ordres will soon be available, I have set aside my original intention until I have the happiness of seeing your work and your feelings on the matter. I thank you for the promise you have made of sending me the two beautiful works of the second part of your Perspective and I humbly beseech you to tell me outright and without ceremony if I can be of any assistance to you as it will be the most desirable and agreeable commerce Your etc., From Sayes Court near London January 26, 1653 Old Style 2 In Add 78316: f 58 (26.10.1653), Bosse offers to send Evelyn “mon traite des orders de l’architecture antique.” See Lothe, “Les Livres illustrés par Abraham Bosse,” in Join-Lambert and Préaud, Abraham Bosse, 43–4. 3 Evelyn’s A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern, a translation of Fréart de Chambray, Parallèle de l’architecture antique et de la modern (Paris, 1650) was not published until 1664.

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Charles de Broussel, Sieur de Voillecomte1 Letter II.18 March 5, 1661 f 27

Epistle XVIII:2 A Monsieur De Vaillecompte Conseiller du Roy et Maistre en sa Chambre des Comptes:3

Monsieur Je me treuve dans un confusion estrange d’avoir eue l’honneur de recevoir vos Commandments depuis un si long temps, avec tant d’apparance de les avoir negligés; et je n’aurrois pas la hardiesse a cette heure de vous faire mes excuses, si j’eusse sçeu plustost vous en rendre un conte exact; et c’est Monsieur a mon grand regret, qu’on vous a tant abusè dans le recit que vous a esté fait, ou de ma cognnoisance des Plantes, ou du nombre dont mon Jardin en est fourny: Il faut neantmoins avouer, que ma passion en est fort grand, mais, outre que tout ce qui y est, soit extremement vulgaire, je ne possede rien digne de vous presenter, si ce n’est l’offre entier de mes tres humbles services pour l’avenire; si par elles j’osois esperer de conserver un bien que vous m’offrez dans une correspondence si avantageuse. Tous jours, je hazarde a vous faire part de quelques Plantes, dont vostre Catalogue ne fait aucune mention, si vous les tenez pour agreables, et ils seront prests en attendant vos ordres pour vous le fair tenir. Au rest, et pour suppleer a mes defauts,

1 probably Charles de Broussel, sieur de Voillecomte. He identifies himself as living on rue Chapon, Paris. 2 To Mr de Vaillecompte Counsellor to the King and Master in his Court of Accounts Sir I find myself in a strange confusion to have the honour of receiving your orders while having the appearance of having neglected them, and I would not be presumptuous enough to make my apologies at this time had I given you an exact account earlier. To my greatest regret, you have been abused in the account that has been made to you of my knowledge of plants or in the number of them present in my garden. I however need to admit that my passion is great but, as everything that is there is quite commonplace, I have nothing worthy of presenting to you except to offer you my humble services in the future. Hoping to maintain through them a correspondence so advantageous, I venture to offer you a few plants that your Catalogue does not mention and, if you should find them agreeable, I will await your orders to have them sent to you. Moreover, to compensate for my flaws, I would like the opportunity to establish a complete understanding between you and Dr Morison who, having recently presided over the gardens of His Highness the late Duc d’Orleans in Bloys, is currently employed by His Britannic Majesty who intends to create a grand garden with all sorts of curious plants near the city of London. He is a perfectly learned man and knowledgeable with regard to plants. It is from him that you should hope to find satisfaction in this matter. He also has plans to make a trip to Paris in order to obtain all that is rare and to meet with the more curious on the matter. I will ask him to call on you and to show you the respect that I feel towards the genius that you cultivate and to assure you that I regret my inability to be of assistance to you which has deprived me of the satisfaction of being of service to you Sir, from Your etc., From Sayes Court near London March 5, 1661 3 Evelyn replies to Add 78317: f 6 (17.9.1660), in which Voillecomte requests that he “jetter les yeux sur le catalogue des plantes de mon jardin.”

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je souhaiteroi grandement avoir l’heur d’establir une parfaite intelligence entre vous et Monsieur le Docteur Morison, qui ayant (il n’y a gueres) præsidè sur les Jardines de Son Altesse le feu Duc d’Orleans a Bloys, a present est entretenu par sa Majesté Britanique, avec desine de faire un tres august Jardin de toutes sortes de Plantes curieuses, pres la ville de Londres:4 Monsieur c’est un homme parfaitement doct, sy il y en a au Monde, et sçavant dans la matiere des plantes; et c’est de luy que vous deviez esperer toute la satisfaction imaginable touchant cette affaire: Et mesme, il pretend, dans peu de temps, faire un tour a Paris pour se y munire de tout ce qu’ill y a de rare, et pour faire cognnoissance avec les plus Curieux; entre les quells, je l’obligeray de vous aller saluer de ma part, et de soigner l’envie que je porte au beau Genie que vous Cultivez et vous asseurer, que je regrette infiniment mon impuissance, qui ne me laisse pas la satisfaction de luy servire selon vos merites, et les obligations Monsieur de Vostre etc. De Says-Court pres de Londres ce: 5me de Mars: 1661.

Anne Montagu, née Evelyn1 Letter II.19 November 15, 1664 f 27v

Epistle XIX.2 A Madamoiselle Nanon Evelyn ma Niepce

Ma chere Cousine, Je vous envoye ce Roman selon ma promesse. Vous les eussiez receues plus tost, si

4 Robert Morison (1620–83; ODNB). From 1650–60 Morison worked in the garden of the duc d’Orleans at Blois. He returned to England at the Restoration, and was named royal physician and professor of botany by Charles II in 1660, and professor of botany at Oxford in 1669. 1 Anne Montagu, née Evelyn (1652–88), the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, married William Montagu in 1670. 2 To Miss Anne Evelyn my Niece My dear Cousin I send you this novel as promised. You would have received it sooner if an opportunity had presented itself, and when you have it in your hands you will find no idea that surpasses you in accomplishments [sic]. You will make me exceedingly happy if I can serve you in any other matter of greater importance since I am My dear Cousin, your Uncle etc., From London November 15, 1664

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l’occasion s’en fuit presentèe, et quand ils seront entre vos maines, vous ne troueres point d’Idée qui vous surpassent en aucune accomplissement: Vous me rendrez trop heureux si je vous puis servir en quelque autre chose de plus grand importance; puisque je suis Ma chere Cousine Votre etc. Ouncle:

De Londres ce 15me Novembre 1664

Jean de la Quintinye1 Letter II.20 April 20, 1669 f 27v

Epistle XX.2 A Monsieur de la Quinteny chez Monsieur le President Tambonsan3a Paris

J’en aurois pas besoigne de faire beaucoup des Paroles pour vous recommemmender ce Gentilhomme mon Beau-frere,4 puisqu’il vient fortifie par celles de Monsieur d’Oldenburg5 notre commune Amy; et qu’outre tout cela, il est homme de grand merite,

1 Jean de la Quintinye (1626–88). Author of Instruction pour les jardins fruitiers et potagers (Paris, 1690), translated by Evelyn as The Compleat Gard’ner; or, Directions for Cultivating and Right Ordering of Fruit-Gardens and Kitchen-Gardens (London, 1693). Quintinye responded in Add 78317: f 103 (8/18.6.1669). 2 To Mr de la Quinteny staying with President Tambonan in Paris Few words will be necessary to recommend this gentleman, my brother-in-law, as he also comes with those of Mr Oldenburg, our common friend, and that apart from this, he is a man of great merit, which has led me to ask that you receive him in your particular good graces. I will be infinitely obliged to you to give him your advice on how he should proceed to see all that is exquisite and rare in the gardens, buildings, cabinets, paintings, and other curiosities in Paris and its vicinity, as well as how he can have access to men of letters, and all that deserves to be seen by a mind capable of judgment. I entreat you to allow him to show you how indebted I am to you for these obligations and I humbly ask that you command me outright if I can be of assistance to you and prove to you that I am Sir, Your etc., From Sayes Court near London April 20, 1669 3 Jean Tambonneau, Président of the Chambre des Comptes. Quintinye had been a tutor to his son, and established a garden at the Hôtel Tambonneau in Paris before going on to work at Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles, where he created the potager du roi. 4 William Glanville, husband of Evelyn’s sister Jane, who died in childbirth in 1651. Glanville’s correspondence with Evelyn and his wife reports on his meetings with Quintinye, Bosse, and Robert Nanteuil (see Letter II.21). 5 Henry Oldenburg (c.1619–77), secretary of the Royal Society

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le quell me fait vous supplier de le recevoir a vos bonne graces particulieres: Monsieur vous m’obligers infiniment de luy preter vos advis comme il se doibt governer tant pour voir ce qu’est de plus exquis et rare aux Jardins, Batiments, Cabinets, Peintures et autres Curiositis dans Paris, et aux environs, comme aussy parvenir a la Cognoissance des hommes des lettres, et ce qui merite d’estre juger veux d’un esprit capable d’en juger. Monsieur, je vous supplie de le permettre aussy de vous tesmoigner de temps en temps, combien je vous suis redevable de ces Obligations; vous priant bien humblement, de me commander franchement s’il y a aucune chose icy dont je vous puisse servire et le moyen pour vous povuoir temoigner combien je suis Monsieur Vostre etc. De Sayes-Court pres de Londres ce: 20me: Avrill: -69.

Robert Nanteuil1 Letter II.21 April 20, 1669 f 27v

Epistle XXI.2 A Monsieur Monsieur [sic] le Chevalier de Nanteuille

Monsieur Je n’ay sçeu laisser passer quelque temps dans Paris un Beau-frere3 et Cher Amy (tell q’il est) sans le prier de vous saluer de ma part, nous aprenons souvent nouvelles des

1 Robert Nanteuil (1623–78). Nanteuil had drawn and engraved a portrait of Evelyn in 1650 (see Diary III.9–10, frontispiece, vol. 1 and Plate 6, and related correspondence in Add 78316: f 9 and f 12), and had also drawn portraits of Mary Evelyn (Plate 7) and her parents (Plates 8–9). Although he was appointed designer and engraver of the cabinet by Louis XIV, Evelyn seems to be mistaken in believing him to have received a title. 2 To the Knight of Nanteuille Sir I could not let a brother-in-law and dear friend (such as he is) spend time in Paris without asking him to call on you on my behalf. We often learn of the great progress you are making in such an exquisite art but we are in a place where we do not have the joy of seeing your work, and since the beautiful present you made me, I have seen nothing of your work and yet one is never as contented as when one can extend his knowledge of new things. I hope to greatly oblige my brother by giving him your acquaintance, and I find myself very happy to have this opportunity to assure you that I am Sir, Your etc., From Sayes Court April 20, 1669 3 William Glanville

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grand progres que vous faites en un Art sy Exquis, mais, nous sommes en un lieu ou nous n’avons pas le contentement de voir de vos ourages, et depuis le beau present que vous me fites, je n’ay rien veu de vostre main, il se trouvent rarement Joy, qu’on puisse augmenter les choses curieuxes: Je pretends obliger mon Frere infiniment en luy donnant vostre cognoissance, et m’estime tres heureux d’avoir cette occasion de vous assurer combien je suis, Monsieur Vostre etc. De Sayes Court 20: Avrill –69.

Abraham Bosse Letter II.22 July 19, 1669 f 28

Epistle XXII.1 A Monsieur Monsieur [sic] Bose

Monsieur Le Votre de Juin 672 ne m’est arivè que depuis peu du jours, sans ce malheur je n’eusse point tant differrè a vous remercier du beau present que Monsieur le Febur3 m’a faite de votre part: L’Amy a qui vous l’avez confiè ne m’ayant point fait la faveur de me voir, Je n’ay sçeu luy faire les Civilitès qu’en vostre egard luy estoint deues. Les belles choses que j’ay trovue dans votre dernier livre m’a donne l’envye de voir la suite que je n’ay pas encore veus. C’est a dire, vostre Livre d’Architecture, Les Leçons Geometrales et Perspective que vous ay donne dans l’Academie Royale de Paris et celuy qui est sous le presses, contenant les premieres enseignemens de la pourtraiture par la

1 To Mr Bose Sir Your letter from June 67 only reached me a few days ago. Without this misfortune I would not have delayed so much in thanking you for the beautiful present Mr Le Febur gave me on your behalf. The friend to whom you had entrusted it did not do me the favour of seeing me and as such I was unable to pay him the civilities due to him out of consideration for you. The beautiful things I have found in your last book have made me want to see the rest: that is to say your Livre d’Architecture, the Leçons Géométrales et Perspective that you gave in the Royal Academy of Paris, and the one currently being printed containing the first teachings on the art of portraits by the new generation. I have asked this gentleman to purchase these three books, to show you how obliged I am for all your favours, and to assure you that I would be very pleased to be of use to you in any matter that you should require, being Sir, Your etc., From Sayes Court July 10, 1669 2 Add 78317: f 71 (12.6.1667) 3 Nicasius Le Fèvre

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jeunesse etc.4 Ces trois livres j’ay prie ce Gentilhomme d’achepter, et vous tesmoigner combien je vous suis oblige de toutes vous faveurs; et vous assurer, que je serois tres ayse de vous servir icy en quelque chose qui vous fust utile, estant Monsieur Votre etc. De Says-Court 19 Juillet: -69

Giovanni Juliano Letter II.23 April 10, 1675 f 28

Epistle X3 etc.1 A Signore Juliano a Parigi

Colendissimo Signore Mio: Questa matina ha ben confirmata gli miei pensieri ch’il Signore Juliano non ne ha potuto dimenticarsi della suo scholare e servidore senza qualche accidente strordinaria; ma hora non ò miraviglio che tante suae lettere mi son’ scampate, poiche di quelle di miei più stretti Amici è congiunti mene resto privo. Cosi sogliono fare [illegible] de quali n’habbiamo

4 Traite des manieres de dessiner les ordres de l’architecture antique en toutes leurs parties, etc (Paris, 1664); Traite des pratiques geometrales et perspectives, enseignees dans l’Academie Royale de la Peinture et Sculpture (Paris, 1665); A Bosse au lecteur, sur les causes qu’il croit avoir eues, de discontinuer le cours de ses lecons geometrales et perspectives, dedans l’Academie Royalle de la Peinture et de la Sculpture, & mesme de s’en retirer (Paris, 1667; Eve.a.98 [2]); Le Peintre converty aux precises et universelles regles de son art Avec un Raisonnement abrege au sujet des tableaux (Paris, 1667; Eve.a.98 [1]). See also Join-Lambert and Préaud, Abraham Bosse, 278–89. 1 To Mr Juliano in Paris My Most Revered Sir, This morning has well confirmed my thoughts that Mr. Giuliano could not have forgotten his student and servant without some extraordinary mishap. But now it is no marvel that so many of your letters have escaped me, given that those of my closest friends are together while I remain deprived. Thus they usually [illegible] of those which we have felt the effects in this most unhappy time enough. Of Paris: all day long news arrives, little of it good, much of it varied, all of it dreadful, and most of it lies. I am jealous of your state, my friend, and would like to hear only prosperous news of you, Sir. Everything here is afire due to the newly discovered conspiracies, and now this appears to be the theme upon which everyone has need of philosophizing. And he is wise who can mend every happenstance, while you Sir should not have difficulty in making me share in the letters were you to do so through the hands of the Gentleman, secretary to our ambassador, with the result that you, Sir, have given me greatest proof of your friendship in showing yourself so attentive to the well-being of he who notes it, that is, Sir, Most Warmly Yours, J. E. London, 10 April 1675 In any case, the gentlemen, my friends, who are heading to France, will not fail to preach your virtues and skills in these two languages to the people they will see.

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assai provato l’Effetti in questa tristissimo tempo: Di Parigi tutt’il giorno vengono novelle, poche buone, molte varie, tutte gative, e la maggior parte bugiardie bugiarde: Sto con gelosia del stato del mio socero, e vorei sentire, so lo novelli prosperi de Vostro Signore. Tutti li cose que son in combustione, par le congiurarium novellimente scoperti, e adesso pare’ esser ’l temo nell quale ogn’uno ha bisognio di filosofare, e quello è savio che può accommodari ad ogne’ occasione, mentre Vostro Signore non deve haver difficultà nel far me participe delle sue lettere se le facessi capitare à le mani del cavaliero, segreturio di le Ambassadore nostro: perfine Vostro Signore m’ha data grandissima prove dell’amizitia sua, in mostranndosi tanto solecito de bene di chi l’osserva, Cioè Del Vostro Signore Colendissimo etc. London 10 Aprile 1675

En todos Casos de Señores mis Amigos partiendosi para Franςia, no faltera de predicar la sui Virtudes y destrezu in estos dos lenguas:2

Antonio Verrio1 Letter II.24 February 2, 1686 f 28v

Epistle 242 Al Signore Verrio Pittore Regio eximio etc.3

Illustrissimo Signore 2 in Spanish 1 Antonio Verrio (c.1639–1707; ODNB). After working at Versailles, Verrio came to England in 1672, where he worked at Montagu House and then at Euston Hall and Arlington House, before being commissioned by Charles II to do extensive work at Windsor Castle. 2 This letter is not included in the index to the collection (Add 78299: f 165v), and was evidently added by Evelyn at a later date. 3 To Mr Verrio, distinguished Painter to the King Most Illustrious Sir, I have (with utmost regret) understood from Mr Pepys that you were waiting for me with great patience the other day at lunch. And truly it was not for lack of respect – which I unfailingly hold for Mr Verrio (to whom I am much obliged for every one of my merits) – but due to an extraordinary incident that overtook me the instant I was to set foot in the carriage. And such was the time that I could not untangle myself, since it was too late to advise you, Sir, as ambassador, as without doubt I would have done if I had thought that my presence could have made the least addition to your happiness and content. The loss was my own, not yours – you who alone enjoyed the most gracious conversation of Mr Pepys. Nothing else remains but to blame my misfortune, and I beg you to pardon me this fault. With a sure promise that I shall not fail in the due and very great respect for Mr Verrio, Most Illustrious Sir, Your most humble J.E. Whitehall, 2 February 1685/6

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Ho (con summa dispiacere) intesa del Signore Pepys,4 che lei m’aspetava con tanta patienza l’altro Giorno a Pranzo: E veramente non era mancar di Respetto, che sempre porto verso del Signore Verrio (a chi mi sono tanto obligo da lei d’ogni mio merito) ma ad un’Accidente straordinario che mi è soppravenuto a punto che doveva metter piedi in Carozze: E tanto era tempo che poteva ne sbarattar mi che truppo era tardi d’avisar Vostro Signore Illustre per Imbasciata, comme senza dubbio sarei fatto, se pensassi ch’il mia presenza hauesse potuto far qualche additamenta alle suo menor alegrezze e contento. Il perso era il mio, non suo, che solo godeva il gratissima Conversatione del Signore Pepys: Non occorr’altro, che biasmar il mio sfortuna, è la supplico di pardonar mi questo fallo, con promesso positivo de mai mancar al mio debita e grandissa stima, che a Signore Verrio ha Illustrissimo Signore Il suo humblissimo etc. White-hall 2 Febbraio: 1685/6

4 Samuel Pepys

EI EPISTOLARUM LIBER III

John Crayford1 Letter 1 June 2, 1645 f 38

Epistle I To John Crafford Esquire2

Sir, I returne you a thousand thanks for the favour of your Letter from Rome, which found me here at Padoä amongst the Anatomies,3 as you left us: Signor Janicius (your old Servant) is still as dilligent as ever,4 and will best be able to informe you how we have pass’d the time since you left this place: The usual reciprocations betweene Padoä and Venice, Venice and Padoa (and now and then a little baite on the sweete Brenta) hold as they were wont; but we have not the Companie of Mr. Crafford, which is some mortification to us: Pray be not unmindfull of your friends, do not loose us altogether, and burie us among the learned rubbish you so admire at Rome; especialy now that my friend here and I are to be so far from Kent, and Christendome as Turkie: for we have (the last weeke) taken our Cabine in a Vessel at Venice,5 which is bound for the Levant, and are furnishing it with Provisions for a Voyage to Constantinople. ’Tis now excessive hot here, and the fine breezes from the sea, tempt honest James6 and your servant to take the fresh there upon it this summer, if nothing intervene: Give us at least your good wishes, and the presentment of our services to our Countrimen and fellow Pilgrimes with you from Sir Your etc. Venice: 2 June: 1645

1 On 20 May 1639 Evelyn refers to a trip to Somerset and notes: “accompany’d with one Mr. Jo: Crafford (who afterwards, being my fellow-traveller in Italy, there chang’d his Religion)” (Diary II.22–3 and n. 4). Crayford matriculated at Padua on 12 November 1644 (Diary II.22). The Early Life and Education of John Evelyn, ed. Smith, 109, identifies him as the fourth son of Edward Craford of Great Mongham in Kent. 2 See Diary II.22–3. Crayford was also in Padua by 8 June, when he replied to this letter (Add 78315: f 46 [8.6.1645]). 3 See Diary II.464–6 and 475–6, and Letter II.6, note 3 for Evelyn’s anatomical studies in Padua, and Hanson, The English Virtuoso, 60–5. 4 probably Georgius Janichius, a respondent in Christophorus Tinctorius, Disputationem quartam ... de natura febrium putridarum universali ... proponet C. Tinctorius. Resp. G. Janichio, etc. (Königsberg, 1637). Evelyn identifies him as “a Polonian, & who was going Physitian in the Venetian Gallys for Candy” (Diary II.470). 5 Like Milton who planned to go to Greece seven years earlier, Evelyn did not get there. Evelyn describes the preparations for this journey in Diary II.451–2. 6 James Thicknesse (b. c.1620–61?; Diary II.17–18). He became Evelyn’s friend at Balliol College, having matriculated there in 1636, and was made a fellow of the college in 1641. He was Evelyn’s “Constant fellow Traveller” in Italy in 1645. He was expelled from his fellowship in 1648 but restored to it in 1660. See Add 78311 (ff 1–31) for their correspondence.

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Fig. 9 Add 78298: f 38 ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

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Thomas Henshaw1 Letter 2 June 31, 1645 f 38v

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Epistle II To Thomas Henshaw Esquire

Sir, There is nothing I oftner call to mind, or please my selfe in the Contemplation of, then the agreable moments we have pass’d by the Banks of the Tyber, and amœnities of Rome, when we have ben seeking for that prowd, and imperious Citty in her dust and Ruines;2 nor know I whither to reflect on with greater astonishment, her former Magnificence, or present – Countenance, Time and Barbaritie have made so prodigious a change in it: But I find my Friend is still held with her charmes, and have no thoughts this way; nor can I blame you; there being so much diversion in the Roma moderna when you are sated with Antiqua: In the meane while, pray forget not the Absent, and that there are other parts of Italy not to be neglected, especaly if you resolve the Toure you design’d at my coming away: But whither it will be my good fortune to see you at your arival here, I cannot tell, being extreamely bent upon an Expedition into the Levant and having so faire an opportunity of a stout Vessel sailing hence to Alexandria, & from whence we think of doing our devotions at Jerusalem, and to returne by Constantinople: And this I think nothing is likely to detourne; unlesse it be the breaking-out of the Wars at Candia3 (of which I suppose you heare) which makes us a little deliberate: I was the other day invited on board our ship, that lies at Anker neere Malamocco;4 the Captaine5 is being an ingenious and curious man (among other things) show’d me a stone which he not long since, brought from the Mummy-pits (two days off Cairo by the Nylus) which having several ­Hieroglypical 1 Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700; ODNB) had matriculated at University College, Oxford, in 1634, and studied mathematics with William Oughtred at Albury, Thomas Howard’s estate, near the Evelyn family home at Wotton. He met Evelyn by prior arrangement in Pisa and they travelled together to Rome and Naples. Henshaw returned to England by January 1649, and took over Evelyn’s chambers in the Middle Temple in 1654 (Diary II.24, n. 4). Henshaw was also involved in alchemical circles, and was a founding fellow of the Royal Society. His translation of the Portuguese Jesuit Alvaro Semedo’s history of China, The history of that great and renowned monarchy of China, appeared in 1655. See Pasmore, “Thomas Henshaw, F.R.S. (1618–1700)” and Add 78311 (ff 32–59) for his letters to Evelyn. 2 Evelyn and Henshaw had arrived in Rome on 4 November 1644. Evelyn had left Henshaw there when he left for Venice and Padua in May. See the poem “Farewell to Rome” in Diary II.402–5 and “Otium Evelyni,” his manuscript verse miscellany (Add 78357: ff 16–17). Henshaw rejoined him in Padua in September (Diary II.470). Evelyn attempted to document his Italian sojurn, commissioning Carlo Maratti to copy the depiction of the Triumph of Vespasian on the Arch of Titus (Plate 2). In 1649, Evelyn dedicated a series of six etchings, based on drawings (Plate 1) he had made during their trip to Rome and Naples, to Henshaw (Plate 3). 3 Crete. The Fifth Ottoman-Venetian war (Guerra di Candia) had just begun with an attack on Heraklion by the Ottoman fleet. 4 a small port on Lido Island, which separates Venice from the Adriatic 5 Evelyn names him as Captain Powell in his diary (Diary II.451).

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figures upon it, I tooke the paines to Copy, as well as I could, and send you here inclos’d to communicate (if you think it worthy) to Father Kercher, who (you know) has ben long on that abstruse subject: [LM: This is since cut and published in his Obeliscus Pamphyliq]6 I have trac’d the greater part of them in Pignorius,7 and I am persuaded it will not be an unwelcome present to that industrious Father: I have no more at present to add, then againe the recommendation of those small collections I made, to your favour and care, when you pack up your owne, to send for England under the Addresse I left with you; and where I hope we may one day enjoy both one-another and them. Be pleasd to give my most humble services to Sir Kenelme Digby,8 Mr. Cary,9 and the learned Benedictine,10 to all whom I have ben so much obliged of our owne Countrymen, not forgetting Mr. White11 and his noble Lady; and if in my intended Peregrination I may be fully signify anything to your service, let me receive your Commands by the first of the next moneth, who am with all faithfullnesse Your etc. Venice: 31 June 1645

6 Not in Athanasius Kircher, Obeliscus Pamphilius (Rome, 1650) but actually in his Oedipus Ægyptiacus; hoc est, Universalis Hieroglyphicae veterum Doctrinae temporum injuria abolitae instauration (Rome, 1652 [i.e., 1655]), II.ii, 456, where the drawing is attributed to “eruditissimus vir Thomas Henschau Anglus” (457). Evelyn had visited Kircher in Rome (Diary II.230–1) and bought two of his works (Evelyn Library, no 854–5; Magnes; sive de arte magnetica opus tripartitum, etc. [Rome, 1641] is now Eve.a.161). His opinion of Kircher had changed by 1670 (see Letter 332). In his response, Henshaw notes: “The design of your Egyptian stone I carryed father Athanasio he was ravished at the sight of it, he begd it before it was offred” (Add 78311: f 35 [29.7.1645]). The Evelyn archive contains a version of the drawing which he made of the hieroglyphs (Add 78351: f 101). See Plate 4. It is attached to another sheet which states, “This stone brought from the Mummies out of Egypt & given me by Captaine Powell at Venice. He (according to promise) brought it to London where at Wapping it was broke to pieces & lost by negligence I being then in France: I sent this draught to Mr. Thomas Henshaw from Padoa to Rome to communicate to Father Athanasius Kercher, then compiling his Obiliscus Panfilius, where he has described it among the Hieroglypic, and receiving it from Mr. Hensaw, without mentioning me from whome he received it: 1646.” Evelyn also describes the episode in Diary II.468–9. De Beer (Diary II.469, n. 4) notes that another version of the drawing is preserved in a copy of Hans Georg Hörwarth, Thesaurus hieroglyphicorum è muséo Ioannis Georgij Hervvart ab Hohenburg ([Munich?], [1610?]) which Evelyn donated to the Bodleian Library (Arch.B.b.2) on 16 March 1655. See Letter 84, note 9. 7 Lorenzo Pignoria, Vetustissimae Tabulae aeneae sacris Aegyptiorum ... explicatio (Venice, 1605; Evelyn Library, no 1181, with a note on the title-page: “E Libris Evelynis emptus Venetiis 1645” and his motto, “Omnia Explorate, Meliora Retinete”). 8 Kenelm Digby (1603–65; ODNB). Evelyn first met Digby during his trip to Holland in 1641 (Diary II.59), and subsequently in Paris and London. His opinion of him changed over this period. See Letter 40, note 2, and Letter 177; and Petersson, Sir Kenelm Digby: The Ornament of England. 9 Patrick Cary (c. 1624–57; ODNB), then at the English College of the Benedictines. See also Delany, “Biographical and Critical Introduction,” in The Poems of Patrick Cary. 10 probably Richard Wilfrid Selby (d. 1657; Diary II.213), president-general of the English province of the Benedictines, 1645–9. Evelyn describes him as “a Person (to say truth) of singular learning, Religion and humanity” (213). 11 Richard White. Evelyn mentions meeting him and his wife in Rome (Diary III.33, 595).

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Plate 2 © Trustees of the British Museum

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Plate 3 © Trustees of the British Museum

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Plate 4 © The British Library Board. All rights reserved.

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Thomas Howard1 Letter 3 August 8, 1646 f 39

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To the Earle of Arundel Epistle III

[RM: Thomas Earle of Arundel and Surrey Earl Martial of England the greate Antiquarie and Grandfather to the Dukes of Norfolcke:] My Lord: My last by Mr. Gifford,2 has e’re this (I presume) kissed your Lordships hands at Padoä, he assur’d me he would would give it safe recapito3 with his owne, being now upon his departure for Italy: By him it is, you will likewise receive the ambition my Brother4 has to serve you in your Commands about Alburie5 (that sweete Villa of your Lordships) where yet I hope (after all these Confusions) to see your Lordship in prosperity, tasting the fruits

1 Thomas Howard, 14th earl of Arundel, 4th earl of Surrey, and 1st earl of Norfolk (1585–1646; ODNB, P). See Hervey, Thomas Howard. Howard replied to this letter on 23 August (Add 78315: f 79 [23.8.1646)]. Howard had given Evelyn a memo when he left Padua suggesting places to visit during his return to Paris: “Remembrances of Things Worth Seeing in Italy Given to John Evelyn 25 April 1646.” See Chaney, “Evelyn, Inigo Jones, and the Collector Earl of Arundel,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 37–60, and Howarth, Lord Arundel and His Circle, 214–18. 2 In a letter to Evelyn of 1 September 1646, from Venice, Thomas Henshaw notes “still this week Jack Gyfford gave it mee under your hand that you were well & in good health, and as hee added merry and in good humour” (Add 78311: f 38 [1.9.1646]). 3 address 4 George Evelyn (1617–99; Diary, H). John’s eldest brother and the head of the family for most of his adult life, George was first married (1640) to Mary Caldwell and second (1647) to Mary Cotton, née Offley (d. 1664). By his first wife, only his son George (1644–76) lived beyond infancy. Three daughters of this son were potential claimants against their father’s estate, as was Mary Evelyn (1648–1723) (a daughter of his second wife) who married Sir Cyril Wyche. Evelyn’s letters from George are in Add 78303 (1636–59) and Add 78304 (1660–99), and John’s surviving letters to his brother in Add 78291. See Darley, John Evelyn for the relationships of the brothers. 5 Arundel’s estate at Albury in Surrey near Evelyn’s family home, Wotton House, depicted by Wenceslaus Hollar in a series of etchings. For Evelyn’s associations with Albury and Howard’s collections, see Harding, “John Evelyn, Hendrick van der Borcht the Younger and Wenceslas Hollar.” Evelyn later redesigned its gardens. See Pforzheimer Library, Ms 35C (Beal, Index, EvJ 123), Charlesworth, “A Plan by John Evelyn for Henry Howard’s Garden at Albury Park, Surrey,” in O’Malley and Wolschke-Bulmahn, John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, 289–94; and Chambers, “The Tomb in the Landscape: John Evelyn’s Garden at Albury.” Evelyn’ s early involvement with Howard’s circle is suggested by the portrait of him by Hendrick van der Borcht (Colour Plate 3), commissioned for his sister shortly before his first departure from England in 1641 (Diary II.29) and by his role as dedicatee of Hollar’s 1644 print of Van Dyck’s Self-portrait with a Sunflower (Plate 5). Both van der Borcht and Hollar had been brought to England by Howard. See Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain, 96–7.

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 5 © Trustees of the British Museum

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of your magnificent Collections: My Lady Mowbray6 (your Lordships Daughter) is very Well, and has injoyn’d me to let you know so much: As to your Lordships servant, I am yet in Paris, but not with halfe that Contentment (though drawing neerer home because we are still mad and frantic there) as when with your Lordship of whom I learned so many excellent things, and received so greate Obligations from: In the meane time, my resolutione for Spaine7 still holds, unlesse my necessarie buisinesse calls me into England, which may wholy divert it: But of that your Lordship shall (according to my promise, and my duty) have timely advertisement: My Lord, I wish you all Health and Comfort, and that I shall may ever be reckon’d amongst My Lord Your honours etc. Paris: 8 August: 1646:

John Robinson1 Letter 4 May 10, 1648 f 39

Epistle IV To Mr. Robinson etc.:

Sir, I receiv’d your most Civil Letter from the hands of a Gentleman, who can testifie how much I thinke my-selfe obliged to promote your Interest in what you mention; finding my-selfe so far indebted for the favour you were pleas’d to do me in that troublsome buisinesse2 (and the Account now return’d me) as beares no proportion with my present Capacity of making the requital, which I wish I were: But if my best Endeavors to serve you, my Prayers for a successful Journey, or any thing in my Circle, may contribute to your happinesse in the least, there is no man shall more sincerely offer them, then Sir Your etc. London 10 May 1648:

6 Elizabeth Howard, née Stuart, Lady Mowbray (d. 1674; P). The daughter of Esme Stuart and Katherine, née Clifton, Elizabeth married clandestinely Henry Frederick Howard (1608–52), 15th earl of Arundel. 7 Evelyn did not go to Spain either. He returned to England in October 1647. 1 probably Sir John Robinson (1615–80; ODNB, H), a successful merchant and strong Royalist 2 possibly to do with Evelyn’s abandoned intention to buy Bolney Court near Henley in April; see Diary II.540, n. 5.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mary Cotton Evelyn1 Letter 5 July 14, 1648 f 39v

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Epistle V To my Lady Cotton:

Madame, Allthings having so unluckily Conspir’d to frustrate my resolutions of attending your Ladyships Anniversaries;2 I cannot yet so far be wanting to good manners, as upon so kind an Invitation, and the sense of my owne duty, not to let your Ladyship and my Brother know, with what extreame regret I am detain’d in this dusty and noise-full Towne, where there is nothing delights me, but the Contemplation of the happinesse of your Ladyship, though I am my-selfe like to be depriv’d of enjoying so greate a part of it, as the being present at this your Ladyships first Commemoration and Festivitie: I do however Augure your Ladyship all the continuance of all that Joy, and prosperitie, which is due to so much Virtue and goodnesse, and that you and my Brother may receive the fruites of your intire Affections, and see the revolutions of many Weding-daies, crown’d (as I hope this will be) with the Company, and best Wishes of all that have the honour to know your Ladyship who am Madame your etc. London 14: July 1648

Edmund Waller1 Letter 6 December 20, 16492 f 39v

Epistle VI To Edmond Waller Esquire

Sir, Though I could not be so fortunate as to find you in your old quarter (where I have ben to waite upon you)3 yet to shew you, that I have at last ben overcome: I adventure to send 1 Mary Cotton, née Offley (d. 1664; Diary). The granddaughter of Thomas Lowe, lord mayor of London, she was first married (in 1639) to Sir John Cotton (d. 1646) and then (in 1647) to Evelyn’s brother George, by whom she had six or seven children. The Offleys were a Surrey family; her brother and nephew were rectors of Abinger. 2 the first anniversary of their marriage. Their daughter Mary (later Lady Wyche) was born in 1648. 1 Edmund Waller (1606–87; ODNB). Evelyn met him in Venice in 1646 and was often in his company on the continent between then and his return to England in January 1652. Waller also studied in Padua. 2 The only letters in the letterbook from 1649 are from late December. Evelyn was in England from 11 ­October 1647 until 13 July 1649. During this period he corresponded extensively with his father-in-law Sir Richard Browne on the political and military situation. See Add 78221 and Add 15948 and Diary (1887), III, 5–56, and Add 34702 for Browne’s letters. Their correspondence put him, he said, in “no small danger of being discover’d” (Diary II.552). 3 Evelyn records two visits to Waller (19 December and 28 December; Diary II.567–8).

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you an account of the Attempt you have put me upon;4 but with what successe, I dare not pronounce: ’Tis hard drawing after such an Original, with an unsteady hand: The last stanza looses much of that grace in the Italian, though that Language be so charming upon other occasions: This I observe, that a very little Witt; and a meane point shews finely in that Toung, and in the pompous Spanish, which would by no meanes passe in ours; lesse harmonious, and not so happy in the Cadence; but the numbers are made out, and so aboundantly recompenc’d, in the richnesse of the sense, that I am bold to affirme one of Mr. Wallers short sallies, nay a single haire of Cyparissas would be woven into a just Poeme in any of those languages:5 But ’tis not here I am to make a Panegyrick on your Works, th[e]y speake for themselves, and I onely your pardon and Your Paris: 20: December 1649

Ann Bodvel1 Letter 7 December 20, 1649 f 39v

Epistle VII To Platona2

Playne dealing’s a Jewell amongst friends, and I use it as plainely: I don’t find one syllable concerning the Certificate I dispatch’d to you from the Conservator of your health on this side, dated 9 October:3 Wonder not that I calculate so justly; remember I keepe a Kalendar of all that passes, and an importance of that nature could not escape without

4 Evelyn probably refers to the translation into Italian of Waller’s “Chloris Singing,” included in his verse miscellany (Add 78357: f 9). Evelyn also translated “Upon my Lady Isabella Thynne, cutting of Trees in paper” (f 9v). In 1646 Waller had sent Evelyn a poem written in French asking for Evelyn’s critique of it (Bodleian Ms Montagu.d.I: f 47). Subsequently it appeared in English as “Of Mrs. Arden” in his Poems, &c., written upon several occasions, and to several persons (London, 1664). 5 Cyparissa was Waller’s poetic name for Mary Bracey, his second wife. 1 She was related both to the Offleys (the family of George Evelyn’s second wife) and to Anne Mynne (wife of Sir John Lewknor and sister of Richard Evelyn’s wife). See Dood, “The Tragedy of Col. John Bodvel.” We are grateful to Frances Harris for this identification. 2 identified as “Mrs. Bodvill” in the index to the collection (Add 78299: f 165) 3 There is no letter extant for that date in the archive.

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an egregious defect in my Chronicle:4 But in sober earnest Platona, I am in paine ’till I understand whither it came to hand or not: In the meane time expect with impatiencey that edition of your owne Table-book: You know my meaning; for I dare not stay longer to explaine, our stills5 are in Balneum Mariæ;6 farwell deare Platona and etc. Paris: 20th December 1649

Kenrick Eyton1 Letter 8 February 7, 1650 f 40

Epistle VIII To Kendric Eaton Esquire

Perdatur Ille (pessime) qui Feminam Duxit secundam, nam nihil primo imprecor Ignarus (ut puto) mali, primus fuit said [RM: Ebul: in Crit: Athenæ Deipnosophistæ]2 some doting foole, who had lite on a shrew – ’Til yours of the 13th past, the Intervall was immense; but I easily excuse you; you woo’d a Mayd, a Virgin; They are the Widdows (they say) come on so kindly, and are gain’d so soone; Virgin Ladys will like forts and Castles, must be won by Approches,3 and stratagem, and lines of Circumvallations, and we are 4 probably an allusion to the notes written in almanacs which later formed the basis for the composition of his diary. See de Beer, Diary I, introduction, 74–9 and Balliol College, PRT. 670.a.13 (notes from 1636–7) and Add 80765 (from 1653). 5 an apparatus for distillation. Evelyn was very interested in chemistry. In January 1647 he notes that he “frequented a course of Chymistrie, the famous Monsieur Le Febure [i.e., Nicasius Le Fèvre] operating upon most of the Nobler processes” (Diary II.534–5), and in January 1649 that he “went through a Course of Chymistrie” at Sayes Court (Diary III.547). He would follow another course with Le Fèvre in 1651 (Letter 40). See Taylor, “The Chemical Studies of John Evelyn.” 6 bain-marie: a process of slow cooking or heating using pots placed in water, often for chemical or pharmaceutical purposes 1 Sir Kenrick Eyton (c.1600–c.1682; Diary). Eyton was a correspondent (using the name Thomas White) with Evelyn chiefly in 1649 (Add 15948: ff 38–52). He had been called to the Bar in 1634, was knighted in 1675, and after 1672 was a justice in the Council of the Marches at Ludlow. Evelyn alludes to “my good friend Mr. Eaton (afterwards a Judge) who corresponded with me in France” (Diary II.558). 2 From Euboulos as cited in Natalis Comes’s translation of Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 13.3. Also cited in Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, III, 232, and translated by Ralph Burton: “Foule fall him that brought the second match to passe, / The first I wish no harme, poore man also, / He knewe not what he did, nor what it was” (III.ii.5.3). Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue (Add 78632; see de la Bédoyère, “John Evelyn’s Library Catalogue”) lists Ἀθηναιου Δειπνοσοφιστων βιβλια πεντεκαιδεκα. Athenæi Deipnosophistarum libri quindecim (Lyon, 1657) edited by Isaac Casaubon and a 1638 edition of Burton’s Anatomy. 3 Eyton wrote two letters to Evelyn, on 13 and 27 January the former addressed to “Mr. Smyth” and marked “Intelligence” by Evelyn (Add 15948: f 51 [13.1.1650]; f 52 [27.1.1650]). In neither letter does Eyton refer to a wife, but gives a coded account of the Royalist campaign and domestic politics in England. They had been corresponding frequently from 30 July 1649 (Add 15948: f 38 [30.7.1649]; ff 38–52). His last letter was dated 13 December (Add 15948: f 50 [13.12.1649]).

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not strangers to the difficulties (we are told) you have gon through. Well, at last, you are come to a faire parlie, and I give you Joy with all my heart, and shall not offer to charge this Addresse with anything that may discompose you it, but the presentment of my most humble Services to your Lady, from Your most faithfull Servant etc.

Paris 7: February: 1650:

Catherine Scott1 Letter 9 February 9, 1650 f 40

Epistle IX To my Lady Cathrine Scot:

Madame, I see my selfe too far oblig’d by your extraordinary Civilities, to think of any competent returne: I am not asham’d to professe that my whole stock is too poore to make the least offer towards it; All is owing to your excesse of generositie; and I can onely accknowledge, and declare to all the World, what bonds your Ladyship has layd upon me to be gratefull; though I do but like the Earth (the chiefe Element of my Composition) sending up onely a thin Cloude, for the gentle flowres, and benigne Influences that descend from heaven on her: Madame, this is no flatery, but a Truth; your Merits and Perfections are so universaly Conspicuous: Mithinks I am still hearing you discourse, and admiring your gracefull Entrie; how strang[e]ly delightfull was the tedious and rugged way, as oft as your Ladyship descended to entertaine the few you would blesse with your Conversation! I Revolve the Ideäs with some Ecstasie yet; But whilst your Ladyship continues to treate me with that pompe in your letter, you humble me to abjection, whilst the least of those expressions would become a Monarch to receive;2 but That which your Ladyship is to give to me, is the honour onely of being Madame The most humble and most obliged of your Vassals etc. Paris 9 February: 1650

1 Lady Catherine Scott, née Goring (d. 1686; Diary). She was the daughter of George Goring, earl of Norwich, a staunch Royalist, and married Edward Scott of Scot’s Hall c.1632. 2 This too may be a coded letter as Lady Scott was collecting money in Paris about this time for the Royalist cause. Evelyn had met her in Calais and travelled with her to Paris in July 1649 (Diary II.560), and also met her again while returning to England in July 1650 (Diary III.13). He is responding to a letter from her of 13 January (Add 78316: f 2 [13.1.1650]) describing the political situation in England.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mr Clarke1 Letter 10 February 12, 1650 f 40v

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Epistle X To Mr. Clarke:2

Sir, In accknowledgement of the late favour (to the interruption I am sure of your studies and better employments in the delicious Recesse, where I understand you are) this comes to returne you my most humble thanks: I have receivd your eloquent, as well as elegant Treatise, and want onely the Author and the Master, to make me a practical, as well as speculative Musitian: But my Reading, I perceive (without that) will no more accomplish it, then Bookes of Tactics and the Art of War, without marching into the field and seing the seige laied, the Men disciplind, and exercisd in Armes: I do not now so much wonder at the Sweetenesse, and Easinesse of your temper and conversation (as I emulate, and extoll it) for I find you are all Harmonie, and number and Cadence, and every thing which you describe so excellently[.] I readily believe the Soule has a wo greate Sympathie (I might say) Symphonie with this Art, and you know ’twas the opinion of some Philosophers: I was plainely charm’d with your Harp, and do infinitely preferr it to the gut-strings, but who in this Age has ariv’d to your perfection! You plainely astonish me at the relation of your early beginning, and I see enough of the difficulty, to deterr any man of a lesser lower Genius, or sedulity then Mr. Clarke: There’s nothing (since I heard you touch that Instrument) which the Antients have say’d of their Lyre, etc. which I do not heartily believe; and the Poets had reason to set their Composeres to it. Sir I am for this and a thousand Civilities Your most etc. Paris: 12 February. 1650

1 Clarke appears as a musician on the Irish harp in Evelyn’s diary in 1653 (III.92) and 1668 (III.518). 2 This letter is in reply to a letter of 20 January 1650 from Orléans in which Clarke sends compliments to Sir Richard and Lady Browne and to Evelyn’s “vertuous bedfellow” (Mary Evelyn) and says: “I neede not have gone farther than your owne study for more knowledge than all myne owne industry can ever gaine.” Evelyn endorses the letter: “A person of quality and estate in Northumberland, and the best player on the Irish harp that ever I heard; and a good Musitian” (Add 78316: f 3 [20.1.1650]). The treatise cannot be traced.

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James Scudamore1 Letter 11 February 12, 1650 f 40v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XI To James Scudamor Esquire

Sir, I am almost out of Countenance in thinking how I shall acquit my selfe of the promise I made, of writing oftner to you, after so long a Silence. But I know you will the easier accept of an excuse, when you reflect upon the untoward successe of some of our late letters (which I am assurd have ben intercepted) and the Caution I have had given me from your side, upon this Jealous Conjuncture: This comes to conjure you to believe that you live in my best thoughts with all manner of respect; and that when your Nephew appeares, I will not faile of doing him all the service lies in my Power: I am glad to heare you afford some of your Conversation among our Surrey Friends,2 I am certaine they are all of them your most faithfull Servants, as well as Sir Your most humble etc. Paris 12 February: –1650

Ann Bodvel Letter 12 March 10, 16501 f 41

Epistle XII To Platona:

Though I have no more Confidence at present, then may just serve to secure my Addresses from a criminal boldnesse, by any lately received favours, which might encourage me to presume: Yet I cannot but looke back upon my Inclinations, and at a reverential distance. Madame, Je suis votre tres humble et tres obeisant servitor.2 Your Parting was e’ne as cold as the Climate; had it ben but indifferent, I had stay’d longer; but I found you had a mind to be rid of me, and I hope you are now at Ease: Ile tell you honestly what your friend sayd to me with concerne enough; That you plainely exil’d him: He intended 1 probably James Scudamore (1624–68; ODNB, H), the son of John Scudamore, 1st Viscount Scudamore (1601–71: ODNB), one-time English ambassador to France (1636–9). See Diary II.558 and III.66 and Letter 13, note 2. 2 The main branch of the Scudamores had their seat at Holme Lacy in Herefordshire. 1 Evelyn is replying to a letter of 13 January 1650 (Add 78316: f 14 [13.1.1650]) 2 “Madam, I am your very humble and obedient servant.”

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to be gon he professes, but not so soone; Well, have a little patience, Ile endeavor to make all peace betweene ye: Fare-well: Paris 10 March: 1650

James Scudamore Letter 13 March 26, 1650 f 41

Epistle XIII To James Scudamore Esquire

Sir, I receiv’d yours of the 19th December (an old date)1 giving me notice of the Gentleman your Nephews2 intention to travel, and arival at Paris, which so soone as I could learne out his Lodging, I acknowledg’d, with my waiting on him, and the offer of my best service and assistances here; but which I found he had so much the lesse neede of, as (besides his owne qualifications) he was already joyn’d in Society, with the young Lord Falkland,3 who is under the inspection of Dr. Maplet,4 a very worthy and discreete person; whose Instructions I find your kindsman very readily dispos’d to embrace: I have encourag’d him to do it; and the rather, for that I understand my Lord and his Governor are removing from this Expensive place, and the perpetual intervisites of English (and some enough idle) to a more sedate and private quarter of France, where they may study and gaine the Language without interruption, a thing almost impossible to attaine to any purpose here: This is what I have ben yet able to do in obedience to your Commands: I was the more earnest in suggesting advising him to accompany my Lord, though nothing diffident of his prudence to direct his owne Course; However Sir, if you have any acquaintance with the Doctor, you may perhaps indeare him to some more immediate care of your Nephew, by writing to him, without at all taking any notice of this Advertisement from Sir Your etc. Paris 26: March 1650

1 from the Julian Calendar (OS), i.e., 29 December NS 2 In Diary III.66 (25 May 1652), Evelyn refers to James Scudamore as “Unkle to my Lord Vicount Scudamore of Homlacy,” but de Beer (n. 1) was unable to identify this relationship with certainty. In the same entry Evelyn records James Scudamore as being in Paris “about reclaiming a relation of his,” almost certainly the nephew alluded to here and in Letter 11. 3 Henry Cary, 4th Viscount Falkland (1634–63; ODNB), son of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, who succeeded to the title after the death of his elder brother in 1649. 4 John Maplet (1611x15–1670; ODNB). He received his BA (1634) and MA (1638) from Christ Church, Oxford, and his DM in 1647. In 1648 Maplet became tutor to Lucius Cary, 3rd Viscount Falkland, and travelled with him to France. After his death, he continued as tutor to Henry Cary. After the Restoration, he briefly resumed the principalship of Gloucester Hall, Oxford, but retired in 1662.

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Kenrick Eyton Letter 14 March 26, 1650 f 41v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XIV To Thomas White Esquire

Because I conceive you yet of a pretty sound Constitution (for the whole habite is tainted, and the plague1 Epidemical) I am the bolder to adventure abroade againe for once; but I tell you not without the old Antidote, Distance – stand off, if ye stirr ye are a dead man; Who are ye for? May I defie, I despise, I abhorr, detest and utterly abominate that diabolical Contagion, which I heare dos still so spread amongst you, that no body tells Truth for feare of a Sequestration, nay (ô horrendum informe)2 dares not so much as heare it. My Avisos3 shall then henceforth, come in a single page onely, to save Charges, and prevent the cold sweate, which I find my last put some-body into; by telling you him nothing but who makes love to whom; when ther’s a Ball at Court, and a New Pupet play at Mademoyselles, together with a few Sprinklings of the Mode4 for the Ladys, and so make up the pacquet. This were very pretty Correspondence and worth Eighteene-pence a weeke: I promise ye a Considerable Summ in these hard times – Well, be it so (for I guesse your mind by your Water)5 know that from this moment, I acquit you of all Acts, Ordinances, Votes, Nemine Contradicentes, Remonstrances, Declarations, Intelligences, Corranto’s,6 Gazzets, Gallo-belgics, Politicos, Mercuries, Rossingamos, Journals, Scotch-doves, Nuncio-Inanimatos and Newes from Noddy-Land whatsoever; lest whilst you go about to gratifie an impertinent Curiositie, the Itch increase here; and you become guilty of the high Crime I nam’d: You know the Refran, Little say’d, soone amended, a good Motto (Friend) for these times, and so is another, Be merry and Wise – But to be serious I find by the aire of some fresh letters from our Chiefe, that Philosophie is wonderfully improv’d among you of late, especialy the sect of the Pythagorians (not that there’s any interdiction of eating Beanes;7 for they say one may eate them as lawfully as ever) by an Universal Injunction of Silence! Ô Blessed Libertys (so long Contended for!) of Enjoying every



1 2 3 4 5

a reference to the political climate in England “awful shapeless.” See Virgil, Aeneid 3.658: “monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens.” notices or news This is material that Evelyn would return to in Tyrannus. a medical reference to prognosticating from urine, here, presumably, a joking reference to Eyton’s being on the other side of the Channel 6 The first part of this list is of political or governmental pronouncements; the rest is Evelyn’s parody of the various newssheets circulating in London in this period, which reduces them to the diction of the nonsense rhymes of John Taylor, “the Water Poet” (1580–1653). Nemini contradicentes: contradicted by no one. 7 an allusion to one of the so-called Pythagorean symbols, Κυάμων ἀπέχεσθαι (Abstain from beans) which implies abstention from popular politics (the bean used as a counter in voting) and probably alludes to the bean’s well-known quality of producing flatulence

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thing save ones Life and Fortune, and a Trifle or two Call’d Religion and Loyaltie – But whither am I posting! Deare Camerade, pardon the Sallie, I had realy almost forgot myselfe: But I have don, and won’t say a word more of newes, though it concern’d (I had almost say’d) yer Salvations – Be this the period then of our per’lous Intercourse, with a sad Elegie on the unfortunate Cavy’s8 Exit and Exile, which you may sing, or say, pipe or fiddle to the Tune of Prag-ma-ti-cus. Paris 26: March: 1650

1

Both far and neere, Poore Cavaliere From NODNOL thou must trot; Least when the North Is marching forth They smell another Plot.

2

Five miles about Yet thou may’st out And Smell the Smoke of LONDON; From whence (since first) O Citty Curst! So many have ben un-don!

3

Yet Courage blades! These Knaves of Spades Had all deserved Ends; And so shall these When Heavens please Ôh That will make amends!9

Nemo me impune10

8 i.e., from caveo, “to warn”: a reference to Evelyn’s role in this letter. 9 See also the text of this poem in Add 78357: f 20. 10 “Let no one blame me.”

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George Evelyn Letter 15 [13] April 13, 1650 f 42

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XIII To Mr. George Evelyn my Brother

I am heartily sorry your letters have lost their way to Paris; yet I am in comfort, that after they have baited a little, they may arrive for all this; and confirme the joyes which I conceive, for the safe delivery of my Lady,1 and the fayre Progenie, which continues to blesse you, and oblige your family, by this accession of hapynesse. Be pleased to carry my congratulations to your deare Lady; to whom (in the dialect which herselfe taught me) I augure a Merry up-sitting together with all those divertisements, of a propitious Spring. And now, cover your selfe well (deare Brother) and take heede you doe not take cold, after your sweat;2 the danger is over, and I have bin silent of Newes, and of all things else that may be obnoxious to the tymes, and so warie a person, unlesse there be an expresse desine against raillary, as there is against Truth. If thought be free, I beseech you, be assur’d that I am Sir Your Paris 13 April: 1650

Thomas Keightley1 Letter 16 [14] April 17, 1650 f 42

Epistle XIV To my Cousin T. Keightly, at Rome.

I looke upon it as a greate good fortune, that since I cannot enjoy the society of your Person; I have the honour to receive your Letters which by giving me an account of your progresse, and intended Circle, makes me hope you will shortly confirme your promise,

1 Mary Cotton Evelyn. The daughter referred to is Mary Elizabeth. 2 possibly a reference to George Evelyn’s negotiations with the parliamentary authorities. See also Letter 22 for Evelyn’s concern that his correspondence might be intercepted. 1 Thomas Keightley (b. c.1622; Diary). The son of Evelyn’s godmother and the second son of Thomas, a merchant of London, Keightley was a cousin of Evelyn. In March 1643 Evelyn and his brother, William, had been given permission to travel to France (Diary II.80, n. 3). Thomas graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1636, was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1641, and married Katherine Knollys. In 1646 he visited Rome with his brother where he converted to Roman Catholicism.

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of taking Paris in your way home. To the rest of your excellent Languag (being the quintessence of so many Kingdomes and Courts, as you have passed) I justly subscribe. My Colours and compliments are simple and have no mixture; but I honour, and love you, and perpetualy accompany you, with an unfained affection, to which Cousin, you have as perfect a Title, as any person can declare, that has, perhaps the arte of saying more. Cousen, I am still in the posture you left us, and shall esteeme my selfe extreamely happy in the continuance of this commerce, who am most intirely Sir Your Paris: Easter-day 1650

Elizabeth Browne, Viscountess Montague1 Letter 17 [15] April 17, 1650 f 42

Epistle XV To my Lady, the Vicountesse Montague.

Madam, Besides the honour I have received in being commanded to convey the particulars inclosed; I am to let your Ladyship understand that the Person is fully instructed in the buisinesse you desyre; the bill accknowledged, and all things ready for the first and safest opportunity. My Lady Browne2 who hath bin sorely afflicted with a long feavor, is for nothing more reconciled to her distemper, then that she seemed to sympathise and keepe tyme with your honours Indisposition, for which as she has bin extreamely afflicted; so she hopes it may be a reasonable apologie to your Ladyship, that she has not hitherto made you her addresses. Madame, let me beg leave to present my most humble services to my most honoured Lord,3 and the Lady your faire Niece, whose hands, together with your honours, my Wife most humbly kisses, and I remayne, Madam Your etc. Paris Easter-day 1650

1 Elizabeth Somerset Browne, Viscountess Montagu (c.1616–84; P) 2 Evelyn’s mother-in-law, Elizabeth Prettyman Browne 3 Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu (1610–82; Diary, P). Evelyn gave him a mortgage on his property at West Horsley in Surrey (Diary II.545). There are several references to Evelyn’s meeting him on social occasions in 1649 and 1650.

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Edward Kendrick1 Letter 18 [16] June 20, 1650 f 42v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XVI To Mr. Kendrick.

I cannot but esteeme it a greate hapynesse, that sinc my Cases, have bin in riske to miscarrie, they fortun’d to lite in a Port, wherein you have so much interest. The obligations I have formerely (though now some yeares sinc) received from you, at my residing in the Low-Counteryes, fortified by the reccommendations of my Cousin Catherine2 assuring me of your favour, and assistanc upon this occasion. As to the just number of the Cases, truely I cannot positively affirme whither there were above three two: so many I my selfe saw shipped at the Rypa Grande3 at Rome, consigned to Livorno, whither a third was likewise conveyed, by a friend of mine at Florenc;4 now almost five yeares sinc. Those which were embarked at Rome, had upon their emballment, this Character5 (E) I but what marke that from Florenc bore, I cannot (in perticular) describe, because it was committed to another in my absenc: However, if these are not sufficient distinctions; I shall endeavor (as well as my memory will further me) to enumerat the particulars conteyned in them. This inclosed will, I hope therefore inable you to make challeng, and my future accknowledgments for so greate a favour let you see, that what you doe is not to an ungratefull person, though for Sir, Your Paris: 20 June: 1650

1 Edward Kendrick (1614–54), an English resident of Rotterdam; probably related to John Kendrick (d. c.1661; L), alderman of London from 1643 and lord mayor 1651–2, and therefore connected to Evelyn through his wife, Katherine, who was the daughter of Thomas Evelyn of Long Ditton (Evelyn’s uncle). Evelyn had met Edward on his first trip to Holland in 1641, and corresponded with him (Add 78315: f 5 [15/25.8.1641]). 2 Katherine Kendrick, née Evelyn 3 the main wharf at Rome (see Letter 2): His “Italian Collection,” of material acquired after he left Rome, such as “the Tables of Veines & Arteries, which I had purchasd, and causd to be drawne out of several humane bodys at Padua” (Diary II.553) had arrived by early April 1649. Other goods would be traced to Holland at the beginning of 1652 (see Letter 42). 4 Anna Barettier. See Add 78315: f 49 (4.4.1645) and Letter II.1. This third case probably contained the cabinet which Evelyn commissioned in Florence, now at the Victoria and Albert Museum (see Radcliffe and Thornton, “Evelyn’s Cabinet”). 5 the E over-striking the I

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jasper Needham1 Letter 19 [17] November 26, 1650 f 42v

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Epistle XVII To Mr. Gaspar Needham.

I doe not give you this importunity out of any designe that I have to make it customary, and a trouble to you of præscription (which the frequency of them may put you in a just suspicion off  ) but to let you see, what you have don, in giving me so large a power, and that it is difficult to observe a meane, in so greate a liberty. But I shall now onely beg of you to e[n]quire amongst the Stationers for the last edition of Dr. James his Catalogue of the Bodlean Liberary:2 and to send me a Metamorphosis translated by George Sandys,3 with the Cutts in folio: having newly presented one that I had, to his highnesse the Duke of York4 who had a minde to it. Sir, you see how greate a trouble I impose, and with how little ceremony I apologize for it; being at instant a little hard wrought, with the number, and necessity of this dayes-dispatches to several of my Correspondents, which forces me to breake off, and remaine Sir Your Paris: 26: November: 1650

1 Jasper (Caspar) Needham (c.1623–79; Diary, M). At Cambridge (BA 1644, MA 1648) and incorporated MA (1656) and MD (Cambridge) 1657; fellow of the Royal Society 1661; fellow of the College of Physicians 1668. Needham attended Margaret Godolphin on her deathbed (Add 78431; f 117 [9.9.78]). At Needham’s death, Evelyn described him as “one who loved me with greate affection” (Diary IV.183). 2 Thomas James, Catalogus universalis omnium Librorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Oxford, 1620; in the 1687 library catalogue). Evelyn is presumably asking for this second edition (1st edition, 1605). Needham had obviously offered to supply Evelyn with English books. 3 George Sandys, trans., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished (London, 1640; in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.b.54) 4 the future James II

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Frances Carey1 Letter 20 [18] November 30, 1650 ff 42v–3

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XVIII To my Lady Frances Carye.

Madam, I send you the Booke,2 which you command; and now that you have so farr prevailed with your Servant as to tempt him to a discovery of his greatest imperfections in obeying you; oblige him (by suffering no others to take cognizanc of them) not to repent of his confidenc in your promise. For though, peradventure, I may have no just cause to be ashamed of the Thing yet; sinc it is far short of the dignity of the Subject, and much more of the honour you have esteemed it worthy, I conjure you therefore Madam, to be tender how you publish my errours, and render anything obnoxious to the censure of this perverse age, which whilst onely your absolute dominion, could have perswaded me to undertake it. They are the sole effects of your Ladyships Commands, and my honourable honourd thoughts of your fayr Sex; as yet in the Modell, but designed for a more noble structure: in expectation whereoff, vouchsafe the favour I supplicat, and returne it againe to, Madam, Your Paris: 30: November: 1650.

Richard Evelyn1 Letter 21 [19] December 3, 1650 f 43

Epistle XIX To Mr. Richard Evelyn my Brother.

In accknowledgment of yours of September 25th, I dispatch this; having not much more to add, after my kind resentiments of your favours. I confesse that I breathe after the ­felicity 1 unmentioned in the diary. There is a letter from her to her husband in the correspondence of Mary Wyche, née Evelyn (Add 78295: f 157 [n.d.]). Since it refers to “my sister Bety,” she may be a sister of Evelyn’s regular correspondent Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey. 2 possibly a manuscript of Evelyn’s The State of France (London, 1652) 1 Richard Evelyn, brother, of Woodcote (1622–70; Diary). Evelyn’s younger brother and the owner of Baynards in Surrey near Wotton, Richard was educated at Lewes and Balliol before going to the Middle Temple. He had a life interest in the Evelyn property, Baynards, and subsequently acquired Woodcote Park near Epsom, through his marriage to Elizabeth Mynne who brought him a great fortune. Evelyn’s correspondence with Richard is in Add 78302.

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you invite me to; not that I can either accuse, or repent of my present condition, where I enjoy so greate a liberty of mind, and the superfluities of life. For you cannot imagin I should so earnestly have taken the troubles of this voyage, to seeke new miserys (having so lately experienced the nature of both places) but for a conversation so charming as that you mention, in comming to live amongst Relations so neere:2 But as you know, I am no Salamander,3 and must live where I may breath fresh aire and enjoy the recesses of a quiet life: Give me leave therefore still to possesse Mentem Sanam in Corpore Sano,4 as long as I may, Though certainely your reasons carye so greate a weight with them, as that, when I next am so happy as to be restored to my Native country, you may be assured I will doe all I can to settle amongst you, though by it, I sacrifice the greatest (which are the present) Satisfactions, of Deare Brother Your Paris: 3: December: 1650

G. Langton1 Letter 22 [20] December 3, 1650 f 43

Epistle XX To Mr. G. Langton:

Sinc the Expresse you mentioned, this calls it selfe the third, which is trying its fortune to find you: but where the obstacle is (the cause of our mutual complaints) is not difficult to conjecture, though not safe to accuse, openly. You can hardly imagine with how much cunning I was sifted,2 and treated at my comming over on your behalfe: Howbeit, neither that nor what the malic of men can farther contrive, hath hithertoo hindered, much lesse impeached my least affection and dilligenc to serve you. Concerning the since transactions in that affaire, and what other necessitys there may be of your personal appearanc; expect an account off from your Industrious Friend: onely, I challeng a part still in the

2 Evelyn married Mary Browne in 1647 when she was twelve but he did not live with her at that time. Here he refers to his return to France in August 1650, after a brief visit to England that summer. 3 Salamanders were reputed to be able to live in fire. See Otto van Veen, Amorum emblemata (Antwerp, 1608), 22–9 (“Mea vita per ignem”) for the emblem of the lover, “veluti salamandram” living in flames. 4 “a sound mind in a sound body.” Juvenal, 10.356 1 This is probably a code name, possibly either for George Evelyn or Francis Browne. Evelyn alludes to the possible interception of his correspondence by the English authorities. 2 Evelyn had returned to England at the end of June 1650, but had gone back to France on 13 August to bring back his wife. He claims that his journey had been “not without extraordinary hazard,” because he had travelled with a counterfeit pass, “it being so difficult to procure one of the Rebells without entering into oathes, which I never would do” (Diary III.15–16).

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service, and thinke all to little to pay my accknowledgments for the greate favour, and the Civilities I receivd at Parting. Sir, I am most unfainedly Your Paris: 3: December 1650

Robert Heath1 Letter 23 [21] December 19, 1650 f 43r–v

Epistle XXI To Mr. R. Heath.

Though your good Languag were sufficient to put even a Courtier to silenc; yet the extraordinary Civility of your Letter will not suffer me to be ingratefull. As to the Favour which you say I have so much well served you in; I am sorry I can owne the expression by no other instanc, then by that of Imputation: but certainely, had it realy bin within the power of my greatest in my power and Interests here, none should have bin more truely industrious to have don you right, then your Servant: for such occasions are ever most agreable to me, wherein I may with successe, excercise the inclynations I have to serve such Persons as you, and to which whom I esteeme my selfe obliged, by more then single Relations:2 something I challenge by blood, and inveterat Conversation; and now sinc, by a yet more precious tie, than your Judgment and ingenuous Conversion. So that I hold my selfe infinitly unfortunat, that the imaginary troubles of this Kingdome3 (related to you by a Woman onely) should deterr your resolutions of appearing amongst us. I confesse the Injury don your Domestick, had bin a better projection Objection, had you not discreetely imputed the ill luck which he encountred at Dieppe, rather to chance and wante of conduct, then to any cause which might (otherwise) have justly impeached the general Civility of this Nation. And if the apprehension of any considerable commotions here, be your sole Remora; Receive it, from one that infinitely cherishes your friendship; that there is at present, no place in Europ more serene, and tranquill; the Peace at Bourdeaux4 being fully concluded, and I suppose that in relations of this nature, my Posture heere may be of some credit with you. Not, that I dare prognosticat the perpetuity of our Condition (Interdum Pax est, Pacis fiducia nunquam)5 But unlesse I be extreamely prejudiced, the repose 1 Robert Heath (b. c.1620; Diary, V). Heath was a schoolfellow of Evelyn’s at Lewes, and was distantly related to him. He was admitted fellow commoner of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1638, and Venn records him as possibly the son and heir of William Heath of Lewes. He corresponded with Evelyn in several languages. See Letter II.2. 2 i.e., as a distant cousin 3 Evelyn notes “an Alarm’e that the Enemy [the forces of Archduke Leopold] was within 5 leagues” of Paris on 30 August 1650 (Diary III.17 & n. 3). 4 Evelyn notes Louis XIV’s return to Paris on 15 November (Diary III.23), after his successful siege of Bordeaux. 5 “Yet peace there is at times, confidence in peace never.” Ovid, Tristia 5.2.71 (Wheeler, trans)

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of this Place, with all its inconveniencys (of being out of ones owne Country, in an age wherein it is so little worthy of good men) I have cause to preferr, to all the opportunities, and Civilitys which, I can boast, to have lately found in my Native Soyle Sic – Sic intuens, quaerebam Patriam.6 But Sir, I quitt this discourse; for I perceive it reports transports me to a Passion of enjoying you farther, then (happly) your occasions permitt, or becomes the limits of a letter: Though, for other respects I hope it is more Pardonable to Sir Your Paris: 19th: December: 1650

Jasper Needham Letter 24 [22] December 19, 1650 f 43v

Epistle XXII To Mr. Gaspar Needham.

I send you heere the Picture1 which you have so much desyred longed for and I desyre you to keepe it, at least so long, as till my want of esteeme for you, make me justly criminal; that then it may be in your power to perpetrat that on my Effigies, which is a usual execution of such Malefactors in this Country, whose Persons they cannot apprehend. Whither the proofes ressemble me, or not, I am scarce a Competent judg of: Such, as here brag of their judgment in the Art, cry it up, for rarely don, which makes me believe it may find acceptanc with you, upon that accoumpt: and that whilst the poore Archetype is absent (and by that meanes cannot hope to derive from you the incomparable sweetenesse of your Conversation) the Shadow may (at least) be so happy as to lye amongst your learnd Papers, and from thence discourse to me2 κρύεπτικω˜ ς like the magnetique Alphabet, that tells us [LM: *ut lusit ingeniosè F. Strada3 in eâ prolusione Academicâ, in qua vel unus ejus genius omnium poëtorum felicitatem assequi videtur dum Lucretii stylum imitans rationem quandam alloquendi absentes Amicos absque Epistolis et Internunntiis descripsit]

6 “Thus, thus gazing, I was seeking my country.” 1 the portrait engraving made by Robert Nanteuil that Evelyn records on 13 June 1650 (Diary III.9–10). See frontispiece, vol. 1 and the drawing on which it was based (Plate 6). See also letters from Nanteuil: Add 78316: f 9 (1650) and f 12 (1650). 2 i.e., κρύπτικω˜ ς: secretly 3 “as F. Strada ingeniously illuminates in his academic prolusion, in which, assuredly, his singular talent among all poets seems to attain to happiness, while, imitating the style of Lucretius, he described a certain method of addressing absent friends without letters and intermediaries.” Famianus Strada. Prolusiones academicae, oratoriae, historicae, poeticae (Cologne, 1617; frequently reprinted, including Oxford, 1631). Evelyn had seen “that famous wit & historian Famianus Strada” when he had visited the Jesuit College in Rome in 1644 (Diary II.283).

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn    *– Si quid scire voles, qui distat, Amicum    Ad quem nulla accedere possit Epistola   Sume etc.4

You know Your own ingenuity to make out the rest and by it infinitly reconcile me to the Vanity of complying with your importunity for this Trifle, who acknowledges Deare Sir Your

Paris: 19: December: 1650

Thomas Keightley Letter 25 [23] March 25, 1651 ff 44–5

Epistle XXIII To my Cousin Thomas Keightly.

Dear Cosen, I was in a fayre expectation (that now according to your promise) I should at my second returne out of England, have encountred you at Paris, where I flattered my selfe with the greate hopes of your society, and the innocent diversions which were wont to take up our thoughts there together: But a Gentleman passing not longsinc through this Citty, exceedingly surprised us, when he made us a relation that a Course you had lately entered upon at Rome, was very farr distant from so hopefull a returne as we expected.1 What entertaynement these tydings mett with me, you may easily imagine; when nothing could satisfie my beliefe therein, till I had perfectly informed my selfe of the truth by an expresse from your disconsolat friends out of England, who are the maine occasion of giving you this trouble. And now (Deare Cosen) I am not without just suspition, with how greate caution intercourses and papers of this nature are permitted to come into your hands, if it be true, that you have so absolutly resigned up your selfe to the conduct of such, as have the right art to mannage Proselytes to thire [word deleted] advantag: But might I obteyne the favour of a Civil hearing, I am confident that though you may be instructed to award my reasons; yet you can neither despise my friendship, nor reproach my Charity; nor is he (who speakes this) ignorant at all, either of the Places you are in, or the opinions you may have embraced; seing, for that very purpose, of exploring the verity of things,

4 “If you desire a friend who is at a distance to know something, [a friend] to whom no letter would be able to arrive, take up...” Strada, Prolusiones (1617), 306. 1 Keightley had converted to Catholicism in Rome. See also Letter 29, where Evelyn plans his meeting with Keightley with John Cosin, and Letter 41, written in response to the conversion of Cosin’s son.

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I partly first under tooke a journey into those parts, and have ever sinc made it a considerable portion of my retirements, to informe my selfe of the Truth; having sometyme bin (I confesse) so farr in admiration of the Discipline of the Roman Church; as (if the Doctrine had bin as tempting) [word deleted] to have resolved upon a farther Communion with her:2 But Deare Cosen when you shall as seriously weigh the real foundation, with the superstructure, and tryed the pure gold from the drosse (and other her adulterat ingredients) certainely you cannot but accknowldge that the mettal is fouly mixed, and all is not gold that glisters. I have little skill in, lesse affection to Argument; yet least you should prejudic or despise my Advise, I must let you know (without glory) that my leasure and love to the Truth, have engaged me to some serious Enquiries. I forbeare could here enumerate specimens enumeration of the Authors which on both sides I have read; but because a solitary Catalogue is not sufficient, to gaine reputation to those of one either party, generally pretended to nor would I swell this paper, and but reserve what I should here write, to what I had rather speake in person, and which honour I still hope for, as you passe through France where I passionately attend your arival.3 In the meanentyme, it is not to your Colledge I write this, but to you; and the favour which I beg, is, that you will suspend the ingaging of your Selfe into any peremptory course, till first you have seriously considered the advantages of the Cause, and the reasons which induced you. For, Cosen, you must give me leave to feare (without at all extenuating your abilities, which I have ever esteemed, and much admired) that your Course of life cannot have possibly enjoyed those settled opportunities, which to so sober an examen, and diligent scrutiny of particulars as in truth a matter of that high concernement (as is the abjuring ones Religion) doth justly merit and require. Before therefor you too far ingage your selfe, and gratifie a Party (whose glory is first to make the Proselyte, and then abandon him) resolve upon an effectual enquiry; and for that purpose, hasten to some indifferent place, where you may doe it without danger, and dissadvantage. Reade our Writers, consult our Doctors, frequent the Religious; and then if upon a faire Tryal, you see cause to declyne Our Church; you shall both justifie your present Choyce, oblige your freinds, and give infinit satisfaction to your neerest Relations, who otherwise this effectually may will otherwise greately commiserat your condition, and censure your temerity. And this Cousen, should something (mithinkes) concerne you, till their natural Authority over you, altogether cease and extinguish, which I hope you do not think dos as yet. Touching particular poynts, I must be modest, it being a feild to large for a sheete, much more for a letter, and my talent. It shall suffice me to thinke, that the Authority of the Church must needes be the hinge upon which you now most turne: seing that upon examination of allmost all other differences betweene us, there is so little reason for it your change, and lesse Authority. For that gravissima therefore, give me leave to ­reccommend 2 The largest part of Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue is devoted to theology, much of it on religious controversy. See Add 78632: ff 15–40 (“Libri Theologici Scholastici et Heterodoxi”) and Keynes, Bibliography, 14–17, for an analysis of the library, and Spurr, “‘A Sublime and Noble Service’: Evelyn and the Church of England,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 145–63. 3 This meeting occurred on 28 June 1651 (Diary III.36–7). See Letter 29 to John Cosin.

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to you the inclosed paper,4 as a piece which haply you may not else where meete withall. Despise it not Cousen, because it comes from one of us; Reason is Reason, wherever you encounter it; and the Person, for having bin once yours, is as worthy the hearing as anything of theirs; who have bin once ours, and would so have bin still continued had they had as much reason. But are I heare you scandalized at the present calamity, and fate of our Church: I beseech you looke back upon the whole Eastern-Empire; the perpetual flux and period of all sublunary things; Judg you of the truth of a Religion because it flourishes? Turne Mussellman; suspect you the Persecuted? renounc Christianity. Those that will live piously must suffer it. The church of the Jewes was once without Temple, without Priest, without Altar, and without Sacrifice, and yet as deare to God as ever: was not the Woman banished into the Wildernesse, whilst the Dragon sought to devoure her production?5 Cousen, deceive not your selfe: there are yet seaven-tymes seaven thousand which never bowed the knee to that Idol amongst us; nor is there yet so little life left in the church of England, as that she you ought to should despaire of her recovery, though if it should so please God to afflict her farther; the sufferings of this life (you know) are not worthy to be mentioned for the exceeding reward of the perseverant [words deleted], and that weight of Glory, which alone seene among angels shall one day be revealed. But what if she should one day emerge? or (which were the greater miracle) subsist for all this? [words deleted] would you not condemne your impatienc and wish you had bin more Charitable? Convince us (in the meane while) of any one grosse Errour; or dangerous opinion; of any defect, or greater superstition: In of the honour, and innocency of her Profession (I say nothing of those Jesuited numbers who have allways opposed the Government; nor of those Schismaticks which, you know, were never reconciled to her) and you offer at some reason for this change. We know the Doctrine of the Church of Rome, Sacrilegious, Idolatrous, Rebelious, Impure, and infinitely Superstitious. [sentence deleted] To conclude, Cousen, I am neither Puritan, Presbyter, nor Independant, that have scribbled this large letter; you partly know what my Education hath bin, and how freely I have lived from compulsion; though I have wrestled with infinite temptations, enjoyed much liberty, frequent in doubts, and reluctances in as to matters of Conscienc; and realy, Cousen, it seemed ever to me a thing unreasonable, that men should so diligently weigh their Gold, and take up their Religion upon Trust. I protest before Almighty God, that I am herein meerely ballanced with an affection to the Truth (for I doe confesse it, there is now no other temptation, to be of the the Church of England) and an unfeined passion which I have for the good of your soule. Is there any other external, incident to Youth? dos not your Father so amply perhaps comply with something which you may peradventure thinke you have deserved? Cosen, Remember, that Youth is the feild of Repentanc, and many persons, and commonly the sweetest natures, have bin imported from such circumstances, to undertake Courses, which they have afterwards deploard: Reenter then seriously into your selfe, and consider, what did first worke upon you, and what may be the consequenc of it; Finaly consider, that 4 probably a paper written by a convert to the Church of England from Roman Catholicism such as Isaac Casaubon 5 Revelation 12:13–17

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you are destitute of Friends, of Divines, of Bookes, and all other advantages, which can contribut to the rational proceeding: for, Cousen, without these, Though you have as good a title to the Truth, as you may have to the garment on your back; yet an Argument, or a Sophister more strong than you can presently defend, or encounter, may compell you to resigne, both with losse and dishonour. It is the Property of Theives to take men at a Dissadvantage. The dore is open with us, and you know et: qui non ingreditur per ostium in Caulam Oriam, sed ascendit aliunde, ille fur est et latro: Fur non venit nisi ut furetur, et mactet ac perdat oves,6 and I pray God keep you from their hands[.] It is the unfained desire of Deare Cousen Your etc. Paris Annunciation Blessed Virgin 1651

Richard Owen1 Letter 26 [24] April 12, 1651 f 45v

Epistle XXIV To Mr. Richard Owen, a Divine.

Reverend Sir You needed not take the paynes, by so much art to insinuate, when of right you may command, and have so easy an accesse. But you accuse me of perfections unto which I least pretend; since it is the esteeme which I allwayes had of your Piety, and worth [words deleted] which made me desirous to do you service. If my being longer in England might have anything contributed to it beyond the contemplations you of my Friends in France: certainely there needed no greater perswasives for my returne then my owne inclynations to serve you them. Sir, I shall endeavor to doe [word deleted] my best in the safe acceptance conveyance of your Inclosed: onely I am sorry it arrived no soner: for the Doctor2 (who is an intimate friend of mine) went lately into Italy: Notwithstanding I shall dilligently direct your Packett to him, and give it the best addresse I am able. If in any other affaire I may serve you, add that favour to the rest of these obligations. Deare Sir, I am Your

Paris: 12: April: 1651

6 “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief ... The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to destroy the sheep.” Evelyn combines and paraphrases John 10:1 & 10. 1 Richard Owen (1606–83; ODNB). Owen held the vicarage of Eltham near Sayes Court, from which (along with his rectory of St Swithin, London Stone) he was ejected in 1643. Throughout most of the Interregnum he lived at Eltham, ministered to Evelyn’s family, and baptized three of Evelyn’s children. At the Restoration he regained St Swithin and was made prebendary of St Paul’s. 2 Eleazar Duncon (1597/8–1660; ODNB)

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Samuel Tuke1 Letter 27 [25] April 28, 1651 f 45v

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Epistle XXV To my Cousen S. Tuke.

I received the sad Catastrophe of our friends designes with a greate deale of reluctancy, and sinister Augure, especialy upon the hopes you expressed, of havind [sic] dated your next from a Climat more natural and desyrable to you, and we daylie receive passe by those affronts which the English receive: but it seemes it concernes them so little, that they scarcely resent it, to the greate reproach of our Nation. Cousen, I have bin exceedinly inquisitive about your seale, and I am unwilling to comply with your designe till I can lite on a handsome opportunity to serve you: and how sedulous I have bin herein Mr. Weekes2 can informe you. I pray in the meane tyme transmitt me a fayre trick or draft of your Coate Armour,3 and for the mantling, it will be good to take the directions of Sir Edward Walker who is best accomplished for such an affaire.4 Our condition here is Cousen as uncertayne as your health, I pray God settle them both in his owne good tyme, and in the interim I am extreamly glad of the favour, which you have received from her Highnesse, in which I much approve her election, nor defer I lesse to your Merits who remayne, Deare Cousen Your Paris: April 28 1651

1 Sir Samuel Tuke (c.1615–74; ODNB, Diary). Tuke was a second cousin of Evelyn’s wife, Mary, through the Gonsons who were relations of the Prettymans. See de Beer, “Sir Samuel Tuke,” 346. 2 This is possibly John Weekes (also Wykes or Wix) of Horbridge in the New Forest in Hampshire, who appears in the Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for the Advance of Money 1642–1656: 898. He was a commissioner for the king who supplied funds for Lord Hopton’s army and whose own estates were seized in 1648. He compounded for these in 1649 but was still registered as a delinquent in 1651 and seems only to have escaped from sequestration in 1654. 3 This suggests that Tuke was expecting a knighthood at this time, i.e., long before 1664, when he was created knight and baronet, or that he got some French honour from Henrietta Maria, now only “Highness” since the death of Charles I. 4 Sir Edward Walker (1612–77; ODNB). Walker was a herald in ordinary and had been appointed Garter king of arms in 1645.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jane Glanville1 Letter 28 [26] June 17, 1651 f 46

91

Epistle XXVI To my Sister Glanville.

I am so much overjoyed at the health of little Will;2 that what was designed to render you thankes for your kind letter, comes now to congratulate his happy recovery: For verily, he is the very life of your heart, and a most miraculous gift of God,3 from whom you have receivd mercy the second tyme, and to whom all accknowledgments for it is due. With these joyfull tydings, I likewise understand, what contentment you tooke amongst so many noble relations during your being at London, where, that I came so frequently into your faire thoughts is to reminde me of an obligation, which I am allways ready to accknowledg. Be pleased to give my Brother (your Husband) many thankes from me, for his particular care in the buisinesse4 which he undertooke so successfully for me; and for your selfe, if there be anything worne here, which you desire, I conjure to let me serve you in it: though if I knew of any new mode amongst the Ladys (since the last I sent) I would certainely prevent you of this trouble. I am told at Court that they expect no new fashions till September, and that his Majesties Coronation5 approaches; and so my deare Wife, and I humbly kisse your hands, farewell Dearest Paris: 14th June: 1651

1 Jane Glanville, née Evelyn (1616–51; Diary). She married William Glanville in 1648 and died in childbirth in December, 1651. Evelyn’s correspondence with her is in Add 78296 and Add 78305. The longer original of this letter is Add 78296: f 11 (17.6.1651). 2 William Glanville Jr (1650–1718; Diary) 3 At the age of thirty-five she was probably thought to be almost beyond childbearing. 4 William Glanville (1618–1702; Diary) was presumably looking after Evelyn’s estates in his absence and possibly arranging the transfer of Sayes Court to him. Probably the son of William Glanville of Heavitree, Devon, Glanville matriculated at Oxford in 1634 and was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1635 where he met Evelyn. He became a barrister in 1642. He was a commissioner of the Alienation Office (1689–1702) and on the Committee of the Greenwich Hospital with Pepys and Evelyn (1696–1702). Evelyn’s correspondence with Glanville is in Add 78296 and Add 78305. 5 Evelyn records Louis XIV’s taking “the Kingly Government on him, as now out of Minority” on 7 September 1651 (Diary III.41). He watched the ceremony in the company of Thomas Hobbes.

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John Cosin1 Letter 29 [27] July 28, 1651 f 46r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XXVII To the Reverend the Deane of Peterborough.

[RM: Dr. John Cosin since Bishop of Dursme.] I thinke we have improved the designe you last mentioned much to our advantage; and that without so much as seeming to desyre it: for the Person2 coming yesterday to visite me began himselfe to repeate what had passed at your encounter on Pont-neufe; and, withall that you had promised to see him the next day at his owne lodging, where he likewise conjured me to be present. To this I replyed, that if it were to dispute, and refresh the particulars againe which had formerly passed to so little purpose, I wondred you could so little consult your owne safty as to expose your person: and that, but for your extraordinary passion to Worke a good effect, it could not be, that you should not better consider of the circumstances, as in prudenc you ought, and therefor (to avoyde all suspition, and clamor) I told him playnely I was not of advice, that it was convenient to meete in so publiq a place as neere the Ostel de Condy;3 where the lowdnesse and intemperanc of such disputes, or other accidents might make you obnoxious to the inquisition of the Voisinage (for I industriously concealed any feares, as to the Goliath and assistant he should bring) and therefore my opinion was that it might be here at our house, which I told him was little Britaine,4 and a kind of sanctuary and where we were furnished with divers bookes which possibly might be of use in the Controversye. To all this my friend fairely condescended, and desired me that I would advise you accordingly, to the end you might not lose your labour in the other appoyntment. Sir, I desire you to send by this Expresse that booke and Catalogue.5 This is all I trouble you with at present, after I have humbly kissed your hands Your Paris: 28: July: 1651

1 John Cosin (1595–1672; ODNB). Cosin was ejected from the mastership of Peterhouse in 1644 and appointed by the king as chaplain to the Protestant members of the court of Henrietta Maria, operating first from the Louvre and then from the residence of Sir Richard Browne. 2 Thomas Keightley. Keightley was a recent Catholic convert (see Letter 25), and Evelyn was clearly nervous that Cosin and he not draw attention in public to their religious affiliations. Rather than meeting at the Louvre (where Cosin’s books were housed), they met at Evelyn’s lodgings, and “a formal Dispute began, which held many hours ... but so had they wrought with , as he tooke his leave of me unsatisfied” (Diary III.36). See also “Relation of what passed betwixt my Co K, the Deane of Peterborough and my selfe at Paris touching his Change of Religion. Written by a Gentleman of his Relation” (Add 78366). 3 Hôtel de Condé 4 The Paris residence of Sir Richard Browne (1605–83; ODNB, Diary), the English resident in Paris (1641–57) and Evelyn’s father-in-law. His papers are Add 78189–263. 5 possibly a reference to the catalogue of Cosin’s books in England which he desired to sell (see Letter 59)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Tuke Letter 30 [28] July 29, 1651 f 46v

93

Epistle XXVIII To my Cousen Samuel Tuke.

I have with many accknowledgments received both the Chinese Garment, and the PolishOffice;1 and doe in exchange highly esteeme of that glorious employment which the Princesse [LM: Louise 2d daughter to the Queene of Bohemia]2 is pleased to conferre upon me; but if for the servic I am to doe, she will needs reward me; and that I were to make choyce of my hire, it should certainely be her owne picture drawne by her Selfe,3 that so I might be in a capacity to send her back the reflection of it from the hand of our famous Nanteuille,4 the same who by performing so well with me, was (by your meanes) so much honoured with her Majesties approbation:5 But beggers must be no choosers; the honour of doing her highnesse servic being a bigger reward then any I can pretend to, who remaine Deare Cousein Your Paris 29th July: 1651

1 In a letter of 27 June, Tuke says that he is “hopefull yor Gowne & books are come to your hands” (Add 78306: f 93 [27.6.1651]). Evelyn had acquired a taste for Chinese artefacts in the 1640s (see Diary II.301). The “Polish Office” is probably a liturgical book. 2 Louisa Hollandina (1622–1709), princess palatine and abbess of Maubuisson, daughter of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, the sister of Charles I 3 She also painted a portrait of Elizabeth Mordaunt, which Evelyn owned and mentions in Diary I.26 and nn. 2–3 and which is noted in an inventory of Sayes Court of December 1683 (Add 78404: ff 6–17). See Letter 115. 4 Robert Nanteuil (1623–78), who had produced an engraved portrait of Evelyn the previous year (Diary III.9–10; frontispiece, vol. 1), and pencil portraits of Evelyn, his wife, and Sir Richard and Lady Browne (Plates 6–9) 5 No engraving by Nanteuil of Louisa Hollandina survives.

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Plate 6 Private Collection. All rights reserved

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Plate 7 Private Collection. All rights reserved

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Plate 8 Private Collection. All rights reserved

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Plate 9 Private Collection. All rights reserved

98

Edmund Waller Letter 31 [29] August 29, 1651 f 46v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XXIX To Edmond Waller Esquire

With extraordinary reluctancy I now come from reading your lugubrous letter so much the more afflicting us, as it hath dashed our designes of a cheerefull encounter, which my Wife and I hoped to have found, accompanied with Deane Stuart;1 and just now in precinct to set forwards: I have according to your injunctions taken order that a Coach be sent tomorrow: and I hope, when you shall consider whose will it is, you will readily Submitt, and you have this consolation, that God hath made you the husband of a Virtuous and a pregnant Lady, that you have store of other hopefull children, and that in the losse of this so young, the fashion is onely marred; for so we speake of plate, and so I use to apply it: Sir, we are very sorry for the sad occasion, and if from there you might derive the least consolation, we are ready to mingle our teares: but where there is so much Philosophy and so much of prudence, there is nothing to be added to your advantage, besides the affectionat expressions of Sir Your etc. Paris: 29: August 1651

Jane Glanville Letter 32 [30] September 6, 1651 f 47

Epistle XXX To my Sister Glanvill.

Upon receipt of your letter I repair’d immediatly to the Doctor.1 I shewed him your note, desired his advice and assistanc therein; but he told me there could be nothing of that nature expected here in Paris, but what was vile and altogether sophisticated: and concerning the juice, his words to me were these Succus granorum Alkermes, non potest hic aliter

1 In Diary III.39 Evelyn refers to sending a coach to Waller “to bring my Wife’s Godaughter to Paris, to be buried by the Comm: Prayer.” Richard Steward (1595–1651; ODNB) was the officiating priest. Waller was based at Saint Germain-en-Laye. 1 possibly the “Frier Nicholas at the Convent of Challiot” whom Evelyn describes (Diary III.27) as a skilled physician and apothecary

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haberi nisi in Syrupo:2 to another Lady I would English it; Now whither this be the thing which you desire, I know not how to divine by your expressions: But of this I will attend your next advices, and in the meane tyme, find some correspondent, that may pleasure you from Montpelliers,3 that so you may have that which is very pure; for from thence they send it to this Towne, where they debilitate the principal ingredients, and weaken the consistenc of that Syrup to the prejudice of one of the most precious cordials in the world. Deare Sister, I shall be most ambitious to serve you in this, or in anything else wherein you may please freely to command Your Paris: 6: September: 1651.

Gervase Elwes1 Letter 33 [31] October 6, 1651 f 47

Epistle XXXI To Mr. Ellwes:

I do infinitely congratulate the satisfaction you received in that noble conjuncture; but concerning those diversions (of which you Speake with so much affection) I wish your departure from us might have rendered them as permanent, as you are pleased to expresse them to have bin acceptable; and that when you consider our capacitys here, you will pardon all deffects. I am greatly obliged for the favour of my Lady Gerrard,2 and the glorious present she designed for me, though I understand the pyrates met with it at sea;3 for know, the world dos envy me so greate an honour, so that the and I should be too happy; but besides that losse, what I meete with at the close of your letter has so hugely dissordred me, that I had realy neede of all you did suggest to compose my scattered thoughts; for in such a flood of sorrow I might pardonably have forgotten to give you an account of your other commands, and it is my misfortune to tell you, that those bookes are not to be recovered, whatever industry I have employed upon them; however I will not be lesse

2 “The juice of the grains of Kermes cannot be had here except in a syrup.” Alkermes was a decoction made from the kermes or scarlet garin, the insect Coccus Ilicis. See Laurens Catelan, Discours et demonstration des ingrediens de la confection d’Alkermes reformee ... contre les discours faicts par le Sr Jaques Fontaine (Lyon, 1614; in the 1687 library catalogue). 3 the famous botanic and physic garden in southern France 1 Sir Gervase Elwes, 1st baronet (1628–1706; Diary, H) 2 Lady Jane Garrard (1593–1673; Diary). She was the aunt of George Evelyn’s second wife, Lady Cotton, and the grandmother and guardian of Evelyn’s protégé and friend, Sir Benjamin Maddox. 3 Letter 34 makes clear that this was a ring. Pirates were commonplace in the English Channel at this time. Elwes responded on 23 October (Add 78316: f 18 [23.10.1651]).

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vigilant, and hope to make up that with my sedulity to serve you, which may be defective in the successe of your expectations: Be pleased to present my most humble servic to my Lady your incomparable Mother. and to keepe your head [?] I am, Sir Your Paris: 6: October 1651.

Jane Garrard Letter 34 [32] October 9, 1651 f 47v

Epistle XXXII To my Lady Garrett:

It had not bin now that the gratefull resentments of your Ladyships favour remained so long for a faire gale on this side, if the least opportunity had presented it selfe, before the returne of this noble Gentleman;1 and however fortune (who esteemed it to greate a favour for me) has otherwise disposed of the Present which you sent me I thinke myselfe to have received it as effectualy in your Ladyships designe and purpose, as if it were now glistring upon my finger. I am onely sorry, that because I missed that, I did not receive your Commands, and that an obligation of so much vallue seemes to have bin throwne away, whilst I remaine in another country uselesse to you. I will not say that the way to find what is lost, is to fling another after it; but if any Services of your Ladyship perished with that jewell, there can be no danger in reinforcing your commands, and repairing the greater losse, seing there is nothing in the world which with more passion I pretend to, then to continue Madame Your Paris: 9: October 1651

1 probably Robert Spencer (later Viscount Teviot), whom Evelyn records visiting him on 2 July (Diary III.37) and as having left for England on 20 November

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Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot1 Letter 35 [32] October 13, 1651 f 47v

Epistle XXXII To Mr. Spencer Brother to my Lord of Sunderland.

I understand you would entertaine a Vallet de Chambre; the bearer hereoff (a French man)2 hath heretofore served me in that Condition: You will find him a perfectly honnest, diligent, of a good Courage and a Tractable nature; He is well at Armes, and on horseback, having ridden some tyme in the Academie; hath now lived with me fowre yeares, and is now destitute of a Servic. If you thinke fit to entertaine him, I (who have now a supernumerary) shall be glad to accommodate you, because he is onely to be parted with to a Friend; but if it be to place him with another who is an indifferent person, he will make some difficulty of leaving his old and first Master: Sir, I shall know all these particulars (if you please) at his returne to Your Paris 13 October 1651

Cousin E.S.1 Letter 36 [33] October 27, 1651 ff 47v–8

Epistle XXXIII To my Cousin E. S.

This gentleman2 your Friend, who did me the honour to find me out a[t] Paris and acquainte me with your health, at a tyme when I my Selfe was in Physick, prevented me of almost all occasions to fasten any civilitie upon him; so that I had scarce an opportunity to returne him his visite: The truth of this will be more visible by the trifle which he brings along with to you; and yet I chose rather to send you anything which on the suddaine could be procured, then to let him goe away without some expresse marke of my respects. 1 Robert Spencer, 1st Viscount Teviot (1629–94; Diary, H), the younger brother of Henry Spencer, 1st earl of Sunderland (1620–43; ODNB). He was travelling with Thomas Radcliffe (see Letter 40). Evelyn notes their departure for England on 20 October 1651 (Diary III.47). 2 La Roch. Evelyn refers to him as “a stoute Youth” who defended him from a mob in 1650 (Diary III.5). Evelyn discharged him on 25 September 1651 (III.44) as supernumerary, but probably in anticipation of his return to England with his wife. La Roch travelled to England with Spencer, as Evelyn notes in a letter to his sister of 21 October (Add 78296: f 12 [21.10.1651]). 1 possibly one of the Stephens family who were second cousins of Mary Evelyn 2 probably Thomas Radcliffe who left for England on 20 November 1651 (Diary III.12 & 47)

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Deare Cousen, This addresse is I confesse extreamely rude: but I know the bearer hereoff will be ready with a better excuse till some more propitious and favourable opportunity justifie my real professions, and supplie to the greate defects of this, and of your etc. Paris: 24: October 1651.

William Glanville Letter 37 [34] November 18, 1651 f 48

Epistle XXXIV To my Brother Glanvill.

How greately I approve of your Apologie (prævious to your last kind letter) I have by imitating you in as profound a silence hithertoo, confirmed; the very same considerations inducing me to supersede those formalities, where I have ever bin assured of an affection more inviolable, then either to be impeached, or discomposed with such ceremonies as those are. Upon this occasion give me leave onely to returne you all due accknowledgments, for the favour you have don me in conveying my letters to your most civil friend at Rotterdam,1 where I hope all things are so effectualy præpared, as that I shall not find the trouble insuperable; though in returne to him for the favour the best compensation I can promise to make, will be through the interest I have in you. I have here sent him a duplicate; when there is any just occasion to trouble you with the designe of your postscript, I shall not forget this obligation to Deare Brother Your Paris: 18 November 1651

Jane Glanville Letter 38 [35] November 26, 1651 f 48

Epistle XXXV To my Sister Glanvill.1

Your request to me (Deare Sister) is so reasonable, and becomming that neere Relation, which both nature, and my owne inclinations have established betweene us; that you 1 Jan Kievit (1627–92; N, Diary III.470–1 n. 6), later in exile in England and created a baronet by Charles II in 1667 1 The original of this letter is Add 78296: f 14 (26.11.1651).

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needed not have made any apologie for a Duty2 which you may with so much reason command; especialy from one, who shall ever esteeme that which you are pleasd to call a trouble, the greatest honour you could have don him: But I should first congratulate your greate-belly, and I doe it with all joy, beseeching God to perfect your desires, and make you a hapy mother of many blessings. As concerning a Delegate,3 I should not willingly transfer the honour you have designed me, to any other person [.] Seas shall not frustrat my intentions to come over and serve you if I may be so hapy as to know about what tyme you expect to be delivered; that so disposing of my small oeconomy here I may put my selfe in posture for a journey, for I am very ambitious to receive and to obey your commands to Deare Sister Your Paris: 26: November 1651

William Prettyman1 Letter 39 [36] December 2, 1651 f 48r–v

Epistle XXXVI To my Unkle Pretyman

Yours of the 13 together with the inclosed came safe to hand, for which I now returne you infinite accknowledgments, and with hopes to be shortly enabled to congratulate supersede these troubles for the future, if (as you tell me) there be any overtures of encouragement; not that I am so fond as to imagine there can be any solid composure of matters in England, amongst such a head-lesse people; but as one resolved to put my selfe upon the providence of God, and the advice of my friends, and to emancipate my thoughts from those apprehensions which continualy afflict me at this distanc: In order hereunto I shall bring with me a mind prepared to comply with all honnest interests, out of the limits whereoff, I have so far learned to be contented; as never so much as once to seeke an augmentation to my humble fortunes; if it be possible to enjoy, the repose you speake off (the thing, in this world I so greately ayme at) I shall therefore bring over with me no ambitions at all to be a statesman, or meddle with the unlucky Interests of Kingdomes, but

2 Evelyn had been asked to be a godfather, but Jane and the child were to die in childbirth. 3 substitute 1 William Prettyman (d. 1688; Diary). Evelyn first met Prettyman, his wife’s uncle, in 1648 when the latter held the lease of Sayes Court for which he had compounded during the Interregnum. Evelyn entered into a bond with Prettyman in 1652, and discharged his debt to him in 1656 (Diary III.170–1 n. 1). Prettyman, however, claimed that there was an outstanding account owing from Sir Richard Browne for money sent to France during the Interregnum, and it was this claim that Evelyn continued to have to deal with in the Court of Chancery in the 1680s. The case was not settled until 14 June 1687 (Diary IV.339–40 ff  ).

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shall very contentedly submitt to the losse of my Education, by which I might have one day hoped to have bin considerable to in my Country. A Friend, a Booke, and a Garden shall for the future perfectly circumscribe my utmost designes: But I feare yet, least these are promises of to[o] greate hapinesse; and that the vertiginous condition of our poore Country, is not yet qualified to receive the Sonns of peace and order: however you tempt me to put it to the adventure. For my journey it cannot be till January be somewhat advanced, but I shall in the meane tyme industriously fix my cogitations upon it, and weane my selfe, and other relations2 heere from doating upon this sweete and delicious recesse. I am Deare Unkle, Your etc. Paris: 2d: December 1651

Thomas Radcliffe1 Letter 40 [37] December 2, 1651 f 48v

Epistle XXXVII To Mr. Radcliff:

[LM: Son to Sir George Radcliff, the close favorit and Counsellor of the greate Earle of Strafford in Ireland.] When I have accknowledged the greate civility of your letter, the trouble is over; but because that cannot be accomplished in one line you are to feare it may be the designe of my whole letter. Sir, I very much congratulate your safe arrival, and unexpected entertainement which you met with all in England, the description whereoff, hath so much reconciled me to the Country, that I shall make what hast I am able, that I may kisse your hands there, and interrupt the frequent importunities of my pen, with the assiduous offers of my personal servic, which will be that of declaring to the world more publiquely, the high esteeme which I make of your virtues, and excellent Conversation. We are now here in a Course of Chymistrie, at the opening whereoff, was present our noble Friend Sir Kenelm Digby,2 and most of the Curiosos of Paris; yet I thinke we shall not make the Philosophers stone this processe, because our worke was so publique: pray that we come home with 2 Sir Richard Browne and his family, especially Mary Evelyn 1 Thomas Radcliffe (d. 1679). The son of Sir George Radcliffe (1593–1657; ODNB), Radcliffe had just returned to England (Diary III.47). 2 Kenelm Digby. Evelyn was participating in the chemistry course of Nicasius Le Fèvre (see also Letter 7, n. 5). On 20 November, Evelyn notes that he “went to see Monsieur Feburs course of Chymistrie, where I found Sir K. Digby, and divers Curious Persons of Learning & quality: It was at his first opening of his Course and præliminarys in order to operation” (Diary III.49). Earlier in the month, he had visited Digby “with whom I had much discourse of chymical matters,” but adds (in an editorializing aside reflecting his later views) “But the truth is, Sir Kenhelme, was an arrant Mountebank” (Diary III.48).

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our witts, and our monye, and that at last it dos not end in an Egg and pindust3 as tis in the Comedy.4 But Sir, I detaine you no longer, after I have assured you of Sir Georges5 health, who is this afternoone refreshing himselfe in my study, and honours me with the conveyance of his Blessing to you. Sir, I kisse the hands of my Lady your noble Mother, and remaine Sir, Your Paris: 2d December: 1651

John Cosin Jr1 Letter 41 [38] January 1, 1652 ff 49–51v

Epistle XXXVIII To Mr. John Cousin.

[RM: This letter was sent me a few days after the debauching of young Mr. Cousin, at Paris, son to the Reverend father in God John Bishop of Durham] As by the darke conveyanc of your expresse, which (as if fearing the light) came late to me, some few nights past, I might justly apprehend the obscurity of the proceeding: so by the particular addresse thereof to me, and other circumstances, it is not hard to interpret, both at whom they are offended, and who guided your hand in the trouble they seeme to have put you too: for it can otherwise in no sort become me to apply, and owne so greate The evidence for Evelyn’s chemical studies also includes Add 78335, “Chymistry or [As my Master Monsieur Barlet of Paris under whom I went my first curriculm(?) ...] Ergotechnica,” based on a course which Evelyn had followed in 1646 with Annibal Barlet (author of Le vray et methodique cours de la physique resolutive vulgairement dite chymie [Paris, 1657]; in the 1687 library catalogue); Add 78336, “Medicus Itinerarius in Privatum Authoris usum conscriptus,” (1651), medical information transcribed by Richard Hoare and dedicated to Thomas Radcliffe (see Hunter, “John Evelyn in the 1650s,” 72); Add 78345, based on Le Fèvre’s course, published later as Traicté de la Chymie (Paris, 1660; in the 1687 library catalogue); and Add 78346, “Coelum sanitatis. or, a Particular of the Vegetable & Animal Dissolvant.” See Taylor, “The Chemical Studies of John Evelyn.” There are also several letters from Le Fèvre in the archive: Add 78316: f 27 (23.3.1652); f 40 (25.5.1652); f 42 (3.6.1652); f 90 (30.9.1655); f 116 (13.9.1656). 3 Dust from brass or other metal filings used to make pins. Evelyn gives an account of experimenting with mercury and gold in Diary III.48. 4 Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, II.5, 70–1 5 Sir George Radcliffe (1583–1657; ODNB) was married to the sister of the earl of Strafford. 1 John Cosin Jr (b. 1633) had arrived in France shortly before 15 February, when his father brought him to Evelyn (Diary III.26). Subsequent to his conversion, he entered the English College at Rome, and was ordained in 1658. He returned to England in 1659, and reverted to the Church of England, but was not reconciled to his father (n. 6). Evelyn records the news that he had been “debauch’d by the Priests” on 22 December (Diary III.51).

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an interest of extraordinary civilities from you, above the many of more merite, and neere relation to you in this Citty,2 that you should thus prejudice your judgment and election, in thinking me a person fit to manage your justification in the particulars mentioned; unlesse you are conscious to your selfe, that what some report you have don (and which yet I cannot believe) may possibly raise such discourse as you seeme to be offended at. In the meane tyme, I did not thinke to give you this impersonaly trouble, or indeede have taken so much as notic of what was conveyed me; had not some busy sophister dispersed (as I am told) a copie of it in her Majesties bed chamber at Court, as if it had realy proceeded from me.3 No: Mr. Cousin I both better know and honour your worth, then to publish that for yours, which hath in it so little of you: But it appeares you are fallen into hands that are not altogether so tender of your reputation, as you will then certainely accknowledg me to be, when you shall first have a little examin’d how you have bin hithertoo abused. To the other part of your supposititious letter (if it were possible to imagine it yours, after all these exceptions) something I should haply add by way of advice: But as [the] case now stands, I confesse I am neither able to dispute, nor willing to engage, nor qualified to judg of your late action, which I take to be the principle of the letter nor indeede were it civill as to my manner [of] education, nor safe for my person to enter thus in proelia inermis;4 and therefore it is not my intent here to mollest your repose, much lesse provoke you to replyes. For myne owne part, I am satisfied in my Religion, and have nothing to do to judg of others; especialy in concernements which, like this, seeme to be in genere Credendorum:5 Yet if you will needes have me to suppose the letter yours, I shall onely give you my opinion of it, as it appeares to prævaricate in genere morum;6 especialy since of your owne accord, you are pleased to honour me so farr, as to give out that you will acquiesce in it and which now if you performe not, you must give me leave to understand as a Ceremony, which you have lately taken up amongst those, who in these tymes professe so many, that they even evacuate the very substanc it selfe. And in the first place, I should infinitely congratulate your happie conversion to the Catholique Faith, (as the letter mentions) If I had I yet ever bin so uncharitable to have believed believe you either a Heretick or Infidel before; against that expression therefore I take no exception; when I have first advised you seriously to consider, whither you may not have mistaken the Name for the Thing; at least, if you will give me leave to judg of the cause by the effects. One of your parts, Capacity, Understanding, Constancy, Resolution and manhood (that I omitt none of your owne adjuncts) to be censured for Apostacy, or dissobedienc, I cannot be so impertinent to imagine, much lesse pronounce so hardly of others Charity, as the letter hath not spared to doe; albeit truely, I have heard some speake as if it had bin far 2 i.e., his father, John Cosin 3 Cosin had written Evelyn on 18 December (Add 28167: ff 11–12; in Diary [1887], III, 58–61 [misattributed to “Dean Cosin”]), asking him to intercede with his father. Evelyn responded, and “This Letter I Answered to my no small trouble; a Copy of it being purposly dropt in the Queens Bed-Chamber” (Diary III.636). According to the Diary (III.52), Cosin Sr visited him on 2 January, and informed him of the misuse of his letter. 4 unarmed combat 5 “in matters of belief ” 6 “matters of custom”

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more sutable to their better opinion of all those excellent parts in you, if before you had committed a fact so like to dissobedienc, Inconstancy, Childishnesse, and indecorum, you had not stolen a pretended conversion; and accompanied your absence with so many unhandsome abandonments circumstances; especialy in a place where you might so safely have avoyded, and declar’d it, without giving men that ugly occasion to conjecture you had bin purely seduced, and made prey off: At least (in my apprehension) you have don very ill to throw those termes of Barbarous, unconscionable malic, slander and dissolute talke (if by such virulencys and superfluity of evill, I could reasonably entitle you to the letter) like so many stones out of a madmans hand, upon all the passengers passers by, without at all considering who they might light upon, and that your owne Father might possibly be one of the number, the most injured, who by the manner of your contempt, and absence (as well as from the insulting expressions of some of those who pretend to know in what darke recesse you are crept) might truely have bin spared, considering either your duty as an obedient son; or the passions of an afflicted, and affectionate Father. To give you Greeke therefore for your Greeke τί ὑμι˜ ν ἕιπω; ἐπαινέσω ὑμα˜ϛ; εν τούτῳ ὀυκ ἐπαινῳ Diis enim immortalibus et Parentibus, nemo potest æquivalentem honorem tribuere, sed qui eis pro viribus et facultate colit, is probus et pius esse putatur.7 It is the doctrine of as greate a Philosopher as any Sorbonist of e’m all (though some of them I likewise extreamely honour)[.] Deare Mr. Cousin pardon my plaine dealing; for this art of yours (if you will needs avowe it) is not capable of other justification, unlesse you will also not despise my advice; That you seriously reenter into your selfe, and be not so over fond of your owne judgment in Resolutions, and Contempts of this publiq nature and egregious Scandal. Remember at least whose son you are; and scorne to gratifie those his inveterate enemies, who seeke onely to triumph over your poore Father, by violating all the Lawes both of Piety, Civility, and Justic. You are not yet vestri sui juris8 (to use the law expression) and for you to pretend the disposal of your person, to determine, and resolve on your owne reason from the partial disputes of Doctors, and whole Societies of that craft (whose principal studie and practise it hath ever bin to go a birding for Proselytes)9 becomes neither Mr. Cousin’s modestie, nor his yeares; nor (under favour though other ways exceedingly ingenious) his capacity. And therefore when you discourse of the Sorbonists lectures, publique disputes of your late reverend Fathers,10 Manuscripts and other devices, to catch Dotterells withall, you give me onely to understand, how greately you confide in your owne witt, and what a dreame they have lead you into, and which indeede you will find a meere fantosme at last: shew truely a certaine Zelum Dei, but not secundam scientiam11 for the particulars you recite are more then as yet you could pretend

7 “What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I praise you not [1 Corinthians 11:22]. For to the immortal gods and to parents, no one can give equivalent honour, but he who worships them according to his ability and skill, he is thought to be upright and pious.” 8 “your own man in law”; Cosin was eighteen at the time. 9 making converts 10 i.e., latter-day theological writers 11 “For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” Romans 10:2

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to, though twise the age you have lived, were over your head; and if a Compendium, or the Dictates of some mercenary Professor have infused all this learning into you; you are the onely happy man, that ever put his head into the Jesuites Colledg: But the thing is, Sir, we cannot believe you to be in earnest when you speake of those scruples of Conscienc, and I know not what tendernesses which you never durst discover to your able Father, so well instructed for your satisfaction: Are not these rather slender pretences, such as were never yet the practise of real converts: but the effects of dissobedient children? with what modesty can you complaine of not hearing from your Father, when you have obstinately hid your selfe from him? least you should see, and, like the deaf Adder,12 stopped your eares, least you should heare him? Alas, alas! the world is not so stupid as not to discerne through these impostures. If you have a designe to cast off your Religion, and desert your Faith, men who know your youth, will rather pittie your temeritie, then at all defere to your Cause. This is an old Gnostick humour,13 which hath frequently discover’d it selfe in times of Persecution against the Truth; and is in greate part a confirmation of her veracity. Who have you knowne (I beseech you) to have converted Christian from Turcisme? When the strong man keepes the house the goods are in repose: I say no more. If you have any sober quarell against the Church of England, redargue her excesses, or justly accuse her of Fundamental defects; I protest, and from the center of my heart I dearely love, and have realy greate inclynations to excuse, any humble ingenuous Roman-Catholique (to speake after the manner of Contradictions in use with you) who is so borne, and dos (as they say) bono Animo errare;14 that is, live Conscientiously and innocently in his profession: But for one of your education, and that would be thought to understand himselfe and the church his Mother, to lapse and turne Renegado in these tymes, I cannot believe he ever rightly comprehended what the Catholique Religion meant; or, if he did, was purely imported with either Interest, designe, thirst of liberty, peevishnesse, or Revenge. Nor speake I this without booke, and at Randome: I could notably exemplifie, and that in some neere Relations15 to me, were it necessary to be so particular here. Truely Mr. Cousin I have many tymes seriously consider’d it, and could never yet call to mind any sober person, either signal for learning, or probitie (without some dash of extraordinary, and remarkable humour) who hath quitted his Religion in these tymes: No, I say, not one; and I thinke there is scarse one, but I should have heard of him: But Youth, discontent, Impatienc, successe, men of unconstant braines, fierce bigottishnesse, and superficial Catechisme, makes many apt to run into these extreames. But I promis’d not to mollest you with instances, or trouble you with disputes, nor will I, for, (admitt it were as they sayd)

12 “Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: they are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear” (Psalm 58:4). The emblem of an adder stopping its ears from evil (“Mentem ne laederet auris”) is in Joachim Camerarius, Symbolorum et emblematum ... centuria quarta ([Nürnberg], 1604) IV.85. 13 an allusion to the precedent of the young Augustine, abandoning his mother’s faith for Gnosticism, and to the idea of the seduction of the young by religious charlatans 14 err in good faith 15 presumably a reference to Samuel Tuke

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non est curandum quid quisque credat16 and that you demanded, what I had to do with your Religion? Id tamen est curandum, quod quisque faciat.17 If you believe now so well (as you affirme) I am sure you have don it very ill, and would teach intrude on the world a new Targum,18 as if one could not be religious without violating a Commandment, if that be part of your gay Doctrine, and the fruites of those universal lectures, to be learned no where but in the Chaires you frequent, I have don, with your Institutions, and had rather sit at the feete of your Father every Sunday in our Chapell,19 then to be come so learned with the dictates of your Colledg: The letter indeede sufficiently assures me, they were not priests which taught you this lesson; but in the meane tyme you forbeare not to pursue it, and so pursue it, as if you did it not without their direction. Deare Mr. Cousin let me advise you as a friend, to looke back on your Selfe, and be reconciled to your Father: For impossible it is that a son, tantarum lachrymarum20 should thus perish. If any particular realy scruple you, doe not thinke him unworthy to be consulted, for I beseech you tell me; would any man that found himselfe in a distemper, and his whole body evily ill disposed, be charmed by the circumforaneous languag of a craking Mountebanke on Pont-noeuf ? when in the meane tyme his owne Father were one of the most able and skillfull Physitians of all Paris? What a madnesse then is this, that to put your selfe under the hands of Empericks,21 when you know whither to repaire to Aesculapius himselfe! at least, offer not that monstrous violenc for piety, and good nature to abandon him in this contemptuous manner: Believe it, the Curse of Fathers (if by you merited, though by him yet most indulgently respited) will find you out at last: Be sure, I say, they will reach you home at some tyme or other. And, oh! how tirrible will the thoughts of it then be! I have no more to say as to the present occasion, but onely this in answer to the Libell (for I am confident it cannot be your Letter) and partly to request you, that you for the future suffer no more such abuses to come abroad under your Cognizanc, and importune your friends, who had much rather have the honour of your Conversation in Person, then the intemperanc of others fatherd upon you in flying Papers: If you shall then thinke me worthy of that credit which I have yet never forfeited to any, be assured I am capable to make it appeare, that I have sustain’d as many conflicts, travell’d as far (even to Rome it selfe) and bin altogether as inquisitive for satisfaction, as ever you have; and that purely out of Conscienc, as having never yet had the least temptation of any sinister pretence whatever; and realy upon mature, and sober debate, I could never yet encounter any thing which might tollerably justifie the change of my present opinions. And peradventure, I have bin none of the least conversant and curious in the search, whither satisfaction from Persons, or 16 “It is not to be cared for what each man believes.” Cited by Evelyn as the motto of the Encraticoe in The History of Religion, II, 227. 17 “But it is to be cared for, what each man does.” The second part of the motto of the Encraticoe, II, 227. 18 interpretation 19 Cosin preached regularly in the chapel maintained in Sir Richard Browne’s residence. There were several attempts, particularly by Catholics associated with the court of Henrietta Maria, to end this, as Charles II ultimately ordered in 1655. The misuse of Evelyn’s letter, potentially embarrassing both to Cosin and to Evelyn’s father-in-law, was probably related to these schemes. 20 of so many tears, i.e., so cared for 21 quack doctors

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Bookes, though I confesse freely, I have not devoured so many Manuscripts, or ever durst determine upon the strength of my owne judgment at a 20 yeares period what; but still as scruples sprung, repaired to Persons eminent, and able of both Parties for advice, accompaning it with that humility, and supplication for Gods direction, as ever inclined me to what appeard most reasonable, consonnant, and secure. Nor has there, I dare confidently affirme, bin any one particular applied by these men to you, which hath not bin as frequently urged to me. Believe it Mr. Cousin (even Me deare Sir) I know the Rotine so well, and am so perfectly acquainted with all this specious procedure (for they differ very little in managing a young Proselyte) that I could in several Passages even Parallel the very letters, and numericall expressions, with others of that style, which have bin sent me upon the like encounter: And methinkes that Persons of their dexterity should blush to wed themselves to one forme, when they practise upon ingenious persons; at least not have the forehead to propagate their follie, by seminating their owne productions in Places where they know I dare not appeare, unlesse they have a designe, to ruine me as they hope to do you, when like so many Ἀνδραποδίσοι22 and Plagiaries, they shall have throughly debauched you from your disconsolate Father, and too far ingaged you either in a partie, some long Pilgrimage, or Place from whenc you can neither with honour, or safty make your retraite. Deare Mr. Cousin You se what libertie I have taken, but you know also that amongst men none more often use the freedome of Reprehension then those who love most. Nor have I indeede other Apologie for what I have sayd, besides the Provocation of an Injurious letter, and the passion I have for your good. Advices are not rejected by any but such as determine to pursue their evill Courses; and the language I use is not to offend, but beseech you to returne: I conjure you therefore as you love your owne honour, to abandon this impetuous Course. You are arrived to an age now wherein the foundations of all Reputation are to be lay’d for ever, and seriously, your witt seemed of another refine, then that it should prompt you to a Course so deformed, and altogether unworthy your education. At least, behold your Friends deploring your misfortune; as those that hate you take pleasure to scorne your Relations, by this extravagancy of yours; whilst I, for my part, am too much Interested in your Fame then suffer that men should speake thus disadvantagiously of one I love. Deare Mr. Cousin once more, let me as effectualy as I do most affectionatly, advise you to ruminate on these particulars, and suffer not men to perswade you so tamely to cancell your duty, and disband your Religion, to gratifie the prowdest Enemies you have upon Earth; as if God were well pleased with the κορβα˜ ν23 of this præposterous Zeale, whilst the Father who has given you both being and Education, remaines thus despised and slighted by you: But when all these shall faile (as God forbid any of them should) I have yet this hope remaining, that when, like the prodigal son, you have bin sufficiently sated with feeding on those sordid huskes and empty speculations, which so audatiously confront both reason, Science, and all primitive antiquity; you will then recollect your selfe and returne as he did, Pater, Peccavi in Coelum et coram te, coram te24 for having offended so loving, and indulgent a Father, et in Coelum, for 22 Kidnappers 23 votive offering 24 “Father I have sinned against heaven and before thee.” Luke 15:18

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having grieved the very Angels of Heaven, who are never sayd to to rejoyce but at the conversion of a sinner, And in so doing, you shall indeede give me just cause to cherish your Friendship, and then believe it realy in earnest, when you professe your selfe to be mine, as I am most unfainedly, Sir, Your etc. Paris: 1: January 1652

John Millington1 Letter 42 [39] January 10, 1652 ff 51v–2

Epistle XXXIX To Mr. John Mellington.

Neither the distanc of Place, nor those ordinary effects of tyme have bin able to cancell disorder my wonted esteeme, much lesse cancell the memory of so noble a friend; but that I had long e’re this given you an account of what you particularise, if I my selfe had bin so fortunate as but to have heard the least tydings of what you know I am not a little concerned in as well as your selfe: I will not say, the absence of my person in a remote country ought any thing defer to my excuse, that I did not from tyme to tyme present you with my Services by letters; but truely the apprehension of importuning you in a tyme of so greate jealosies, hath restrained me from these formalities not to you alone, but many others of my neerest relations: As to the rest, I hope (when you have a little better inquired into my nature, which I presume you will find that France has nothing degenerated) you will then peradventure be reconciled to these, not pretences, but real verities: especialy, when you shall also take notic of my mutual sufferings with you.2 For the truth is, Mr. Collyer (to whose costody the Cases were consigned) promised to send them for En­ gland before he dyed;3 and so he did; but it seemes with an addresse so supine, and ill expressed, that he, in whose ship they were embarked from Ligorne, knew not whither to carry them (my fixed directions being utterly defaced and worne out) but left them in the hold of his ship, some yeares at Horne4 in north Holland, where (whilst none claymed the goods) they were published, as Escheated to the States, and in order to this, had bin certainely sold (sub hastâ)5 had not a friend of mine there discovered it by chance, as the Placaet6

1 possibly the John Millington (b. c.1600) who was also at Peterhouse, John Cosin’s college 2 probably in loss of goods shipped from Italy in 1645 (see also Letter 18) 3 John Collyer: an English merchant in Livorno who also furnished Evelyn with letters of credit; see ­Evelyn’s correspondence with Thomas Henshaw and James Thicknesse (Add 78311) and Diary II.401–2. 4 Hoorn is in North Holland, about fifteen miles north of Amsterdam. 5 “under the spear” (i.e., by auction) 6 placard, notice

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was fixed upon the Bourse at Rotterdam, whither I immediatly dispatched an Inventory, and procurations from here to recover them to the right owners to be conveyed to London accordingly, and where by this tyme I presume they may be arrived: And now Sir, that all this was no effect of want of dilligenc in me, you will then better discerne, when all the other particulars are come to your hands, and that till the 16 of last November (which was after the date of your letter) I had never so much as heard of them: This is all Sir, that at present I can write concerning that buisinesse; but I hope within one moneth more to be in England my selfe, where I shall be ready to kisse your hands, and to render you all farther satisfaction in the things which appartaine to you. I onely wish the sad newes of so many expresses this post (which confirme to me the death of my dearest Sister)7 did not utterly wipe out of my thoughts all relish of those trifles, which you so passionatly seeke Sir: But Gods will is don, and I shall never give you just occasion to reforme your language (to use your owne expression) when you please to style your selfe, as I Sir Your etc. Paris: 10th: January 1652.

Richard Evelyn Letter 43 [40] January 10, 1652 f 52

Epistle XL To my Brother Richard Evelyn.

Though you are too prudent to provoke my impertinent letters unlesse expresse affaires require it; yet at this tyme I presume you will not refuse me the addresse of the inclosed, though it approch you with a sad and lugubrous countenanc: Brother we have lost a deare Sister,1 and the losse is in earnest so greate, that the sorrows of it are not to be easily supported without cutting the channell, and dividing the flood; this is the apologie which I make for the trouble I give you, and which to me hath bin the greatest affliction imaginable; I might instanc in that which was more then a propensity betweene us, not the neerenesse of our Relation, education, humor, and particular engagements; but infinite other, which rendererd her most deare unto me: One day has depriv’d me of all this, and of all those other Satisfactions, which we had contrived, at the settlement of my poore family in England; so that I cannot reflect upon this losse but with an extraordinary regreet, due to so greate a calamity, though I confesse, it dos nothing at all concerne that Deare Saint, who is now freed from all these vicissitudes: However the stroke be a severe one to our

7 Jane Glanville died in December 1651. 1 Jane Glanville. Evelyn had received news of her death on 2 January (Diary III.52). His language here is very much like what he later uses of Margaret Godolphin.

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Family; for we have lost a sister whose affections and piety, and honour and virtues were incomparable: Be pleased to give a safe delivery to this paper, and to accept of my humble addresses to Almighty God, that whilst he hath weakned our dearst Relations by this calamity, we that yet (by his goodnesse) remaine may repulse that sense of supply that losse by more strong and mutual affections. This shall be the assiduous prayer of Brother Your Paris: 10: January 1652.

William Glanville Letter 44 [41] January 10, 1652 f 52r–v

Epistle XLI To my Brother Glanvill.1

You will certainely apply the proverb to me, Physitian heale thy selfe, and that with a compassion worthy your resentiment, when you shall seriously reflect upon what so equally infinitly concernes me in your greate season of affliction: I say, infinitly; for there are expedients to repair your losses, by making you hapy in another Wife; but none to consolate your poore Brother for the losse of so deare a Sister. To represent therefore in this paper a perfect image of my incomparable losse, sustained in this common misfortune, were impossible and infinitely short of its energy, should I onely say, my Sister2 is no more; who was to me so deare a Friend, so antient true a companion, so greate a part of my best nature and in fine the sole designe of my future felicitie in this world, when I but thought of the fruition, and renovation of all our past amities, which I now hoped to enjoy more inseparably then ever. And what an encouragement to quitt all her Relations here my poore Wife hath lost, her teares onely (which indeede have bin too some excesse) doe best testifie; whilst they are yet fresh upon her cheekes, and shew how dearely she loved the fame of her vertues, as well as her how she is concerned with the greatnesse of our losse: Deare Brother doe not thinke that I come to aggravate your sorrows, but to divide your griefe; nor as deffiding of your prudence of your and conduct to governe your selfe in this occasion; but out of a real sense and compassion, as being infinitely concerned my selfe, and much touched with your particular affliction, who I know so intirely loved her, and for which I must needes pay you forever a very greate respect, as you shall eternaly find me to accknowledg upon all occasions that may justifie this sinceere Profession of it. So long as little William3 lives, you have a dubble interest in all that I can expresse for

1 The original of this letter is Add 78296: f 16 (10.1.1652). 2 Jane Glanville 3 William Glanville Jr (1650-1718; Diary)

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the memory of his deare Mother, and however it should please God to dispose of him, you should still find me no lesse an inviolable observer of my due respect to you, who am Sir Your etc. Paris 10: January 1652

Philadelphia Carey1 Letter 45 [42] January 22, 1652 f 52v

Epistle XLII To Mrs. Philadelphia Carie.

[LM: afterwards wife to Sir Henry Littleton:]2 At the last I send your Ladyship this trifling present3 a very imperfect instanc of my greater devotion to your Servic; and it had appeared much sooner, if it could have derived any title of being capable to receive so greate an honour, as that is to which you have design’d it. Madame, when I am absent let me beg your farther commands, that I may study to improve the tallent which you are pleased so much to encourage, and that the next tyme, I may be able to offer you some Tribute of better vallue, then the present presumption of, Deare Madame, Your etc. Paris: 22d: January 1652

Richard Browne Letter 46 [43] February 4, 1652 ff 52v–3

Epistle XLIII To Sir Richard Browne Knight and Baronet1

The severenesse of the Season, will tell you that I had a cold and a tirrible journey to Calais; but I thanke God, a drye, and a safe, though the parties from the Spanish-frontiers did 1 Philadelphia Carey (d. 1663; ODNB), daughter of Thomas Carey, groom of the bedchamber to Charles I. She was maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza. 2 Henry Lyttelton (1623/4–93; ODNB, H) 3 probably The State of France, first printed in 1652 1 based on a letter dated 5 February (Add 78221: f 50 [5.2.1652])

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allarme us two or th[r]ee tymes. I have since my arrival here, encountred with ­divers2––, but none more jolly and unconcerned then my Lord Wentworth3 who drives away sorrow, or drownes it, with sack and half-water. Mr. Booth4 hath bin very civil to me, and so hath Mr. Griffith,5 who shortned the way with many stories of his signal actions at sea, and with complaints how the Court hath treated him at land. I have not much more at present to importune you withall, but to returne you a thousand acknowledgments for your noble and kind conversation at Paris; be assured, I shall do my endeavor, to resent all your favours in England, by my respects to those Relations of yours,6 whose way and accommodation I now goe to prepare. In the meanetyme, as to the quærie of your letter, which I find here, concerning the intaglio of that Orix, the letters are to be thus formed. ┤ ΑPETH. ┤OY TVXH.7 observing that the spirit on Capital letters is antiently for the ψιλὸν thus (┤) for the δασὺ (├) instead of which rectilineary spirits succeeded those curved ones (᾿῾) now in use.8 The Accent is omitted, and the ιω˜ τα is not ὑπογεγραμμένον, but πρόσγεγραμμένον.9 Now if your hast be not extreame, I will at my laisure enquire whither there ought to be any interpunctation twixt the words, as it is the use in the Latine Capital inscriptions. Thus with my most affectionat and humble servic to my deare Lady, and Mother I remaine in hast. Sir Your Calais 4: February 1652

2 These were probably fellow Royalists. Evelyn’s list of his companions is also given in Diary III.55. He refers to “the frontier Enemy” on the previous page. 3 Thomas Wentworth (1613–65; ODNB) 4 Henry Booth. In Diary III.12 and 55 Evelyn identifies Booth as “His Majesties Agent” in Calais. De Beer footnotes this reference as covering 1649–59 and notes his appearance in other sources in Diary III.12 n. 7. 5 Evelyn refers to the Captain Griffith whom he names in Diary III.55 and n. 2. 6 Mary Evelyn and her mother Elizabeth Prettyman Browne (c.1610–52, Diary) 7 “Excellence not Fortune” 8 the diacritics (spiritus lenis and spiritus asper) marking aspiration in Greek 9 i.e., the ι is not written as a subscript but as an adscript

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Mary Evelyn1 Letter 47 [44]2 February 12, 1652 f 53

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XLIV To my Wife.

Your letter of the 25 Present was so soberly penned, and with so few impertinencys That (without so much as the trifling omissions which are commonly th’Effects of hast and dissuetude in your sex) that I should have sworne your letter had proceeded from some person of serious negotiation; so virile, so handsome, it was, and so like your excellent conversation; and therefore I beseech you to gratifie my absence by this sort of commerce, wherewith I am so exceedingly delighted. In the transaction of the concernements of those Letters which found me not at Paris, you have acted discreetely, and the account you returne me is very acceptable; onely mithinkes the charges to the ship, somewhat extraordinary; and their not appearance as yet here, gives me so many apprehensions of their condition; that I am to require your advice in it, that so accordingly I may the better encourage and governe my expectations; for the tymes are full of Perils, and the seas of Casualties: but as yet we hope well I write you nothing of my safe arrival, and encounters by the way, in hope that my late Expresse from Dover has made you acquainted with all particulars. You cannot imagine how much I long to see that pot of flowers, the late product of your Pensil; much more the rare fingers which made them: Proceede deare Browne in all those virtuous employments; for I desire nothing more then your perfect accomplishments, as I shall study to excell all other Husbands in my care and affection, being assured that the tyme approches, when you shall expresse a real esteeme of me for this, and repay me all those services in your noble and sweete conversations, which this little absence dos for a tyme discompose. I still persist in my designe to receive you sometyme in May, or June, for reasons abundantly discussed already betweene us: And so I kisse your hands, Deare Browne Your etc. London: 12 February 1652.

1 Mary Evelyn, née Browne (c.1635–1709; Diary). Evelyn met Mary Browne in Sir Richard Browne’s house and married her in 1647. She came to live with him at her father’s house, Sayes Court, in England in 1652 when she was pregnant with their first child, Richard. As the daughter of a household full of Royalist refugees, she had had a very good education and was quite learned. Her letters to her husband are in Add 78300. See also Ralph Bohun, “Character of Mrs. Evelyn” (Diary [1887], IV, 3–7); and Darley, John Evelyn, and Harris, “The Letter-books of Mary Evelyn.” 2 extracted from a longer letter (Add 78431: f 32 [22.2.1652]), which elaborates on the financial instructions given her in Add 78431: f 19 (n.d. early 1652).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Richard Browne Letter 48 [45] February 14, 1652 f 53r–v

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Epistle XLV To Sir Richard Browne Knight

The Bearer hereoff is Collonel Til,1 a name I suppose as well knowne to you from the place of his birth, as to me and many others from the merite of his person, in both which capacities (making knowne his resolutions for France) I am the bolder to reccommend him to you, whose favour and assistanc he dos presume upon. The Gentleman is desirous to seeke a fortune by his owne honourable profession, which is no way farther to concerne you then to ayde him in a designe of so much gallantry; and I know you will not be wanting to contribute your best in favouring him with such addresses as are in your power, for by so doing you shall together with a person of much merite, extreamely oblige Sir, Your Says-Court: 14: February 1652

Conrad Burgh1 Letter 49 [46] February 18, 1652 f 53v

Epistle XLVI To Monsieur Bourgh.2

[LM: Ambassador for the states of Holland to the Emperor of Muscovy.] Sir, Being about eight days since arrived in England out of France, as a most fortunate Omen, I hapily received the welcome assurances of your prosperity, by the hand of the learned Mr. Junius3 who delivered me the letters, and exceedingly congratulate all your good fortunes as well as my owne especialy, finding my selfe to live still in your noble thoughts 1 probably Colonel James Till, taken prisoner (with Samuel Tuke) at the end of the siege of Colchester in 1648 1 Conrad Burgh. Identified by Evelyn as a “Senator of Amsterdam” who was (in 1654) “now Ambassador in Russia.” He later served as the treasurer-general of the United Provinces in 1666. 2 in reply to Add 78316: f 23 (9/19.1.1652); Evelyn notes on Burgh’s letter: “This Burgh was formerly my most intimat acquaintance at Rome...” (see Diary II.316). 3 Franciscus Junius (Francis Du Jon) (1591–1677; ODNB). He came to England in 1621 and entered the service of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel. Evelyn knew him both as the author of The Painting of the Ancients (London, 1638; in the 1687 library catalogue), and as the keeper of Howard’s pictures.

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upon the interest of so trivial a merite, as that of so casual an the casual encounter of so unworthy a person as my selfe, in so strange a place and so far distant from these parts of Christendome.4 I confesse I have often since entertained my selfe with the sweete contemplation of your excellent conversation, and rare accomplishments, but had never (’til now) the least opportunity to improve our Amity by so acceptable a way of commerce, as is this which you have found out; neither indeede had I the presumption to importune you in this manner, ’till your selfe had first encouraged me by an addresse of so greate civility, having heard both of the weight, and honour of your late employments, which together justly intitle you to very greate merites, and such as you have successfully acquired; from all which, you are yet pleased to descend, as often as you vouchscafe to converse with me, under the notion of common friendship, though thereby likewise you take a generous occasion to oblige both my Nation, Language, and Person: for which I have nothing can pretend to a competent returne, but a reciprocal, and most unfeined offer of my servic, to receive, and act all your commands in this place, where both they, and you shall alwayes find me ready to accknowledg your favours. I have (since I had the honour to kisse your hands at Rome) contracted a neere relation to a Person5 in France, which hath hithertoo occasioned my long residence in Paris, during the sad, and deplorable Catastrophe of our calamitous Country; but I am now returned (tanquam explorator)6 and with attempts at least, to fix my selfe in a more settled posture; so that if my abode here may in the least contribute to your servic, I beseech you to make me happy with your Commands; for I doe infinitely esteeme, and no lesse passionatly cherish the honour you have don, Sir Your etc. London 18: February 1652

Mr. Oughtred (that famous person and my good friend) is yet living.7



4 5 6 7

Italy, and Rome in particular Mary Evelyn “but as a scout.” Seneca, Epistulae 2.5. Ben Jonson’s motto William Oughtred (1575–1660; ODNB). A clergyman and well-known mathematician, Oughtred was a member of Thomas Howard’s household as tutor to his son Henry Frederick. For much of his life he was vicar of Albury and Evelyn records his visiting neighbouring Wotton in 1655 (Diary III.157–8).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Hildyard1 Letter 50 [47] March 8, 1652 ff 53v–4

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Epistle XLVII To Henry Hyldyard Esquire

Sir, My Brother2 hath communicated to me your desires, which I shall endeavor to promote by the first opportunity I have of sending into France: for the present, I can recollect no addresse more probable, then that you superscribe to the Brother in law of Mr. Bothes3 (whom you know) at Dover; he is an honnest man, and will faithfully convey what you reccommend to him, to his Brother at Calais; Sir, If in any other particular I may be able to serve you, employ none other, then your most humble Servant; I kisse the fayre hand of my Lady Anne,4 and remaine Sir Your etc. Drury Lane 8 March 1652

George Goring1 Letter 51 [48] March 12, 1652 f 54

Epistle XLVIII To the Earle of Norwich.

My Lord, Besides the title of Country, with witch compellation you are pleased to honour me, the favour you shew to my Relations at Paris, challenge a profounder accknowledgment then any I have bin yet capable to render your Lordship because I missed of that glorious servic, in which you promised to employ me, which might have qualified me in my

1 Henry Hildyard (1610–74; Diary, H, V). A graduate of Cambridge and the Inner Temple, Evelyn first encountered him in London in 1649 when he recommended Obadiah Walker as tutor and travelling companion for Hildyard’s sons, Henry and Charles. 2 George Evelyn 3 Henry Booth. In Diary III.12, Evelyn identifies Booth as “His Majesties Agent” in Calais. See Letter 46, note 4. 4 Anne Hildyard, née Leake; the daughter of Sir Francis Leake, Baron Deincourt and earl of Scarsdale 1 George Goring, 1st earl of Norwich (1585–1663; ODNB)

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a­ ddresses to that Grandèe your Lordships Brother in Law2 here, but finding no letters for me when I arrived at Calais, I was much troubled and began to diffide of your Lordships faire opinion concerning my dilligenc; and realy my Lord you were not mistaken, if you thought me unworthy, but very much if you conceived me negligent; for I was sedulous in finding out Monsieur de la Strade3 (the Governour of Dynkirke) to whom I addressed presented my selfe under your Lordships Cognizance, with such addresses as were becoming the resentiment of those high favours I found him disposed to doe me for your Lordships sake, the effects whereoff I shall eternaly accknowledg as being my Lord Your etc. London 12: March 1652.

Henry Stanley1 Letter 52 [49] March 13, 1652 f 54

Epistle XLIX To Dr. Standley.

Your Emetick wrought very rudely with me; but I hope hath performed its worke effectualy: The last night I found the same sorenesse about the kernells2 and throat, which I (’til then) had bin free from two or three days before; so that I was doubtfull wither I should proceede or not; but it is now don, and I doe not find the Vomite hath much exasperated it, onely my mouth and breast are somewhat hot, it may be the consequence onely of my straining, and the pituitous matter which it exhausted: I now send to know whither you will have me take the potion, which I thinke good to repeate, before I breath a veyne;3 for though I conceive the sorenesse of my throat to be the effect of a Cold; yet having bin once in Italy desperately afflicted, and ever sinc afflicted with apprehensive of an Angina, I thinke a little blood drawne would be very convenient; but I submitt to your directions, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court 13 March 1652

2 John Nevill, 19th Lord Bergavenny (1614–62; P). His wife’s sister was Mary Goring, the wife of George Goring. 3 Godefroi d’Estrades (1607–86) 1 Henry Stanley (c.1608–72; M). D.Med. from Padua (1637). Evelyn records consulting Stanley at this time in Diary III.62. 2 an enlarged gland in the neck (Diary III.62–3) 3 open a vein to let blood

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Elizabeth Prettyman Browne Letter 53 [50] March 13, 1652 f 54

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Epistle L To my Lady Browne.

Not onely in compassion to your late indisposition (for which I have bin exceedingly afflicted) but also in reguard of the very large account given Sir Richard1 of your concernements here, shall I spare your Ladyship at present. For my owne particular, I am so fully resolved on my stay,2 that there is nothing like to dehort me, but your repugnancy to what we have seriously debated; since, I conceive, my reasons are so convincing, that you will no farther disalow of them, and of this I am now assured by my Wife, and therefore this is onely in accknowledgment of your kindnesse to Madame, Your etc.

Says-Court 13: March 1652.

George Evelyn Letter 54 [51] March 20, 1652 f 54v

Epistle LI To my Brother George Evelyn.

I should cover this apologie with a shamefull blush, should I send it with any other excuse for my not comming in with my due congratulations1 long e’re this, but the real misfortune of my of myne indisposition,2 which in truth hath excercised me almost all the past, and better part of this present weeke, the apprehension I had of worse inconveniencys ingaging me in a Prophylactick course; but now that I am upon better hopes, and well restored, I have vowed to pay the prime the prime tribute of my convalescence, and first respects to your noble Lady;3 to whom I augure all those joyes and satisfactions which become so greate a blessing: I have delegated this paper Messenger on purpose to kisse 1 Sir Richard Browne 2 Evelyn notes on 10 February: “I was persuaded to settle hence forth in England, having now run about the World, most part out of my owne Country neere 10 yeares: I therefore now likewise meditated of sending over for my Wife, whom as yet I had left at Paris” (Diary III.59). He never crossed the Channel again. 1 George Evelyn’s son (this Richard) must have died as a child as another Richard was baptized in 1656 (Diary III.62–3, and n. 1). 2 Evelyn gives an account of this on 16–17 March 1652 (Diary III.63). See Letter 52. 3 Mary Cotton Evelyn

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my Ladys hands, and that sweete Babes, and on moneday (if God permit) I will do my selfe the honour of assuring you in Person, that I am, Sir Your etc.

Says-Court: 20: March 1652

Henry Hildyard Letter 55 [52] March 31, 1652 f 54v

Epistle LII To Henry Hyldiard Esquire

I am very much surprised, and infinitely more displeased, that an affront of that nature should be put upon you, as the foote of your letter seemes to mention: for I was so sedulous, that no legier de maine1 should be used, that therefore I not onely procured a bill of store at the Costome-house; but also employed as faithfull and carefull a friend (as any I have in the world) to see, that when the searchers should open the goods (as indeede they did all I had, which was in two large Cases) nothing should either be purloyned, or embeasel’d; so that if anything be wanting, I am confident it could not have bin prævented by any industry in me, or want affection to serve you: In the meane tyme, it were to be wished, that your servant at Paris, had specified the particulars by a note to the Master of the ship in other tearmes, then that of its being fruite onely; for so he had bin obliged to make all satisfaction, in order to which now, I am onely able to produce his Coquett,2 or Obligation, which I will transmitt you, so soone as my friend, who agitated all the buisinesse for me (being I was then indisposed myselfe) is returned who is no out of Licestershire, where he is at present: However, if you please to interrogate the Master of the Vessel (whose name is Robert Jacobs3 as I remember) of Dover, it is possible you may receive some better satisfaction. Sir, more then this I know not what to advise you, in extenuation of your Losse, but as I heartily wish the misfortune had rather lighted upon me so shall I be ever ready to contribute all the assistances which I am able to doe you further servic, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 31 March 1652.

1 sleight of hand 2 a seal belonging to the Custom House 3 Richard Jacobs. An entry in CSP Dom. 1642–56 Pt. III: 1274 identifies Richard Jacobs as a captain of Dover on 6 November 1650.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Evelyn Letter 56 [53] April 3, 1652 f 55

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Epistle LIII To my Brother George Evelyn.

After the accknowledgments of the honour you did me yesterday; I come now to let you understand, that my Nephew your son George1 is safely arrived, and that I shall be as industrious as I can to observe your directions, and make him forgett the sweete remembrances of Wotton; and for his improvement whilst he is with me, be as sedulous as possibly I am able, till his Tutor2 comes, who is yet in prosecution of his fellowship, unjustly usurped from him long sinc. In the meane tyme, I beseech you deare Brother forbeare to reproch your most humble servant with any such thing as trouble, or other more trifling respects, which are accounts so easily digested amongst Relations so neere as we are; for my owne part I thinke the reward very greate, if by my quickning of what was a little remisse, his Education may be carefully advanced, so much I thinke my selfe concerned in the Chiefe of our family; nor is there danger to displace my young Bed-fellow, by a more early pretender, since, by that tyme my Wife sets forth, I make no doubt but my Cousen will be fit for your disposal, and so weaned from his other fondnesses, as that you may doe what you will with him: I doe onely advise you, that you cease the continual use of those Antidotes and Electuarys,3 which (I feare) do but debilitate, and render nature slugish, which should be permitted to fortifie her selfe, and doe her owne worke, without those aydes in so young a person, and so able a body: But I conclude, and remayne deare Brother Your etc. Says-Court 3: April 1652.

1 See Diary III.64. George Evelyn (1644–76; Diary). George Jr lived with his uncle at the age of eight as a way of reforming his “backwardnesse” (Letter 57). He was then educated with William Cavendish, the future 1st duke of Devonshire (1641–1707; ODNB). At the age of nineteen he travelled abroad first with Obadiah Walker and then under the tutelage of Walter Pope. He had what Evelyn believed to be an unsuccessful marriage and had three daughters, one of whom (Catherine) caused problems for Evelyn about the succession of Wotton. 2 Christopher Wase (1627–90; ODNB) was probably a second cousin of Evelyn’s wife, Mary. He had been expelled as a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge in 1649, and later travelled with Evelyn from Paris. Evelyn recommended him to William Cavendish (1617–84; ODNB), 3rd earl of Devonshire, as a tutor to his son William, as well as to his nephew, George. Wase was also tutor to Lord Herbert, the son of the earl of Pembroke. 3 a medicinal paste made with honey or syrup

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Edmund Waller Letter 57 [54] April 13, 1652 f 55

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LIV To Edmond Waller Esquire1

Sir, Mr. Wase is provided for, having bin pleased to undertake the Tuition, and descend to the Capacity of my Young Nephew George Evelyn,2 of whose backwardnesse (had not I taken some notic at my last being at Wotton, betwixt the buisinesse of the Father and the indulgenc of the housekeeper) I thinke the Child had bin totaly ruin’d and neglected: But now there is hopes of a timely recovery; and though Mr. Wase can never pretend to that reward of his virtue from my Brother which he might from that honourable person you are pleased to reccommend him to;3 yet is my Brother of a very noble, and obliging nature, and I suppose that by his refusal of other overtures (sinc my Cousin is under his Charge) he is now resolved, and settled for a while: Notwithstanding all this, I shall not faile of rendring him very sensible of the friendship you designed him, as I esteeme my Selfe much obliged in his behalfe, who am Your etc. Says-Court: 13. April 1652.

Edward Thurland1 Letter 58 [55] April 25, 1652 f 55v

Epistle LV To Mr. Thurland.

[LM: Since Sir Edward Thurland and Baron of the Exchequer etc.] 1 This letter is in response to one from Waller, in which he describes recommending Christopher Wase to William Cavendish, 3rd earl of Devonshire, as a tutor for his son. The letter is printed in Waller, Poems, II, 198, with the addressee unidentified. 2 George Evelyn Jr. Evelyn notes that on 30 May he “went to obtaine of my Lord of Devonshire, that my Nephew might be brought up, with my Young Lord his sonn to whom I was recommending Mr. Wase” (Diary III.65). 3 William Cavendish 1 Sir Edward Thurland (1606–83; ODNB, H). Thurland, who was a friend of Evelyn and his lawyer, was educated at Cambridge, and admitted to the Inner Temple in 1625 before being called to the Bar in 1634. He was an MP for Reigate in the Short Parliament of 1640, regained his seat at the Restoration, was knighted, and became baron of the Exchequer. Later he became attorney-general to the duke of York.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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Sir, Nemo habet tam certam manum ut non sæpe fallatur,2 and yet I hope my memory shall serve me for the subscribing this Epistle, which is more then yours (deare Lawyer) could, it seemes doe, when you sent me your summons for my Court at Warley,3 with all those sigillary formalities of a perfect Instrument: But this is a trifling σφάλμα,4 and I easily supplied it, by taking the boldnesse to write a new Warrant in the most ill favour’d Character I could, that it might be the more like to your fayre hand, and so it was dispatched; onely the day altered to be the next before the Terme, since otherwise I could not have appeared, and for which præsumption if you thinke fit to amerce me, I desire it may be by the delegation of Mr. John Barton5 pro Vicario;6 since, whilst I thus indulge my Noble-Tennant,7 I may not neglect to reduce my Vassals, cum ita suggerent chartæ – sicut optime noveris8 etc. it being the advice of a greate Philosopher, and part of my Litanie. Libera te primum metu mortis (illa enim nobis primum jugum imponit) deinde paupertatis:9 The first I endeavor to secure by Physick, the latter by your learned counsell, the effects whereoff I much more desire to resent by the favour which (I am assured) you may do your servant in promoting his singular inclynations for Albury,10 in case (as I am confident it will) that seate be exposed to sale: I know you are potent, and may do much herein, and I shall eternaly accknowledg to have derived from you all the favour and Successe, which I augure to my selfe from your friendship and assistanc; It being now in your powre to fix a wanderer, oblige all my Relations, and by one integral Cause, render render me yours forever. I suppose the place will invite many Candidates, but my Mony is good, and it will be the sole and greatest obligation that it shall ever be in your power to doe for Deare Lawyer Yours etc. London: 25: April 1652.

2 “No man has so unerring a hand ... that he is not frequently deceived.” Seneca, Epistulae 81.2 (Gummere, trans) 3 Evelyn bought the manor of Great Warley (Warley Magna) in 1649 from Sir Richard Browne, and first held court there in the same year (Diary II.554, 556–7). The court referred to here was on 4 May 1652 (Diary III.65). Evelyn sold it in 1655. 4 an error or slip in copying 5 John Barton was a member of the Middle Temple in 1634 and a barrister in 1642. He helped Evelyn with the management of his property at Warley in Essex (Diary III.84 and n. 4.). 6 as delegate 7 It is not possible to identify Evelyn’s “noble tenant” at Warley. 8 “since the pages will suggest thus, just as you know well” 9 “First of all, free yourself from the fear of death, for death puts the yoke about our necks; then free yourself from the fear of poverty.” Seneca, Epistulae 80.5 (Gummere, trans) 10 This estate of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, who had died at Padua in 1646, was close to Evelyn’s family home, Wotton. Evelyn hoped to purchase it before he decided to remain at Sayes Court. He subsequently designed the gardens there in 1667 (Diary III.496). See Chambers, “The Tomb in the Landscape: John Evelyn’s Garden at Albury.”

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John Cosin Letter 59 [56] April 25, 1652 ff 55v–6

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LVI To the Deane of Peterborough:

[LM: since Bishop of Duresme] My absenc from London, and divers other urgent occasions detaining me so long in the Country, hath not onely constrained me to defferr the answering your kind letter of April 3d, but likewise depriv’d me of visiting your fayre daughter,1 and receiving her Commands; nor doth at present, a lesse necessity interpose, being now preparing for the reception of my Relations with you, if the Seige before Paris2 be not so strict, as to denie the Ladys to come out of the Citty; for I heare the King of France has given my Wife, a very gracious and expresse passeport, both for herselfe, her goods and retinue, so that I do now every day expect to heare of her motion. In the interim I have here inclosed that catalogue of Bookes,3 which I make choyce of, if we doe accord concerning the Prises; it shall be my next care to enquire for Mrs. Cousin,4 take order about their bringing from Cambridg, and pay the mony. Be pleasd to send your ressolution by the first opportunity; and to give me a second addresse to your daughter whose hands I will not faile to kisse when I come to London. Sir, I accknowledg my selfe infinitely obliged to you, for the greate honour you did my letter, as likewise for the apologie you made for my not appearance at Court: 1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Cosin of 3 April (Diary [1887], III, 61–3). Evelyn records having dined with Mary Gerard, née Cosin (d. 1680) on 19 February. (Diary III.60). 2 The Fronde was raging at this time. After victories in February and March the frondeurs had marched on Paris and besieged it. Evelyn records getting a pass for Mary Evelyn to come into England on 21 May 1652 (Diary III.66) 3 This is a reference to a catalogue of Cosin’s books which were being sold by Mary Gerard. There are two separate catalogues in the Evelyn archive: Add 78680: f 6b–c (in Evelyn’s hand) and 7a–b; f 6a is a letter from Cosin (Add 78680: f 6 [5.6.1652]). Folio 6b is headed: “A catalogue of such Bookes as I will procure to be bought of your daughter.” 7a–b is a bifoliated leaf headed: “A Note of Books to be layd aside at Camb. For Mr. Evelyn.” The accompanying letter from Cosin (Add 78680: f 6 [5.6.1652]) suggests that 6b–c was initially compiled for James Stephens (b. c.1623; Diary II.558 n. 7), a second cousin of Mary Evelyn’s father and an aunt of her mother, who had submitted the list to Cosin, who in turn inserted prices (£256 “ready money” by Cosin’s calculations). Evelyn himself subsequently wished to acquire many of the titles. The second catalogue (7a–b, not in Evelyn’s hand), is endorsed by him (7b): “Bookes which I had agreed to buy of the Bishop of Durham.” Cosin had left a large number of books behind when he left for France. Stephens declined to buy them, noting “there are many pieces wanting to make it an entire collection of the fathers,” and that the prices were “much higher then use to be given for books at the second hand” (Add 78316: f 51 [Feb. 1653]). Evelyn’s attempt to buy the books on instalment also failed (see his account to Pepys in Letter 619 [12 August 1689]). Had Evelyn acquired Cosin’s books, it would have been one of his most important acquisitions as a book collector (see Diary III.636; Add 78316: f 15 [18.7.1651]; f. 31 [3.4.1652]). Cosin’s library ultimately survived at Durham. See Doyle, “John Cosin (1595–1672) as a Library Maker.” 4 Frances Cosin, née Blakiston

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as for the publishing of that letter5 the grace which was don me by his Majestie and the approbation of it, exceeds all the glory and ambition it could anyway have acquir’d by being made more notorious in print. If by it I have don glory to God, and satisfied good men. Sir I importune you no longer, but remayne Your etc. Says-Court: 25 April 1652.

Mary Evelyn Letter 60 [57] April 28, 1652 f 56r–v

Epistle LVII To my Wife

I had before this dispatched the Bill of Exchang,1 had not my apprehensions of the difficult arrival of my first (in reguard of those Callamities and troubles in France)2 mooved me to attend your advise and accknowlegment of the receipt of it, which having now at last received, I doe transmitt you the inclosed. In the meane tyme, I am exceedingly apprehensive of the many distresses, which the seige may put you into; and I know not how to thinke of your journey, without suggesting to my selfe the infinite accidents, which you are obnoxious to, and may encounter ’ere you get cleare of France; but I trust in God (whose protection I perpetualy implore) that you shall at last come in to your desired haven, which are the armes of your dearest Husband, in your owne, (though unnatural, yet native) Country. If you could have trajected by Callais there had bin lesse danger of the Pyrats your speake off and the Squadron of Hollanders, which intercept so many by the way of Diepe: however, adventure you must, and I shall at Rie prepare accordingly for your reception, having already (in order thereunto) obtained a special favour from the Governour [RM: Collonel Morly]3 of that port (my old acquaintance) that none of your Goods shall be visited or mollested, which is in these tymes, and this conjuncture a very singular favour; since my Lady Vicountesse 5 Evelyn’s letter (Letter 41) to John Cosin Jr of 1 January 1652. Evelyn notes on 13 March that “I was moved by a letter out of France to publish the Letter which sometime since, I sent Deane Cousins proselyted sonn; but, I did not conceive it convenient, for feare of displeasing her Majestie the Queene” (Diary III.62). Cosin describes the presentation of Evelyn’s letter in his letter of 3 April. 1 a draught of money 2 Condé’s siege of Paris during the Fronde. England was also at war with Holland. 3 Herbert Morley (1616–67; ODNB). Educated with Evelyn at Lewes, Morley was very helpful to Evelyn on the latter’s return to England in 1652 and he is the man to whom Evelyn refers (writing to reassure his wife about landing in Rye in 1652) as having “totall command of that towne” (see Diary III.65–8). Evelyn’s An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659) was addressed to Morley who was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower on 7 January 1660. See Letter 163. Subsequently Morley asked Evelyn to intercede with the king for his brother-in-law, Sir John Fagg (who later married the widow of Evelyn’s friend Thomas Henshaw) and himself. See de Beer, “Evelyn and Col. Herbert Morley.”

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Montague4 tells me, with how much disorder they visited her trunkes at her Ladyships late passage that way. I trust God will be good to us; all I can doe is to pray, and let you want neither advice nor assistance. I am well pleased with what you have contracted with du Guernier,5 because I desire that in all affaires and transactions of that nature, you should come off handsomely and with honour; especialy for the reputation of our Country, which at this tyme needes all that can support it: though it be the common basenesse of Travilers, to not to care what reproches they leave behind them, in places where they shall never come againe, but I did ever abhorr it; and I thanke you for your generosity. I pray be carefull of the statues, pictures, bookes and other Curiosities: You may reward your Servant Dick,6 according to his desire, if you find his merits accordingly. I have a present for you from my Lady Gerrard,7 which I would advise you to revenge, by some French gorgett,8 or other galanteria at your comming over. My Cousin Samuel9 is now in hope of a good purchase of Pearles, which I intend to bestow upon you, that so you may improve your Neck-lace.10 The House at Says-Court,11 I am now purchasing with the land about it, not for any greate inclinations I have to the Place, but in order to those other conveniences, and interests annexed to it, which will occasion my expending more mony to make it a tollerable seate, then wise men will yet thinke I had cause for. I want exceedingly my greate Cabinet, but you neede not now be so sollicitous for yours, since I am putting into order what I purchased in Italy, which I thinke will present you with such a Cabinet, as for the structure and materials will be inferiour to none now in England:12 Let Monsieur Roussell13 oblige you in giving you all 4 Elizabeth Browne, Viscountess Montague 5 Of the famous family of French painters of this name, this is probably Alexandre du Guernier II (d. 1665), who had been Mary’s drawing instructor (see Letter II.16). 6 Richard Hoare (d. 1660? Diary). In the memorandum that Evelyn left with his wife in Paris he asks her “to pay Dick 2: pounds per quarter his wages” (Add 78431: f 19 [n.d. early 1652]). Secretary to both Sir Richard Browne (Add 15948: f 57 [11.5.1652]) in Paris and earlier to William Glanville, Hoare lost one of his eyes through smallpox and was described by Evelyn (for whom he was an amanuensis) as “mine own Monoculus” (Numismata, 268). He was also a distinguished calligrapher and was responsible for some of the bindings in Evelyn’s library as well as for making books of devotion (Keynes, Bibliography, 22–4) in the course of which he damaged his health in 1653 by experimenting with mercury (Diary III.84). Evelyn got him an appointment to the Prerogative Office of the archbishop of Canterbury in 1660, but it seems likely that he is the servant who died on 2 February 1660 (Diary III.241). 7 Jane Garrard 8 a collar or wimple 9 Samuel Tuke 10 Mary, on the other hand, thought the necklace could wait. See Darley, John Evelyn, 117. 11 Sayes Court in Deptford, where Evelyn would live until his departure for Wotton in 1694. See Plate 14. 12 Evelyn’s two cabinets are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Geffrye Museum in London. The one to which he alludes here, shipped from Florence, is in the Victoria and Albert (see Radcliffe and Thornton, “Evelyn’s Cabinet”). It was made by Francesco Fanelli, and its pietra dura plaques by Domenico Benotti. The Parisian cabinet was made possibly by Pierre Golle. See Schnapper, Curieux du grand siècle, II, 52–5 for the manufacture of cabinets in France. 13 Evelyn is referring to Claude Rousselle, a goldsmith, who appears in Diary III.86 n. 5 and seems also to have been a virtuoso of other knowledge. See his letters, including Add 15948: f 55 (20.4.1652), and Add 78316: f 21 (7.1.1652) and f 47 (22.9.1652), the former about a machine to lift water, and Letter II.13 (20 June 1652), addressed to Rousselle, and written from Tunbridge immediately after Mary’s arrival at Rye. See also Letter I.1, note 3.

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those necessary instructions concerning enameling; that so that accomplishment which you have added to your limming (and which none of your Sex in England understand) you may divert your selfe and me at convenient laysure: Be not much carefull for the French Songs, you know we neither affect them, and the Recitatives which I have now also received out of Italy will quite kill, the best you can light upon: Deare Browne, present my humble servic to all my friends, be instant with God for a blessing on your journey, carefull of your health, and make him happy, who kisses your hands, and remaines Deare Browne, Your etc. Says-Court: 28: April 1652

Mary Evelyn Letter 61 [58] May 10, 1652 ff 56v–7

Epistle LVIII To my Wife

Though you seeme to envy my greatest felicity, in concealing that ever you had so greate an affection for me, as now you blush not to discover unto others; yet since I esteeme my selfe conscious of being a party, and that the tidings of your greate-belly are flowen over-seas, I will adventure to congratulate the good newes;1 promising my selfe, at least, that by the next Post, I shall (notwithstanding the strictnesse of the seige [LM: The Seige of Paris where my wife was:] and your owne modesty) receive the due confirmations of it under your owne fayre hand: In the meane tyme (in the name of a most indulgent and truely affectionat Husband) as I assure you of my real joyes and satisfactions; so I extreamely delight to contemplate upon this approching care of all your frequent indispositions: and I blesse the extraordinary mercys of God, that you are so fortunatly escaped the hands of the Physitians, the course you had taken, proceeding upon a mistaken cause, being the most likely thing in the world to have deprived me both of the Fruite, and of the tree together. Deare Browne, if I have hithertoo bin importunatly concerned about your journey, now infinitely more, since it were impossible to discourse it to you in writing the improvement of my passion towards you, being now affected with a kind of natural tendernesse, such as I never perceived in my selfe before. And therefore I beseech you be the more carefull of my depositum, and of your selfe especialy. I have fowre days since received your picture, which being surprised at sea, and falling into the hands of the Governour of Dynkirke, [RM: Monsieur Compt de la Strade2 knight of the Order du St. Esprit 1 Mary Evelyn was pregnant and would give birth to Richard on 24 August (see Letters 63 and 64). 2 Godefroi d’Estrades. The portrait of Mary, by Sebastien Bourdon was bought from pirates by d’Estrades (1607–86), the governor of Dunkirk, in the previous year (Diary II.551; III.62; and Add 78431: f 20 [27.1.1652]). He had informed Evelyn in Calais that he had the portrait from pirates, and offered to return it (Diary III.55–6).

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etc. afterwards Ambassador in England to the King: 1663:] that noble Person hath sent me over: It is well preserved, lively, and fresh, if my frequent kisses impeach it not; for ’till you appeare, that is my Shrine; and if you stay too long, you become guilty of the Superstition. To be short, I am in paine till I see you, or heare at least what appearances you can discover of such safty as may prudently invite you to commence your journey, to, Dearest Browne, your etc. Says-Court 10th: May 1652

Mary Evelyn Letter 62 [59] May 24, 1652 f 57

Epistle LIX To my Wife.

I had replied to yours of 25t currant the last post, had I bin as effectualy prepared as now I am; having since that, provided against all apprehensions, and danger in your resolutions of landing at Rye: for (as I told you) I have a very authentique command from the Governour1 of that Port and Country, which dos assure me of all favours and civilities: so that you neede not scruple at whatsoever place port you embarke for that Place: For he tells me that I shall have bills of store for your goods; and himselfe in person to waite upon you (a very large complement) and whatsoever else may contribute to our fixing in this Kingdome, which are all in truth very considerable civilities, as tymes, and persons goe now in this inhospitable Nation. You have therefore now onely to give me timely, and minute advise of your Setting-forth, that so I may be ready to receive you with all expressions of wellcome. As concerning your passage by sea (God protecting you) I am the lesse sollicitous, since the present bloquing up of Dynkirke by our ships; however, you shall do prudently to consult at Dieppe, and provide your selfe of such protections from Superiors, as may stand you in stead upon a necessity. For I would not willingly loose my deare Browne, and three and twenty hundred weight of goods (for so much you tell me there is) for a little circumspection;2 and therefore, if the peril be very iminent, choose rather to stay for a Convoy; though the Charge be greate. But my greate confidenc is in the protection of Almighty God, to whom men, and Seas, and all accidents obey, and who (you know) hath hithertoo so signaly preserved us. And now, my deare Browne. I cannot but repeate the exceeding contentment which I received in your confirmation of the blessing which God hath sent you, as if expressely, to furnish you with such a present, as a greater you could not bring me; yet this was the

1 Herbert Morley 2 In a letter of 8 June, Richard Browne refers to “seaventeene Bale of goods belonginge to you” (Add 34702: f 52 [8.6.1652]).

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first letter, which under your owne hand, I received concerning it; so cruel, and unkind a silence had possessed my deare Wife, or some untoward accident, that I could not but wonder at the cause of it, especialy in an Instanc of so greate joy, as your first greate-belly, both because it is the first apparant pledg of our dearest affections, and the expectations of so many yeares; for all which I am now aboundantly gratified, Deare Browne, I shall assiduously beg of God to prosper your journey, that we may both enjoy a safe and acceptable meeting to the consummation of his hapinesse who remaynes Deare Browne Your etc. Says-Court 24th: May: 1652.

Richard Browne Letter 63 [60] August 25, 1652 f 57v

Epistle LX To Sir Richard Browne Knight and Baronet Resident for his Majestie at Paris etc.1

Yesterday being the feast of St. Bartholomews it pleased God to give me a Sonne,2 you a Grand-sonn, and I tooke this opportunity to dispatch you the tydings, and to congratulate with you the joy, and contentment, which I doubt not but you will receive, at the hearing of it. The Child (I thanke God) had a due birth, and is every way perfect and hopefull: The Mother, having passed the rudest conflicts, without any extraordinary accidents, is now so cheerefull, as to present you with her duty; and dos infinitely revere my Lord Galloways3 prædictions and therefore injoynes me to let his Lordship understand, that it came into the world at our Villa,4 on the 24 of the currant, precisely at one aclock, as I tooke the minute by my Quadrant.5 it would doubtlesse be a greate honour, if a Scheme might be obtained from so learned and noble a person; but Astra regunt homines, sed regit Astra Deus.6 We doe designe you Sir, for a Susceptor upon this occasion, and therefore request that you will be pleased to delegate my Unkle,7 to give it your name, and thereby gratifie

1 based on Add 78221: f 53 (25.8.1652) 2 Richard Evelyn, son (1652–8; Diary). The wunderkind of Evelyn’s family, Richard was the eldest, a child who was able to read several foreign languages before he was three and to master the grammar of Latin and French by the time he was five. See Diary III.75. His death animated Evelyn to translate and publish The golden book of St John Chrysostom in his memory. 3 James Stewart, 2nd earl of Galloway (Scotland) (c.1610–71; P) 4 Sayes Court. This is a very early use of the word “villa” to describe an English house. 5 a quarter-circular navigational instrument 6 “The stars rule men but God rules the stars.” See Walther, Proverbia Sententiaeque Latinitatis Medii Aevi, no. 1620. 7 William Prettyman

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the memory of the Deceased,8 and surviving Grandfather, as an augure, that it may be one day qualified with their virtues. My Brother of Wotton,9 and our sister of Woodcott10 will I thinke meete to perfect this sollemnity upon next Thursday: This is all I can make you part of at present. I beg of God a hapy issue of the fortunat beginnings of Sir, Your etc. Says Court: 25 August 1652.

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 64 [61] August 30, 1652 f 57v

Epistle LXI To my Sister Evelyn.

It having pleased God (by sending my Wife a Bartholomew Baby)1 to put me now into a Capacity of making a publique testimony of my affection to my Brother your husband by designing for it the name of your deare Husband,2 it becomes me to be the more confident, that you (who have so neere a Relation to him) will not refuse to impose that Character on what God hath bestowed upon me: I am onely ashamed that the place which was sometyme so unworthy the honour which you did it, must be now the same againe, which is to receive you; but I know you measured our affecctions not the wales: for the rest I shall endeavor to make a due vallue of your presence, being (I thinke) assured, that our Brother of Wotton3 will meete you both at the place and sollemnity. Upon Thursday next (which my Kallender tells me is the 2d of September)4 I prætend you shall in the Afternoone render my Sonne a Christian, and me as well for this, as for infinite others, Deare Sister Your etc. Says Court: 30 August: 1652.

8 Richard Evelyn, senior (c.1589–1640). Distinguished as high sheriff of Sussex and Surrey and a justice of the peace, Evelyn’s father was in his early thirties by the time of the diarist’s birth. Evelyn’s account of him as “exact and temperat ... ascetic and sparing” stresses his moderation and humility as being a man without “the least passion, or inadvertency” (Diary II.2). The other grandfather was Sir Richard Browne. 9 George Evelyn 10 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn (c.1628–92; Diary). The wife of Evelyn’s brother, Richard Evelyn of Woodcote Park, Surrey, Elizabeth was the godmother of Evelyn’s first son, Richard, and his daughter Elizabeth. 1 Evelyn’s son, Richard was born on 24 August (Diary III.75), St Bartholomew’s Day, commemorated in London by the great Fair in Smithfield at which puppet shows were common and the puppets were known as “Bartholomew babies.” 2 Richard Evelyn, brother 3 George Evelyn 4 An account of the christening is given in Diary III.75.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Edward Hyde1 Letter 65 [62] November 1, 1652 f 58

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Epistle LXII To my Lord Chancelour.

My Lord, Though it may appeare a very greate præsumption thus to importune your Lordship: yet the honour which you have don us by so greate a Civility;2 and the excellent advises which we find conveyed us by it, compells us to accknowledg your favour and singular obligation. The losse which you heare we have suffered in the death of that deare person,3 renders us as disconsolate, as in truth, you may possibly imagine; nor would this paper beare the many instances, by which (of all other) the memory of so excellent a Lady is precious to us; but that we know in repeating them, we should augment your sorrows, who are pleased to divide in so greate a share with us, if the affection for one friend could possibly asswage the Sufferings of another. My Lord, we shall ever reverenc your Counsell, and comfort our selves in God, and those worthy Relations we have yet left, amongst whom, if we may ever merit the least indulgence from your ever honour’d person, and so much a friend to that deare Lady; though the late accident hath proved most sad; and the particular which your honour mentions immensely deject us, we shall yet deplore our misfortunes with some intermission, and certainely derive from it the greatest argument of consolation, if in so greate an affliction it be either possible or lawfull to drye the eyes of, My Lord, Your etc. Says-Court: 1 November 1652

1 Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon (1609–74; ODNB). Hyde had joined the Prince of Wales at The Hague in 1648, becoming his chief advisor, secretary of state, and lord chancellor in 1652, a post that he retained until 1667. Evelyn frequently refers to him as his “patron.” 2 Mary Evelyn’s mother had died suddenly, just before her planned return to France. Evelyn mentions ­receiving a letter of condolence from Hyde on 28 October 1652 (Diary III.77). He gives an account of Lady Browne’s death from scarlet fever on 6 October and interment on the 9th (Diary III.76–7). 3 Elizabeth Prettyman Browne

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Edward Hungerford1 Letter 66 [63] June 14, 1653 f 58r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LXIII To my Unkle Hungerford.

Least the approch of a Season in which my Aunt,2 and you were pleased to invite us to your house this summer, may by this tyme, haply grow to some expectation (without bringing any other excuse to extenuate the trouble) you shall understand, that my Wife is not greater with desyres to waite on my Aunt, than with something else Greate,3 which she carries about with her, and which (for the present) denies us the hapinesse we had realy designed our selves in a journey to Relations so neere, and extraordinarily civil. It is certaine, that we both receive it as a very considerable misfortune, that any accident should (with so much reason, and no lesse joy) dissengage us of a Visite which we had accounted so fortunat and agreable; but I know you will not dissaprove of a designe which we have likewise to enjoy the liberty you indulge us, if the next summer we come with lesse importunity and trouble to our friends; and that building, and bellys, and buisinesse can have no pretence at all to discompose a purpose which we realy have to doe our selves that greate honour of waiting upon you: But I inlarge this particular no farther then to assure you, that it is with some reluctancy, that we cannot comply with your extraordinary civility, and I hope you will not interpret it a stratageme, since I promise my selfe the goodnesse of your noble nature, and that you will please to number him amongst those who preserve a very intire respect to your person and family in quality of, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 14 June: 1653.

1 Edward Hungerford (1600?–67; Diary). Hungerford’s relation to Evelyn was through his wife, Susan, née Prettyman, who was Mary Evelyn’s aunt. He lived at Cadenham in Wiltshire. 2 Susan Hungerford, née Prettyman (d. c.1705; Diary). The sister both of Sir John Prettyman and Lady Browne, she married Edward Hungerford c.1628. She was the godmother of Evelyn’s children John Stansfield, Mary, and Susanna. 3 Mary Evelyn was pregnant with their second son, John Stansfield Evelyn.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jasper Needham Letter 67 [64] June 16, 1653 f 58v

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Epistle LXIV To Mr. Needham

I could not well containe the joy which I conceived at the happy occasion of your encounter at Wotton;1 but I must also let you know how it runns through my veines, as if it would produce something extraordinary: But thus you see it is to be devoted to a woman, and so religiously civil to a Wife, in a tyme when my absenc may beare the fairest interpretation: for indeede it is my fondnesse onely which keepes me from a neerer participation of your good company, and which must be my best apology for not appearing, and bearing a part of your contentments and satisfactions amongst so many persons of honour, and illustrious Ladys, as make it now the Court of Wotton, and the evening circle there the onely sceane of ingenious divertisement, from whenc some Boccatian witt might furnish a better Decameron: Imagine yet, how I let my thoughts waite on you into the groves, and about the fountaines; how they assent in your preferring of that Tulip,2 or this Anemonie; that I breath the same ayre, commend the same prospect, philosophize in the same P[e]ristyle, upon that artificial Iris which the Sunn so reflects from the watry girandola3 below it, or the beauties of those faire Nymphs which admire it Quid loquar inclusas inter laquearia Sylvas! Vernula quæ rario carmine ludit avis.4

or the sweeter warbling of those Syrenes which echoing to the woods, captivate your eares, ’til signo dato ad inferendam cœnam, discurritur;5 and at the dresser the smoothchin’d Catamites sinke under the burthen of the Chines and pasties – tam celebres culinæ sunt.6 In plaine English, where you do nothing but feast and enjoy the creature, day and 1 Wotton House, Surrey (see Evelyn’s drawings of the property: Colour Plates 1 and 2), where he was born, to which he would return in 1694, and inherit in 1699 on the death of his brother George. Evelyn had done considerable work on the grounds at Wotton, first in 1643 when he “made a fishpond, Iland and some other solitudes & retirements” (Diary II.81) and then in 1652, when the moat was removed, and “that noble arëa where now the Garden & fountaine is” was created (Diary III.60–1). See Harris, “‘My most cherished place on earth’: John Evelyn and Wotton,” in Batey, A Celebration of John Evelyn, 53–73. 2 The tulip was introduced into England in the 1580s, probably by Huguenots and Dutch Protestants fleeing the persecution of Philip II. See Pavord, The Tulip, 15. 3 a jet of water 4 “Why speak of woods enclosed amid thy paneled palaces where native birds sport with varied song?” Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, De Reditu suo lines 111–12 (Duff, trans) 5 “at a given signal [the waiters] scurry to carry in the courses.” Seneca, Epistulae 95.24 (Gummere, trans). The “smooth-chin’d Catamites” alludes to Seneca’s “agmina exoletorum” (troops of catamites), who precede the cooks and waiters in this display of excess. 6 “so crowded are the kitchens.” Seneca, Epistulae 95.23

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night too (I had almost sayd) for it cannot else sinke into my comprehension, where how my Brother should possibly lodg so jolly a troope, unlesse you lye like the family of Love7 – But pardon my mirth, deare Sir, you see what it is to be dreaming of good company, and good cheare – animum quoque praegravat una, Atque adfigit humo divinæ particulam auræ8

whilst I should have rather discoursed to Mr. Needham, de Aere Aquis et Locis9 or told him how rare a Spagyrical10 present I have for our next encounter: But deare Sir, excuse these extravagants, and make my servic acceptable to your most noble company, from Sir Your etc. Says Court: 16: June: 1653.

Mary Evelyn Letter 68 [65] July 4, 1653 f 59

Epistle LXV To my Wife

I was obliged to dispatch this Boy to London, that he might carry a resolution to the gentleman, concerning the buisinesse of the Copyhold,1 which he desired that his Lady might be admitted to; but sinc I could find no particular addresse to him, I have intreated my Cousin Hal2 to informe the person with what I have written; and therefore I desire you that the inclosed be immediatly conveyed to him: If you please to returne me the Boy by Friday, you will doe me a favour; so it be with an expresse account of your health, which I much long after, being infinitely more satisfied with your deare conversation, then all the entertainements of this place, which yet are very noble; and would be perfect with 7 The Family of Love was a sect, originating in Holland in the sixteenth century, which worshipped in secret, and concealed its membership. 8 “drags down ... the mind as well, and fastens in earth a fragment of the divine spirit.” Horace, Satirae 2.2.78–9 (Fairclough, trans) 9 concerning air, water, and place. The title of a work by Hippocrates. 10 pertaining to alchemy 1 Probably this letter refers to the long-running problem with William Prettyman about the tenancy of Sayes Court, which Evelyn had acquired on 22 March 1653. Prettyman’s lady was Elizabeth Prettyman, later the godmother of Evelyn’s daughter Elizabeth. Although Evelyn writes of paying “all my debts to a farthing” on 14 June, the settlement of the debt to his uncle Prettyman for Sayes Court was to take until 1687. 2 possibly Henry Hildyard, who had been at the Inner Temple with Evelyn and to whom Evelyn lent £1000 in 1648 (Diary II.545, 550)

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your presence. Revive me likewise with confirmations of the state of that Sweete Child,3 whose miraculous escape4 all that heare it, admire: Let my Unkle5 know, that he is earnestly expected here, and that it will be well taken both of my Brother6 and the rest of the diligent Irish-players, if he give a visite: We are very cheerefull, but not riotous: But in the midst of all this, I am resolv’d to complye religiously with my promise, and your Commands, and kisse your hands on Moneday. I remaine Deare Browne Your etc. Woodcott, 4 July: 1653

Richard Fanshawe1 Letter 69 [66] October 7, 1653#2 f 59r–v

Epistle LXVI To my Cousin Richard Fanshaw.

It was yesterday that I received your most civil letter, and the Bratt3 which hath too long I feare importun’d you; for I know you could be no otherwise affected with its beauty, than we are commonly with Aps and Monkeys, which for their mimeticks are not the least divertisant amongst living Creatures; but you had Sir return’d it to me much more to my liking; if your nasute and learned animadversions had razed its deffects, and inserted something of your owne unerring judgment. That same – Cur Ego Amicum. ­Offendam in Nugis?4 marrs all commerce of this kind: and realy, it was that favour, which I supplicated of you, little thinking it would have returned with no more improvement, than to it brought back, and for which I can afford you no more thankes than you may reasonably derive from an accusation: But Cousen, you are a Courtier, and the Spanish

3 Richard Evelyn, son 4 The only “escape” recorded about Richard Evelyn is from choking on a mutton bone on 31 December 1654 (Diary III.145). 5 probably William Prettyman 6 Richard Evelyn, brother 1 Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–66; ODNB). The fifth surviving son of Sir Henry Fanshawe, Richard was intended for a legal career but after being educated at Cambridge and the Middle Temple became a diplomat. He published translations of Guarini’s Pastor Fido, Horace’s Odes, and Camoens’s The Lusiads. He was related to Evelyn’s wife through her great-grandfather and lived in Portugal St, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 2 The letter is probably misdated. Evelyn responds to a letter of Fanshawe’s (Add 28104: f 6 [27.12.1653]) which is printed in An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656), 6–9 and also dated 27 December 1653. 3 an allusion to a draft of Evelyn’s Lucretius translation, and a compliment to Fanshawe’s already established reputation as a translator 4 “Why should I give offence to a friend about trifles?” Horace, Ars Poetica 450 (Fairclough, trans)

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Refran5 which puts Earth betweene friends, cannot (it se[e]mes) interpose anything ’twixt them and your Compliments: No, he that would find a friend which shall tell him his faults, must send beyond Tankersly. The Impostor in the Tragedy6 personated the man indeede, but proved in the end a God; whilst neerer home, and perhaps the truth too, Perkin, and the Neapolitan-slave shamefuly degenerated; so difficult I feare it will prove to make your comparison amble, Pancirolus7 tells us of an artificial White Saphir, which onely one Lapidary in all Venice could discover from a true Diamond: mine is at best but a Counterfait, and you skill too well, not to have espied all the flaws, and the ill water, which yet you would seeme not to take cognisanc off: But however you please to encourage, and indulge my poore attempts, you have certainely made a just crisis on that incomparable piece of Mr. Bathurst;8 how I am ravished with that stupendious worke! and yet not more then with the songs of the Sweete Lyrick and that Italian Phœnix whose most happy interpreter you best are acquainted withal,9 and I infinitely admire: Nor can it be, but that whilst you do thus wisely ἐμφιλοχωρει˜ν10 some like excellency of yours will in tyme be discovered, and let the world see, that you are not buried alive in that remote corner of the Land: Well Cousen, however, I reade your kindnesse, and the language of a most obliging nature, and though the Suffrages which you are pleased to bestow upon my Trifles, through comparisons by so many fruitefull instances, be far above the greatest pretenc of it; yet I am confident that as you will not discourage an adventurer; so neither will you dissavowe an affection deference onely to your judgment, and friendship and which made me then so hardy (as you see Cousen I have bin) to present you with my imperfections, and now with all due accknowledgments for this greate favour to Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 7: October 1653.

5 Poner tierra de por medio: to put earth in the midst 6 pretenders to thrones. Perkin Warbeck claimed to be the younger son of Edward IV. The “Neapolitan slave” probably refers to Marco Tullio Catizzone, the “Knight of the Cross,” who impersonated the Portuguese king Sebastian (d. 1578) until he was exposed and executed in 1603. 7 Guido Panciroli, probably alluding to Rerum memorabilium ... libri duo (Amberg, 1569) and many subsequent editions. 8 Theodore Bathurst’s Latin translation of Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender (Calendarium Pastorale, sive æglogæ duodecim [London, 1653; in the 1687 library catalogue]) is described on the title-page as “rendered into Latin song.” 9 Fanshawe had translated Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido in 1647. 10 to dwell in

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Edmund Waller Letter 70 [67] November 12, 1653 f 59v

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Epistle LXVII To Mr. Waller

The courtesie which you allways exercise towards those which have recourse to your favour, makes me hope that the supplication which I make for a friend will not be unpleasing to you: This Gentleman (Mr. Packer)1 having an affaire with the General2 in behalfe of a person whom I extreamely desire to oblige, becomes (together with your servant) an humble sutor for your Advocation and assistance in the particular he is best instructed to informe you of; I shall not neede therefore importune you my selfe with a discourse which he will performe with so much a better grace; onely I do assure you that he3 whom he reccommends, is a person of merit, peaceable and of admirable piety, which are qualities you esteeme: I should employ other artifices to ingage you for him, did I not apprehend you might thereby thinke that I suspected your friendship, and therefore it is, I shall onely use the power which I find you have ever indulged me, to exercise a goodnesse which is very generous and obliging: And I am the rather induced to make request for this worthy Gentlemans Chaplaine, because I cannot but approve the Election which he hath made of your Person to be his sanctuary, and addresse; nothing doubting, but that the esteeme which you have amongst all men, your authority with his Excellency, and the importance of the Subject, will easily obtaine his petition, who is resolved to hold from you alone all the good successe which he shall receive, as I to come in with my many accknowledgments, which for this, and a Series of other Civilities, are confessedly due from Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 12 November 1653.

1 Philip Packer (c.1618–86; Diary) was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1640 and called to the Bar in 1647, and was a fellow of the Royal Society. He was Evelyn’s close friend and neighbour, and owned Groombridge in Kent, a property previously owned by the Waller family. He was married to Isabel, daughter of Sir Robert Berkeley of Spetchley (1584–1656), whose son, Robert, became one of Evelyn’s gardening correspondents. Evelyn lent Packer money during the Interregnum. 2 This may be a suit to Cromwell himself, as Waller was his cousin. 3 John Poeton (1619–92; Diary). The son of Edward Poeton of Petworth, Poeton entered Oxford in 1637. In that he remained as minister of Philip Packer’s chapel at Groombridge for thirty years, he plainly did not get the position for which Evelyn and Philip Packer were soliciting Waller, and was rector of Ashby in Berkshire in 1661.

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Henry Hildyard Letter 71 [68] February 7, 1653# ff 59v–60

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LXVIII To Mr. Henry Hyldyard.

I received your kind reply this Evening, and in order thereunto will waite on you my selfe one day this weeke, about the disposal of that affaire; being not able at present to fix a day precisely, when I shall receive it, ’til I have found out a safe depositum,1 where it may remaine for a moneth or two; but of this as I shall more fully resolve you tomorrow, so by all the asseverations of honour, I conjure you to believe, that I saw nothing of unbecomming at all in what you seeme (in your close) to redargue your selfe off; and I thinke I shall never be guilty of a reproch so foule, and brutish, as to accuse you of anything, but of being over obliging to all that have the honour (as I have) to know you, and who can no way reveng themselves, but by still seeking new occasions of serving you and amongst them I am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 7: February: 1653.

John Evelyn of Godstone1 Letter 72 [69] January 21, 1655* f 60

Epistle LXIX To Sir John Evelyn of Godstone.

Sir, Sinc it hath pleased God to store me with so hopefull a Child,2 as is lately borne us, and long sinc with so excellent a Relation, I am the more incouraged to hope that you will not 1 Evelyn refers to seeing Hildyard on 17 August 1653 and being shown “a box or golden case, of divers rich and aromatic Balsoms” (Diary III.87–8). This letter is out of place chronologically and should probably be dated August 1653. 1 Sir John Evelyn (of Godstone) (1591–1664; Diary, H). Educated at Oxford and the Inns of Court, Sir John was Evelyn’s first cousin, i.e., the grandson of Evelyn’s grandfather, George, by his first wife, Rose Williams. Sir John married Thomasine Heynes in 1618, and lived at Lee Place in Godstone, Kent. He was an early member of both the East India Company (1624) and the Virginia Company (1612) and succeeded to the family gunpowder business but lost the government contract in 1636. He was a justice of the peace for Surrey from 1627 to 1648 and from 1659 until his death. 2 John Stansfield Evelyn (1653–4; Diary). Evelyn’s second son, named after his grandmother’s family, died in infancy. This letter must be misdated. John Stansfield Evelyn had been christened on 17 October 1653 (Diary III.89) and died on 25 January 1654. John Evelyn Jr was born on 14 January 1655 and christened by Sir John Evelyn, the addressee of this letter, on 26 January 1655 (Diary III.146–7).

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dissavowe a request which I adventure to make, that you will honour it with your name and become its Susceptor: I confesse the presumption is high because the trouble it will put you to dos neede a greate apologe, and is lesse becomming so meane a Relation; but it is withall an instanc of much Charity, and will eternaly oblige me. Sir, I have designed Friday for the day, hoping that some other occasion, might possibly by that tyme invite you to London it being then tearme, and so this bold importunity cost you a lesser trouble, though your servant no lesse obligation; but if that day, or this request doe not perfectly complye with your designe, be pleased freely to dispose of the tyme, or appoynt your Delegate: for I accknowledg, that to engage you on a journey expressely, were to shew [word deleted] my want of [word deleted] manner, and yet not to desire the honour of your presence, a contradiction to my suite and unpardonable; be pleased therfore Sir, to solve this difficulty, that the request may be innocent and becomming a person whom you have bin pleased to indeare, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 21 January 1654.

Jeremy Taylor1 Letter 73 [70] February 9, 1654#2 f 60r–v

Epistle LXX To Dr. Taylor etc.

The Calamitie3 which lately arived you, came to me so late, and with so much incertitude during my long absence from these parts, that ’till my returne, and earnest inquisition, I could not be cured of my very greate impatienc to be satisfied concerning your condition: But so it pleased God, that when I had præpared to receive that sad newes, and deplore your restraint, I was assured of your release, and delivered of much Sorrow. It were imprudent, and a character of much ignorance to inquire into the cause of any good mans

1 Jeremy Taylor (1613–67; ODNB). A fellow of Caius College, Cambridge (1633), and of All Souls, ­Oxford (1635), Taylor was chaplain to Laud and chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles I. A prolific defender of the established church during the Interregnum, he was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor in 1661 and named vice-chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin. Evelyn first mentions Taylor on 15 April 1654 (Diary III.94), and reports on 31 March 1655 that “I made a visite to Dr. Taylor to conferr with him about some spiritual matters; using him thenceforward as my Ghostly Father &c” (149). The correspondence between Evelyn and Taylor is printed in part in Diary (1887), III and in Heber’s “Life of the Author,” in Whole Works, I. See the catalogue of their (widely dispersed) correspondence in Beal, Index. 2 probably misdated; 9 February 1655 seems more likely, though de Beer argued for October 1654 (see “Jeremy Taylor in 1655”). Evelyn’s allusion to his “long absence” probably refers to the tour of England that he and Mary had undertaken from 8 June to 3 September 1654 (Diary III.142). 3 Evelyn seems to refer to some recent imprisonment or harassment that Taylor had undergone. Although he would be imprisoned in Chepstow Castle between May and October 1655, any earlier confinement cannot be documented (see Spurr, “Jeremy Taylor,” ODNB).

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Suffering in these sad tymes; yet if I have learned it out, ’twas not of my Curiosity; but the discourse of some with whom I have had some habitudes since my Comming home. I had read the præfac long since to your Golden grove,4 Remember, and infinitely justifie all that you have there asserted. ’Tis true vallor to dare to be undon, and the consequent of Truth hath ever bin in danger of his teeth, and it is a blessing if men escape so in these days, when, not the safties onely, but the Soules of men are betraied; whilst such as you, and such as your excellent assistances as they afford us, are rendred Criminal and suffer. But you Sir, who have furnished the world with so rare præcepts against the efforts of all secular disasters whatsoever, could never be destitute of those consolations, which you have so charitably, and so piously performed præscribed unto others: Yea rather, this has turned to our immense advantage nor lesse to your glory, whilst men behold you living your owne Institutions, and preaching to us as effectualy in your Chaines, as in the Chaire, in the Prison, as in the Pulpit: for mithinkes Sir, I heare you pronounce it, as indede you act it Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris et carcere dignum Si vis esse Aliquis5

that your example might shame such as betray any truth for feare of men, whose mission and Commission is from God. You Sir, know in the general, and I must justifie in particular with infinit recognition, the benefit I have receivd from the truths you have delivered. I have perused that excellent Unum necessarium6 of yours to my very greate satisfaction, and direction; and do not doubt but it shall in tyme gaine upon all those exceptions, which I know you are not ignorant appeare against it. ’Tis a great deale of Courage, and a greate deale of perill, but to attempt the assault of an errour so inveterate Αἱ δὲ κεναὶ κρίσιες τὰν ἀπέραντον ὁδόν7 false opinion knows no bottome, and reason and præscription meete in so few instances: but certainely you greately vindicate the divine goodnesse, which the ignorance of men, and popular mistakes have so long charged with injustice. But, Sir, you must expect with patience the event, and the fruites you contend for; as it shall be my dayly devotions for your successe, who remaine Reverend Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 9 February 1654.

4 Possibly an early version of The Golden Grove: or a manuall of daily prayers and letanies fitted to the dayes of the Week (London, 1655); or XXVIII Sermons preached at Golden Grove, etc. (London, 1651; Eve.b.40). Richard Royston, the publisher of Taylor’s The Real Presence and Spirituall of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament proved, against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation (London, 1654) prints a four-page catalogue at the end of this book (Z7–8) which provides evidence of the large number of Taylor’s works available in London at this time. 5 “If you want to be anybody nowadays, you must dare some crime that merits narrow Gyara, or a goal.” Juvenal, 1.73–4 (Ramsay, trans) 6 Unum necessarium. Or, the doctrine and practice of repentence (London, 1653; 1655 edition is Eve.a.55) 7 “Vain judgements have a limitless range.” Diogenes Laertius, “Life of Epicurus,” 10.12 (Hicks, trans).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jeremy Taylor Letter 74 [71] May 24, 1655 f 60v

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Epistle LXXI To Dr. Taylor

It is not without some reluctancy that I find so greate a disproportion in the proposition which I made you, to those conveniencys which you deserve, and I so passionately desire for you: but since you have given me reasons against which I dare not object, I shall prosecute the affaire no farther, albeit a letter of a more fresh date ought to have signified how much I had improved the first overture. And indeede, before your answer arrived, our Common good friend Mr. Allington1 (who did me lately the honour to visite me at my house) told me what I was to expect; but withall, that he hoped there was a faire passage now by which he believed it would not be difficult for you to enter upon your owne Charge againe; which thing verily cannot happen without my extraordinary contentment, sinc having a neere Relation by Uppingham (my wifes Unkle)2 I may possibly have the felicity sometymes to kisse your hands. But this Sir, is all, and onely to shew you, how much I am concerned with any thing which may contribute to your Satisfaction and settlement. So that I will not farther engage you, remembring that crowde of important affaires, which made your last to me so greate a favour, and may render this so greate a trouble: but since it onely requires that you should reade it, and needes no replye, I shall hope it may the easier obteyne Pardon, for, Sir, Your etc. Says Court: 24: May: 1655.

1 John Allington (c.1611–82; Diary). Allington was educated at Cambridge (MA 1629) and became rector of Wardley cum Belton in Northamptonshire where Evelyn heard him preach in 1654 (Diary III.134). He was expelled from the living in 1655, after he had published a book against the regicides, The Grand Conspiracy of the Members against the Minde (London, 1653; in the 1687 library catalogue). After the Restoration he became a prebend of Lincoln Cathedral. 2 Sir John Prettyman (c.1612–76; Diary, H). Like his brother, William Prettyman, he was an uncle of ­Evelyn’s wife, Mary, and godfather to two of Evelyn’s children. Elected to parliament for Leicester in 1661, he retained the seat until his death.

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Cousin S.1 Letter 75 [72] July 13, 1655 ff 60v–1v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LXXII To my Cousen: [name deleted] S.

Though I believe you did not intend any farther, then a Triumph over my little skill in your Sex, when you lately provoked me to tell you that I knew one as deserving as any honourable person in the world could desire for a Mistris; yet since my Wife brings me word that you Suspect my Character, and have taken the paynes to search into the fame of my Lady, I begin to thinke you have either a greate deale of Charity, or a greate deale of Envy; for both of them were incompatible; but since I am confident you cannot be guilty of the one, I assure you shee needes not the other; and, but to justifie my selfe, I would not staine this paper with so needelesse an apologye. It is, Cousen, to no purpose to abound in words, where things are expected; and if I do not render her reputation as white and innocent as ever was this sheete, pronounce me for an impostor, or one that hath prostituted himselfe to a very cheape employment. The first, it semes concernes those prodigious Volumes of Ribband, which it is reported she bestowed upon her Gallants in Hide-Parke.2 In reply to this, you shall understand (Deare Cousen) that when this Lady arrived first into England, she came with exact notices what reputation the Ladys about Towne had acquired by publishing themselves in Balls, Gardens, Taverns and other encounters of those looser tymes; and therefore comming, as she did, a stranger to such kind of conversations, she thought it behooved her to make her first impressions as warily as was possible, as knowing that from thence would be derived the Basis of all the superstruction. In order to which, it is well observed, that she totaly refused to accompany such as indefatigably sollicited her 1 In Evelyn’s index to the letterbooks, the addressee of this letter is identified as Sanders (Add 78299: f 165). This may be the “cousin Sanders in Covent Garden” to whom Hiscock refers in John Evelyn and His Family Circle, 68. See George Evelyn’s correspondence with his wife and daughter Mary, where she is referred to in George’s correspondence in Add 78295: f 36 (14.9.1666) and f 97 (6.11.1669) and in Mary’s at f 158 (n.d.); and the series of undated letters to Mary in the same volume from “Tho Saunders” of Ludgate Hill, whose address Evelyn also used as a London poste restante. The letter may never have been sent, and it may be principally a rhetorical exercise in celebration of Mary Evelyn’s virtues. It also anticipates Evelyn’s account of Interregnum London in A Character of England (London, 1659). 2 Evelyn records a visit to Hyde Park on 11 May 1653, “where every Coach was made pay a shill: & horse 6d. by the sordid fellow who had purchas’d it of the State” (Diary III.82–3). He notes frequent trips to London in May 1655 (Diary, III.150–1), including one with his wife on 26 May. Compare Evelyn’s description of Hyde Park to the account in W[illiam] B[lake], A serious letter sent by a private Christian to the Lady Consideration, the first day of May, 1655– which she is desired to communicate in HidePark to the gallants of the times a little after sun-set (London, 1655). Hyde Park had been ordered sold by Parliament in 1652, and divided into three lots. Evelyn describes it in A Character of England, 55–6: “This Parke was (it seemes) used by the late King and Nobility for the freshness of the Air, and the goodly prospect: but it is that which now (besides all other excises) they pay for here in England, though it be free in all the World beside; every Coach and Horse which enters buying his mouthful, and permission of the Publicane who has purchased it, for which the entrance is guarded with Porters and long staves.”

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to frequent those places of common resort about London. For though a virtuous mind might possibly preserve it selfe from all personal indecencys; yet her argument was that her discretion should take denomination from the greatest ingredient, and the errours of the company leave some sullaye upon her. But in conclusion, after infinite refusals, some of her friends having gained her sister my Lady [name deleted]; she yealded for once to goe into the Parke, which happning to be on the Birthday of our Deare Sovraigne,3 one of the Ladys there present, was wishing that according to the laudable costome, shee and the rest had bin so provident, as to have fitted themselves with some cognisance, by which it might be knowne that they were not ashamed to owne him in his Eclipse, and upon this, they would needes ransack this Ladys Cabinet for ribbans; but sinc white and greene were the Colours they sought, she bestowed upon them all she had which being bought of a Pedlar would have cost at least ten shillings. Behold Cousen, the crime of profusenesse layed so severely to her charge, the 30 as some, nay the 300 as others have reported: Besides, Cousen, those smale shreads were divided onely amongst hir kindred, and worn by none but of her owne sex. Next my Wife informes me of an antick-Picture4 which is sayd to be seene of hers: Who can stop the malicious reproches of men; or the pensil of a licentious Aretine! Cousen I doe assure you, there is no such matter; or if there be, not that she is conscious to, nay I am able to give you a Catalogue of those friends of hers, on whom she hath don the honour to bestow her pictures;5 which for being of very neere relations to her, and persons of greate quality, it is not to be imagined would abuse the indulgenc in such so unworthy an instance as you have falsely heard. But, there needes no more to confute this horrid scandal, then to produce the Paynter, and if he have bin so insolent to make use of her fayr face, in so foule promisse comming a sort, to get him cudgelled into more reverenc and better manners. For I doe assure you this will appeare a most insupportable and lowde untruth; and can reflect nothing upon my Lady, who is perfectly innocent though not a little troubled. But that you may know the tendernesse of her reputation cannot preserve her from the malevolent disposition of some faire Devils about this Towne, you shall understand that being (not long after her first arival) exceedingly pressed to make choyce of some gallant (as the rest of the ladys had don) who was to pay for the extravagancys of that days revells, at a certaine collation or rather feast bespoken at a Taverne, upon her absolute refusal to accompanie them, she not onely procured an universal dislike to the rest of the gang; but received some uncourteous language very much unbecomming a Person, one who [words deleted] should rather have infinitely valued her for it. The general reproch was, that they knew she put on this aversion, not 3 Charles II’s birthday was 29 May. The colours green and white were associated with Wales and the ­Tudors, and hence with loyalty to the Crown. 4 The reference to Pietro Aretino suggests this would be a picture showing her in an antique pose, i.e., in a state of undress, appropriate to a mistress but not a wife. 5 This is possibly a reference to copies of the portrait of Mary Evelyn by Robert Nanteuil (Plate 7). Evelyn goes on to suggest that another artist might have painted her, or even attached her face to a compromising image. The portrait of Mary painted by Bourdon, which Evelyn had recovered in 1652, “has the dog in it; & is to the knees” (Diary III.62). There are also two poems in the Evelyn archive which refer to portraits of Mary: “On my Mistris her Picture done with a Crayon,” in Richard Hoare’s hand (Add 78347: f 160) and “In effigem M. Evelini,” signed by Edward Snatt (Add 78347: f 161).

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because she hated the designe, but with pretence to be thought the most reserved and accomplished Lady of the towne, so to ingrosse all the Vertue to herselfe: But that, (I faith) this should not take, for if she would not be sociable as others were, she should Suffer as others did; and indeede they were as bad good as their words; for after this, she had a Thousand lies, and ridiculous fooleries reported of her; which how veritable they were, the former instances make appeare. But if reason may be understood, and Truth layn in ballanc against the iniquities of your Mad Citty, her Accusers themselves shall be judges, if she deserve not to be repaired in the thoughts and esteeme of all that have either sense of honour, or can but calculate the measures of an exact Vertue. Cousen, doe not mistake my Lady for a Person that will admitt of Gallants, that boast what conquests they have made. There be who have strained Healths through their neerest linnen, more white then their soules, Ladys (I am told, of Qualitie) but if good ones, judge you. She despises your entertainements at Oxford-Kates,6 nor ever heard of a Lady in a Taverne ’til she came into England, and this wretched Towne;7 she scarce thinkes it tollerable to be seene at a Ball, unlesse the meeting be very choice, and of her neerest Relations;8 and that ever shee should be seene at a Play Theater (as you tell my Wife) it is altogether a mistake; for she would never be perswaded to endanger her Selfe at any place so obnoxious to the rudnesse of Souldiers, as those have bin of late:9 And yet with all this, You are some testimony, that her reservednesse is no impediment to her conversation; for there lives not a more Cherefull, discoursive, and discreete Person upon Earth, and as you would easily have discovered had your interview bin so favourable, as that it might have began the friendship I desired, and to repaire all this, shall strive to perfect; that so you having the honour of her excellent acquaintanc, and sweete conversation you may undeceive your selfe, and vindicat her innocency. Realy Cousen, I have received no Pension. The Argument alone and her Ladyships perfections are a Theame upon which I take some delight, and glory to speake off; and her owne integrity ought so fully to satisfie her, that no report is will be capable to disorder her virtues; since her greate designe is to preserve her Selfe from the merits of Scandal, though from the attempts and insults it not be impossible; and

6 The Cock, Oxford Kate’s tavern in Bow Street, notorious for offences to decency. Pepys records an ­episode involving Sir Charles Sedley in Pepys Diary, IV.209–10. 7 “Your L. will not believe me that the Ladys of greatest quality, suffer themselves to be treated in one of these Taverns, where a Curtesan in other Cities would scarcely vouchsafe to be entertain’d” (Character of England, 31). 8 “It was frequently, during the last Winter, that I was carried to their Balls, as where indeed I hoped to see what should appear the most of gallant & splendid amongst the Ladies; nor really did my expectations deceive me; for there was a confluence of very great beauties, to which the glistring of their jewels (which upon these occasions they want not) could adde nothing save their weight; the various habits being so particular, as if by some strange inchantment they had encountred and come out of several Nations” (Character of England, 50–1). 9 Evelyn may be alluding to the raid by soldiers on the Red Bull theatre, where illegal performances were sometimes staged, on 29 December 1654. See Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage, VI, 235. On this occasion, one observer noted that “the Souldiery carryed themselves very civilly towards the Audience,” unlike their conduct on other occasions.

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whoever shall be so fortunate as to procure her affection by honourable wayes, will find as spotlesse as innocence, A virtue so immixed, and so intire, that there can be nothing added more to accomplish his hapinesse, or justifie, Deare Cousen Your etc. Says-Court: 13 July: 1655

Elizabeth Mordaunt1 Letter 76 [73] July 15, 1655 f 62

Epistle LXXIII To my Lady Carye.

[RM: Carye] Madame, I come not to discompose your sweete retirement, but to beg a favour of you; which you are then to conferr onely upon me, when you leave those delicious recesses of my blessed Country, to guild those languishing parts with your presence; and the favour that I shall beg, is, that I may serve you in the most considerable affaire of your whole life, which then I shall certainely begin to doe, so soon as I may understand when your returne will be to London, where the scene of this negociation lyes; and, where I doubt not, but I shall merite, if not something of your esteeme, pardon at least for the presumption. Madam, it is a bold period (I confesse) thus to antedate my good fortune: But those who shall receive no other hire for such services as may render others the most happy of their sex, may hope for a favourable censure, though the opinion of their services do a little transport them. Madam, you may by this tyme, well imagine that I am either very hardy, or impertinent, or both: But since these addresses may admitt second thoughts, and there is no reason but you should believe it is some affaire of no smale consequence importanc, I am the more zealous to court yor Ladyship for an Audienc upon the first opportunity. Madame, I have not usd to deceive you, I have no delight to doe it, I have no designe in it; unlesse you shall believe that I am not now very serious, and then you are indeede mistaken. I conjure you therefore (by all the instances of your Virtue) to credite me in this affaire, that is, to believe, that I now have an opportunity to appeare much your servant; at least permitt me to flatter my selfe with the Speculation of it, and let me have the honour, by the first conveniency, to receive it under your fayre hand, when I may be so hapy as to waite on 1 Elizabeth Mordaunt, Viscountess Mordaunt, née Carey (1632/3–79; Diary, P). The daughter of Thomas Carey (1597–1634), the youngest son of Robert Carey, 1st earl of Monmouth, Elizabeth married (1657) her cousin the arch-Royalist John Mordaunt, although Evelyn originally proposed that she marry Sir Edward Hales (Diary III.155). Her correspondence with John and Mary Evelyn is in Add 78309 (ff 1–21) and Add 78437. For Evelyn’s relationship with her, see Harris, Transformations of Love, 78–80.

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you at London where, with impatienc I shall attend you, that I may interpert the Enigma, and let your Ladyship realy see, that amongst all those who court you for advantages of their owne, I alone desire to serve you without designe, or other reward then a memory of my fidelity: But madam, I confine my selfe here, otherwise could I entertaine your Ladyship with diversions more sutable to your rural retreate;2 for I would accompanie you in the groves, and whisper to you by the fountaines, and discourse to you of the prospect; gathering somthing from all that were faire and perfect to describe your excellent selfe; for though I am a bad Poët, yet the effects of such influences may worke miracles, and I have found greate assistances in the society of fayre Ladys heretofore: But since I shall not (I feare) be so successful, as to waite on you there (where of all the places of the world I most affect to be) by reason of some occasions which detaine me here, I must sit downe by my destinies, and live onely on the expectation of your presence, which renders all places alike where it is: But you will exceedingly add to that hapinesse, if you shall believe what I have written above, and will hasten to put me in a Capacity that I may assure you in words and in person, and not by Character onely, how intirely I am Dearst Madame, Yours etc. Says-Court: 15 July: 1655.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 77 [74] August 1, 1655 f 62v

Epistle LXXIV To my Lady E. Carye

Madame, The honour you have don me in those faire characters, I now received, challeng this accknowledgment from the most humble of your Servants: but it cannot be that one who makes it his glory to do you homage, should have the least presumption of so seriously importuning you in a matter which concerned onely himselfe: Madam I have neither the vanity to believe my selfe so much in your favour; nor the boldnesse, if my impertinency were so exorbitant, and yet I see my selfe infinitely hapy in discovering the excesse of your virtue, by the markes of your friendship. It is sufficient that you are pleas’d not to dissavowe my first addresses, for that you give me leave to serve you, is a reward hugely beyond my merite; but that you set a Vallue on it also, obliges me beyond the limits of all expressions. I say no more therefore at present concerning that affaire (as yet mysterious) onely Madame you have the key, and may open that Cabinet when you please: But 2 probably Reigate Priory; see next letter. Evelyn notes that on 20 August “Came Mrs. Eliz: Carew upon my letter, upon my proposal to her of Sir Edw: Hales” (Diary III.155). See also Diary III.156 which records Evelyn visiting Reigate on 21 August. The next three letters seem to refer to the courtship of Edward Hales, which Evelyn was assisting. See also Letter 81.

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because this is yet ænigmatical, I will certainely do violenc to my personal affaires here, and it is reason (after so perfect a resignation of my selfe) that I and my Wife doe kisse those faire hands at Lith-hill;1 and there either render you an acceptable account of all this trouble, or exercise your benignity in exploring pardon for Madam Your etc. Says-Court 1 August 1655.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 78 [75] September 7, 1655 ff 62v–3

Epistle LXXV To my Lady E. Carey.

Madame, Though I presume not to divine; yet give me leave to suspect the Accident which made you arrive so late to your Quarter,1 and take upon you the trouble of harbouring my BenightedBed fellow:2 But if the encounter proved to your satisfaction, I shall the better support that glorious cognizanc of being so emulously placed in your esteeme, and beare a character infinitely exceeding my biggest presumption if your owne goodnesse had not conferred it, and that I will endeavor to conserve it with an assiduous and perfect devotion you are not to doubt. Be therefore pleased Madam, to account of Me hencforth, as of a propriety of your Ladyship, and that you shall eternaly find in me the fidelity, scilence, affection and Industry of a Servant, whose recompence shall be onely the contemplation of your Vertues, and the honour of that residence which you have already promised me amongst your incomparable thoughts. And now Madam, if you can suspect the Candor of those expressions; believe it then if you permitt me to use a more expresse Idea, that I beare you the esteeme of a Brother, a Confident and a friend; something wherein all this is but an Ingredient, will be the best Copie of my Relation to your Ladyship. But in the language more sutable to my addresses, and the reverenc I beare to your person, I have a particular inclination to Serve you, and a Zeale in it very disinterested save that I would let you see, I can distinguish of merite, and value an exact virtue wherever I find it. Madam when I violat these professions I flatter, ’till then let it become me to subscribe Madam Your etc. Says-Court 7: September 1655.

1 Leith Hill is three miles south of Wotton. 1 Reigate Priory, Surrey 2 Mary Evelyn

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Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 79 [76] September 12, 1655 f 63

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Epistle LXXVI To my Lady Elizabeth Carye:

Presuming on that glorious favour by which you are pleased to distinguish me from the many that will emulate my hapinesse I come to cast this accknowledgment at your feete as an instanc of my perpetual Servitude. I confesse (proverbialy) proffered Servic, has an ill Signification; but if you shall call it acceptable, I will abide the event, and glory in the Title. My Wife has sent your Ladyship the Vomite, which (with care) you may give to that Sweete little Lady your Sister;1 but it must be administred so as it may worke at the very approch of the Paroxisme, with store of Posset-drinke (as you know) to facilitate the ejection. and let the pretty Patient be kept warme, and govern’d carefully: This will undoubtedly remove the cause, and restore her the jewell which shee seekes. Dearest Madam, render my servic acceptable to my Lady Littleton,2 I am not worthy her displeasure for offering the expiation of delivering my Wife to her when ever she commands it; and if she did not stay: Yesterday, it was seriously to be just to a præingagement. But now that I am to take leave of my Dearest Lady and Mistris, let me receive the honour of her Commands, and directions, that by faithfully acquitting my selfe of them in your absenc, I may justifie the noble Relation which you have conferred upon mee. Will you smile favourably upon me, if I kisse your hands at Winchester? if I cast a figure3 for your returne, will you forgive me? Dearest Lady, I am confident I shall do all this, and in doing this, expresse the greater and most infallible signatures of, My Dearest Lady, Your etc. Says-Court: 12 September 1655.

Mary Evelyn Letter 80 [77]1 October 4, 1655 f 63r–v

Epistle LXXVII To my Wife.

I arrived at this wretched Towne in such a conjuncture (the Lawyers being suddainely designed for the Country upon friday) that there is a necessity of continuing amongst 1 The emetic was for Philadelphia Carey. 2 probably Anne Littleton, a Littleton in her own right (as daughter of Edmund Lord Littleton, Keeper of the Great Seal) and married to Sir Thomas Littleton (d. 1681). 3 horoscope 1 The original version of this letter is Add 78431: f 40 (4.10.1655).

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them, unlesse I would deferr the settling of our grand buisinesse2 ’till the next Tearme, which I am very unwilling to do. The buisines betweene Sir Nicholas Crisp3 and my selfe on respect of the partition of future improvements4 proves to be so extraordinary a way, and so obnoxious to difficulties, that our Counsell are at a stand what to doe in it; but in Conclusion, we have this day, resolved upon something which cannot be drawne into forme suddainely, and upon that we shall have another encounter; so that I must of necessity abide in this place (of all other the most hatefull to me) for I conjecture your imagination reppresents to it selfe, the toyle I am under, trotting up and downe this dirty Thaw; without those carresses and accommodations which I onely enjoy in your sweete society: This is such a mortification to me, having neither my Coach to bring me home, nor daring to attempt the Water so full of floating yce, and to come by land is the worst of the extreames: However my deare Browne, by one of these I hope to see you within a day or two: for in those incertitudes I yet dwell, and therefore am unwilling the Coach should be sent, till I can give you a more particular account of it, who with all affection to you, and my deare Children remayne: Deare Browne Your etc. London: 4: October 1655.

Edward Hales1 Letter 81 [78] December 15, 1655 f 63v

Epistle LXXVIII To Sir Edward Hales.

My devotion, not my Successes2 will appeare by the Inclosed, and it is no inconsiderable affliction that I should offer so improsperous a Servic; but, as I told you, the attempt was 2 This may be a reference to the selling of Warley Magna, though Evelyn records receiving £2600 for it on 17 September (Diary III.159). It may also refer to the tangled suit with William Prettyman over the settlement of Sayes Court. 3 Sir Nicholas Crisp, 1st baronet (c.1599–1666; ODNB, H). A wealthy merchant who prospered in the trade with West Africa, Crisp was a “fee-farmer” for the customs, and an MP. He was made a baronet in 1665. A member of the Council of Trade (from 1660) and for Foreign Plantations, he was Evelyn’s neighbour and tenant, and acted for him in a number of financial transactions about property (Add 78316: f 92 [24.9.1655]). He proposed to build a wet-dock for the navy in Evelyn’s garden at Sayes Court in 1661–2, a project that generated a considerable correspondence with Evelyn in 1655–6 (Add 78316). 4 a proposal to build a mole (a pier or breakwater) in Evelyn’s grounds in order to extend the dockyards (see Diary III.161) 1 Sir Edward Hales, 2nd baronet (c.1626–83; Diary, H). Of Tunstall in Kent, Hales was educated at Oxford and was a Royalist who took part in an abortive rising in Kent in 1648. After 1652 he returned to England and became 2nd baronet in 1654, and an MP at the Restoration. 2 Evelyn’s failure to negotiate a match between Sir Edward and Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey; see Diary III.155 and n. 7

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subject to casualty, though a man would have believed a more hopefull proceedure could not have bin imagined, then the intercession of a Brother-in-Law3 so qualified: but sinc it appeares his Interest is so dubious, I do not conceive it expedient to presse him any farther. I thinke yet realy Sir the man meanes ingenuously; but is unwilling to court this insolency4 having bin formerly (it seemes) denied. Sir, I am extreamely displeas’d that my Zeale to your Servic should prove so ineffectual; There is this onely result from the misfortune, that you have gained a Character of the Person, by which you may frame your future addresses, and discerne the nature of the B - - -5 though the event of my particular attempt do the lesse oblige you to Noble Sir Your etc. London 15: December 1655.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 82 [79] February 3, 1656*1 ff 63v–4v

Epistle LXXIX To my Lady Elizabeth Carey

So soone as it is told you that I have kept my Bed, and chamber with greate indisposition now these 15 dayes,2 I am almost confident you will banish all dissadvantageous thoughts that might begin to prejudice your Servant by a seeming remissenesse, whose affliction hath bin something increased, since he understands that your suddaine departure is like to frustrate his hopes of kissing your hands, and saying something to you which he cannot so becommingly write. It is to prævent, or anticipate this misfortune Madame, that I am resolv’d to trouble you with a narrative of those transactions which have so long, and so unhandsomely importun’d you. In one of these inclosed Copies you will find the original of that proposition, and which gave so greate a transport to the Cavalier3 (if he be worthy that name) that I was extreamely solicited to do all I might to facilitat the way, in pursuanc of which it was that I first did write so earnestly to yor Ladyship then in Surrey, and

3 probably Elizabeth Mordaunt’s brother-in-law, John Carey, Viscount Falkland 4 uncommon procedure 5 beast 1 Letters 82–8 are dated February and March 1655. It seems much more likely that most date from the ­following year. 2 On 18 January 1656 Evelyn refers to having “such a Rheume, as kept me within neere a whole Moneth after” (Diary III.165). Since the letter refers to events of the summer of 1655, it must be misdated. 3 Edward Hales had proposed to her on 17 August 1655 (Diary III.155, n. 7). De Beer suggests that this proposal may have been on behalf of his cousin, Edward Hales of Chilston, who subsequently married the daughter of Evelyn’s cousin, Sir John Evelyn of Chilston.

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afterwards at my Brothers4 discoursed to you in more particulars. After this in the Interim of your stay, I found by his confident, and my friend, that some trifler gave him a little umbrage and perplexity; a Vindication whereoff I afterwards dispatched to him, as I have now send the copy to you: together with the effect it produced, as will appeare by my Cousens reply; After this succeeded a short interview; and sinc that greate professions, and nothing but professions, all which has given your Servant so much anxiety of mind, and displeasure, finding my Zeale so much abused, and a person of his quality so unconstant; that, had not the accident furnished me with instances of an inviolable devotion to your Servic, I should have taken it for one of the most crosse adventures of my whole life. Madam, I will not tell you, of the journeys I have made, of the hundreds summs I have furnished, nor of what other considerable offices I have performed to engage him, who hath no other fault but unconstancy and irresolution (and what other fault needes he?) because indeede I did never intend to have discover’d this, if what was pretended so much had succeeded; but sinc there is a Period in which every man of honour ought to justifie himselfe, I believed this to be mine, and do therefore beg of your Ladyship that you will looke on this affaire as the greatest disaster of my life, and on your Servant as one of too greate a heart to do things of designe for other interest then that of honour and friendship. It has bin hitherto my fortune to oblige persons which have every way exceeded me in the fortune of the World; but I never sought to do it more earnestly then in this; because I hoped I might therein merite your esteeme, which was all the returne I should then have begged, as now I do your pardon; for you cannot but extreamely justifie me, when you shall have considered of all Circumstances; and with what a perfect integrity I have laboured to serve you. Dearest Madam, I had many tymes hopes of waiting on you at Wotton nay, I had a promise with some asseveration, that he would kisse your hands in Towne, which since I perceived were delayd, and uncertaine, I have scorned to pursue, and shall hereafter know how to place my beliefe, and engagements, whilst you are reserved for some nobler encounter. And though prætence was all this while taken from the addresses of another Person of honour;5 yet that gave me so poore satisfaction, that I tooke it onely for a pretence; albeit I now realy thinke his behaviour has bin so noble towards your Ladyship, and his other merites so considerable, that it shall be an act of greate gallantry in you Madame, to put an end to his Sufferings. I had the honour to be knowne to him long-since in Italy, and since that have heard so many things to his advantage, and know him to be a person so accomplish’d, that I cannot but put in my Symbol6 in his behalfe; and though I have also some affections as he is likely to be settled in my deare Country;7 yet those which I have for your hapynesse being far superiour, makes me wish an accumulation and encounter of all things which may accomplish it, which since

4 This account is retrospective and includes Evelyn’s presence at the christening of George Evelyn’s son on 17 August, his visit to Elizabeth Carey at Reigate on 21 August, and her visit to him on 5–7 September. The pronouns in the rest of this passage are ambiguous. 5 probably John Mordaunt whom Elizabeth Carey married. He was educated in Italy and was only six years younger than Evelyn. 6 here meaning “authentic statement” 7 Surrey

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I cannot doubt but are all meeting in him; so I cannot but augure you all the good fortune and successe due to your Virtues, who am Dearest Madame – Your etc. Says-Court: 3 February 1655.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 83 [80] February 20, 1656* ff 64v–5

Epistle LXXX To my Lady E. Carey.

That you may yet receive a perfect testimony of my inviolable and never dying respect, I do here protest, that if anything in this world within my power, were capable to make the impression deepe, the innocency and integrity of my Services should never be blotted out of your faire thoughts: not that I would hereby aggravate any merites of myne; but to let you see, how your owne perfections have gained you proselytes, and in me, one that has no other interest or pretence but to shew the world that my inclynations are above them; as having no other objects besides your Virtues; nor rewards, but that of being hardly thought off for vindicating, and asserting them. Madam, I beseech you pardon me, if these protestations add a dubble trouble to you as early as are your resolutions to be gon; but when you have leasure to make acts of reflection upon the passages of your life, doe not forget to place me, and all my relations (how meanesoever) amongst those in whom you may have a just confidenc, and title; and in particular my Selfe, and my deare Wife, who would goe far, and do much to make you happy, and that for the glory onely of having the honour to Serve you. Madam, I confesse you may sometyme wonder what should draw expressions of this nature from me, abstracting them from the usual civilities of the tymes: And realy, I will tell you Madam, and tell you sincerely, that it is a very greate love of your Virtues, which realy, with the hazard of my fortunes I would cherish in an age so depraved as is this, and a person so conspicuous as your Ladyship. It is fit I should know more of your Religion, and real piety, then you thinke I do: You are very deare to me upon that account, a virtue so rare, and so necessary in your Sex, to redeeme the Scandal which this age casts upon it; and I am confident, God (whom you seeke even in this doubtfull affaire which you now embark on)1 will direct you for the best. I can serve you in my prayers, and when there is such a difficulty wherein you would employ a person who beholds all other interests as infinitely beneath him, but what may doe you Servic, and become my protestations: You were sometymes perplext for one to waite on you Crosse the Seas; You and my wife alone know the reason that I did not immediately offer my Selfe, or at least, I wish you did: I must, and would have obeyed your commands, though, possibly, don you injury, and offended some whose Interest I did never 1 She was now courted by John Mordaunt whom she married on 7 May 1657 (Diary III.194).

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yet ­prejudice. To conclude, Madame, I am none of those Gallants, that seeke you, or affect you for anything besides your piety, and excellent frame of mind, which indeares you not to me onely, but to all persons who honour virtue, and goodnesse beyond the measures, and weake notices of this vaine world. For those Madam it is that I esteeme you; for this I will honour and serve you with as much affection and integrity as your owne most precious thoughts. God Almighty direct and blesse you that all your noble actions and designes, may terminat in a full and real accomplishment of all hapinesse to your person. This Madam, my deare Lady, from Your etc. Says-Court: 20 February 1655.

Peter Pett1 Letter 84 [81] February 21, 16552 f 65

Epistle LXXXI To Mr. Peter Pet. Bachelor of Law.

I have thus read in some Booke of your faculty Quum quis se velle personas testium post publicationem repellere fuerit protestatus, si quid pro ipso dixerint iis non creditus.3 That one cannot by any Law take benefit of a Testimony which we have disclaimed and protested against: and that I perceive I shall be eternaly compell’d unto, ’til you level your glorious style, and dilute those Magnifica verba4 which you are pleased to fling away upon me, for as I may without vanity apply them. For though I could with all my heart wish my selfe to be the person (or rather indeede that prodigie) whom you would thus place in Amphiteatro honoris;5 yet I cannot but with much assuranc imagine, that if you did not delight to reproch your servant, or were not describing some other person (so as Vitruvius dos his Architect, who will have him an Aristoxenus6 in Musick etc., or as Zenophon his Cyrus and Cicero his Orator,7 perfections all of them most conspicuous in your selfe) yet 1 Sir Peter Pett (1630–99; ODNB). He was the son of Peter Pett (1593–1652), master shipwright of Deptford. He received a BA from Cambridge (1648) and migrated to Oxford, becoming a fellow of All Soul’s and graduating Bachelor of Common Law in 1650. He then went to Gray’s Inn and was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple in 1664. He was an early fellow of the Royal Society (1663–75). 2 This is probably in response to a letter from Pett of December 1654 (Add 78316: f 73 [Dec. 1654]). 3 “When anyone declares that he wishes to lodge an objection against the persons of witnesses after publication of their statements, if they should then say anything in his favour, it will not easily be accepted [or believed, i.e., by the court].” See Decretales Gregorii IX, lib. 2, tit. 20 de testibus et attestationibus, cap. 10 Praesentium auctoritate. 4 great words 5 the theatre of honour 6 A philosopher and musician who was a pupil of Aristotle: see Cicero, De Oratore, 3.33.132 7 Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Cicero’s De Oratore. Each presents an image of the ideal practitioner of the particular art.

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you had certainely forgotten that you were writing to a poore country Gentleman such as I am. All that I can say to dissabuse my selfe, is that you converse in a Universitie, and are naturaly so eloquent, that you cannot but speake well even of those who merite very ill or least deserve your encomiums. And this is, Sir, what I had to say to your Courtship, having commissionated my deare friend8 (the bearer hereoff  ) to do you all those honnest and civill respects, which I professe to owe unto so excellent a Neighbour as Mr. Pet is without Compliment: and likewise through your hand to present Mr. Barlow9 with that inconsiderable piece, which indeede is not worthy his acceptanc, they being but collections and ῥάψωδοι which I patched10 up, upon divers occasions, to foment my Vanitie abroad.11 I did intend (if I can get them home, for it hath bin long at the Binders), to have added another thing of the same nature, after the Roman way: viz, Icones et Segmenta Illustrium è marmore Tabularum quæ Romæ adhuc extant, being the choycest things cut from the originals by an excellent hand and are designes which lead to much art that way and of rare erudition, as the short notes of Joannus Petrus Bellorius subjoyned do testifie there being none extant don with that truth and exactnesse; nor more proper for one that would study antiquity; and besides the booke is difficult to procure, and very deare, the Exemplars being well nigh worne out, and fallen into the hands of the Authors widdow: But what doe I trouble you with those trifles, who have long since enriched that famous Library12 with such Volumes of Solid Learning! All I can say to Mr. Barlow13 concernes 8 probably Jasper Needham, who had delivered Pett’s letter to Evelyn. 9 Evelyn made donations to the Bodleian Library, which were recorded in the Benefactor’s Register he was later shown during his visit in 1664 (see Diary III.385, n. 2). The gifts included Hörwarth, Thesaurus hieroglyphicorum (Arch. B b.2; see Letter 2, note 6), inscribed as donated on 16 March 1654 (i.e., 1655), and possibly also a copy of “Bembus his tables” (probably Lorenzo Pignoria, Vetustissimae Tabulae aeneae sacris Aegyptiorum ... explicatio [Venice, 1605]; another copy is Evelyn Library, no 1181), ­mentioned by Pett in his letter of December 1654, which he had determined was desired for the collection. Pett’s letter of December conveyed the gratitude of the keeper Thomas Barlow, who had shown Evelyn the collection in July 1654 (Diary III.106–8), and the promise that Evelyn’s name would be entered in “our library’s most lasting book of records.” Barlow also wrote Evelyn on 17 March (misdated 1654 in Diary [1887]), thanking him for the donation and acknowledging the role of Pett and Needham (Diary [1887], III, 64). See Bodleian Library Benefactors’ Register, 377 and also Letters 92 and 135. 10 rigmarole 11 This probably refers to the prints listed as Collection of Roman Antiquities, Ruines, Temples, Triumphal Arches, Amphitheaters, Theaters, Circus’s, Statues, Relievos, Obelisks, Columns in, and about Rome, Naples etc. in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue (f 121) under the heading “Sculpture and Taille Douce in Booke and Rolls.” The following page lists François Perrier’s Icones et segmenta illustrium e marmore tabularum quæ Romæ adhuc extant a Francisco Perrier delineata incisa et ... restituta (Paris, 1645; Eve.c.27), which included the notes of J.P. Bellorius. Evelyn may have acquired a second copy, as the Bodleian Benefactors’ Register also records his donation of this item (Arch. Antiq. B I.1; see Diary III.385, n. 2). 12 Bodleian Library 13 Thomas Barlow (1608/9–91; ODNB). Having taken his MA in 1633, Barlow lectured in metaphysics and was keeper of the Bodleian between 1652 and 1660, and provost of Queen’s College (1658–77). He was also successively Lady Margaret professor of divinity, prebendary of Worcester (1660) and bishop of Lincoln (1675). Pett subsequently edited The Genuine Remains of ... Dr. T. Barlow (London, 1693). Barlow addressed to Evelyn A Letter concerning invocation of saints and adoration of the Cross (1679; in the 1687 library catalogue). See Letter 307.

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his singular humanity, that he will accept them – τὰ μὴ καλὰ πέφανται14 for so Theocritus Quæ minimè sunt pulchra ea pulchra videntur amanti,15 to which it is I also perswade my selfe, that I am most obliged for all the favours conferred by you upon, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 21 February 1655.

George Evelyn Letter 85 [82] March 1, 1656* f 65v

Epistle LXXXII To my Brother George Evelyn.

My deare Brother: your most civill letter I received with so much affection that it was not in my power to render my selfe so unhappy as not to waite on you, and my dearest Lady,1 if by giving you so great a trouble I could any way be servicable to you: It is very certaine, that I did fixedly resolve not to stirr from my poore Villa this sommer, especialy towards Wotton, where I had bin a bold guest upon prescription, and indeede beyond the limite of a faire moderation, however your hospitality runs as freely there as your delicious waters; but if you thinke my Wife may be any diversion to my Lady in the condition wherein she is,2 I shall willingly lay aside all ressolutions which may prejudice the Servic and your commands which we owe you; and in particular that of my Wifes to my Lady; because it is a debt, and an honour to be courted, an employment of all other the most agreable. I would once more beg your pardon for delivering this enclosed, if there were not something of reccompence in that by it you shall oblige a fayre lady; for whose civil reception at your house, I am most ready to returne you all accknowledgments, who am My deare Brother Your etc. Says-Court: 1 March 1655.

14 i.e., “τὰ μὴ καλὰ καλὰ πέφανται” “the foul ... is fair i’ the eyes of love” Theocritus, Id. 6.19 (Edmonds trans) 15 “The things which are the least beautiful, these seem beautiful to a lover.” Adapted from Hesse’s Latin translation in, e.g., Theocriti Syracusani Eidyllia trigintasex, Latino carmine reddita, Helio Eobano Hesso interprete (Basle, 1531), d3. 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn 2 After the birth of her son, John (baptized 23 September 1653), all of Mary Cotton Evelyn’s children died in infancy. She gave birth to a son at the end of July who was buried on 12 November (Diary III.154, n. 4).

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Elizabeth Puckering1 Letter 86 [83] March 12, 1656* ff 65v–6

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Epistle LXXXIII To my Lady Newton.

I am sorry your Ladyship should be before hand with me, however I could not be displeasd at the contents, because I find my Selfe to hold still the same place in your gracious thoughts, which dos justifie my firme assuranc of your goodnesse: You will find by this expresse that I was never indeede at Charleton2 sinc your Ladyship deserted it, and you cannot but believe it proceedes from my resentment of your absenc, and that Charleton (be the place never so noble) is no Charleton to me, without my Lady Newton: realy this Solitude Madam dos not become it; and yet I am resolv’d once to give it a visite for your sake; who knowes but I may encounter your Ladyships fayre Genius in the Grove, or in the Garden, whose ornament and Intelligence you once were, and where at least your faire thoughts may walke one turne with mee; but ’til then I cannot render you so punctual an account of the face of things, onely I know nothing lives in that place till your Ladyship returnes arrive for never will Spring visite those pleasant parterrs, never will those trees blossome more till your returne

Returne then Madame to those bowres Where you so sweetly passe the howres And hang the Hammaque up againe Where we have once together layne For though Sir Harry Sleepes a Sundays Tis for his friends to swing on Mondays etc. –

But in earnest Madam, I am quite out of the Veyne; nor dos the Præfect of your Paradyse there (I meane my owne Selfe, upon whom you have so bountifully conferred that honour) taken any the least joy, when to the sadnesse of the tymes, and the paucity of friends, so nob[l]e a Lady, so indulgent and excellent a Neighbour hath forsaken us: But thus it must be, and Madam, it requires a greate deale of Philosophy to support it; however deare dearest Madame, I will hope that Warwick3 (for all Sir Guy)4 may be but your 1 Elizabeth Puckering, née Murray (d. 1689; ODNB). The daughter of Thomas Murray, provost of Eton, she married Sir Henry Newton (1618–1701; ODNB) who assumed the name of Puckering in 1654. Evelyn first met her in 1653 and continued to correspond with her after her move with her husband to Warwick. 2 Charlton House was the home of Sir Henry Newton in Kent. Since she was still resident at Charlton in April 1655 (see Add 78316: f 82 [3.4.1655]), this letter almost certainly dates from 1656. 3 In August 1664 (Diary III.377), Evelyn records Sir Henry as having sold Charlton and decided to live at Warwick Priory, a house built from the Augustinian priory there in 1546. It was subsequently the house of Henry Wise and was demolished and moved to Richmond, Virginia, in 1926. 4 This is a reference to the hero of the popular romance Guy of Warwick, the medieval hero whose relics Evelyn records seeing at Warwick (Diary III.120–1).

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Tabernacle, which you will take downe, when the Cookow comes, and the Nightingale invites you to Charleton; else, what doe I heere? all my Encouragements vanish, and you become cruel, too cruel, Deare Madam to Your etc. Says-Court: 12 March 1655.

Mary Tuke, née Papillon 1 Letter 87 [84] March 16, 1656* f 66

Epistle LXXXIV To Mrs. Fountaine.

If God had given me health, I had made those addresses in person, as well to accknowledg your late charity to me, as indeede (more expressely) your kindnesse to that Gentleman2 my Wifes kinds-man, whom you so hapily encounter’d at my house. I will not assemble many particulars to justifie the Character I have heretofore given of him, because, as a kind of prostitution, immoderate prayses have some tymes rendred things suspected, which yet did possesse in themselves a very real and intrinsique vallue. But I dare avowe it, that for the favour he pretends, no man living shall entertaine it with greater resentements of obligation; nor pay it back againe with more Zeale, affection and assiduous services. What concernes other externals, consider his yeares proportionate, his birth honourable, and his fortune no ways despicable, which yet (most of them) are things altogether without the Subject, and indeede composing the least part of that for which I so reccommend him: because I know him to be one that feares God, who has endow’d him with so excellent an understanding and a Spirit so industrious; that were he owner of nothing save those perfections onely, they might together with your affection, sufficiently qualifie him, and silenc the malic of his most unjust, and insolent reprochers. Deare Mrs. Fountaine you may believe (and I beseech you doe me that honour) that if there were the least of that in my Cousen, which I did but suspect might make you repent, and unhapy in a neerer Relation; I my selfe would be the first should ruine his hopes, and cancell the favours you have already shewed him; But as I have never discoverd other, then that his flame is very pure and his love to you very sincere, and his designes greately tending to your future tranquility and mutual endearement, by ressolutions of making Religion, and the sweete conduct of his Family the sole object of his designes: So I cannot but put 1 Mary Tuke, née Papillon (1614–62; Diary). She first married Peter Fountaine and then George Tuke, on 5 July 1656 (Diary III.181, n. 6). Evelyn was a trustee for her daughter by her first marriage (Diary III.508). 2 George Tuke (d. c.1666; Diary). The elder brother of Sir Samuel Tuke, he was a distant cousin of Eve­ lyn’s wife through her great-uncle. He lived at Cressing Temple in Essex. In 1657 he proposed to hire Baynards, the house of Evelyn’s brother, Richard, and in the same year became the godfather of Evelyn’s son, George, who died in infancy.

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in my symbol, and contribute all that I may towards the accomplishment of a hapinesse so much to be desired by you both: But I will add no more, least either you thinke I am dressing of a snare, whilst I am onely contriving your safty; or that your confidenc in my Councell should betray you into a misfortune; Therefore, as I greately approve of your prudenc and caution hithertoo; so let it be my suite (for the respect which I beare you both) that being satisfied that what I affirme is with greater partiality to your owne Interest, and your Sex in particular, you will shorten your ressolutions, cure his languishings, owne his Services, and consummate the felicity which I realy augure you, who am. Deare Mrs. Fountaine Your etc. Says-Court: 16: March 1655.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 88 [85] March 18, 1655#1 ff 66v–7

Epistle LXXXV To Dr. Taylor.

Reverend Sir, It was another extraordinary Charity which you did me, when you lately relieved my apprehensions of your danger, by that which I just now received: and though the general persecution reinforce; yet it is your particular which most concernes me in this sad catalysis and declension of Piety to which we are reduced. But Sir, what is now to be don that the Starrs2 of our (once bright) hemispheare are every where pulling from their orbs? I remember where you have sayd it was the Harbinger of the greate day; and a very sober, and most learned person, my worthy friend, the greate Oughtred, did the other day seriously perswade me parare in occursum,3 and will needes have the following yeares 1 Bray dates this as 1655 but notes it is wrongly dated because Cromwell’s measures against episcopacy were not enacted until later in the year (Diary [1887], III.66). See de Beer, “Jeremy Taylor in 1655,” 24, where he dates the letter as mid-December. See also Letter 73 with reference to Taylor’s problems with the authorities. Evelyn refers to the day prior to the promulgation of these measures (30 December 1655) as “the mournfullest day that in my life I had seene, or the Church of Eng: her selfe, since the Reformation” (Diary III.164). 2 This may be a reference to the bishops. In An Apology Against a Pamphlet call’d A Modest Confutation, Milton writes (against Bishop Hall and his supporters): “And so I leave you and your fellow starres, as you terme them, of either horizon.” Milton, Complete Prose Works, I, 935. 3 “To prepare myself for the meeting.” Evelyn records a visit to Wotton by Oughtred the previous summer (28 August 1655), noting “He had strong apprehensions of some extraordinary event to happen the following yeare from the Calculation of coincidence with the Diluvian period; & added that it might possibly be to convert the Jewes by our Saviours visible appearance or to judge the world, & therefore his word was parate in occursum” (Diary III.158).

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productive of wonderfull, and universal changes. What to say of that I know not; but certaine it is, we are brought to a sad condition. I speake concerning the Secular, yet religious persons; whose glory it will onely be, to lye buried in your ruines, a Monument too illustrious for such as I am. and yet an eternal epitaph. For my part I have learned from your excellent assistances, to humble my selfe, and to adore the inscrutable pathes of the most high: God and his Truth are still the same though the foundations of the World be shaken: Julianus redivivus4 can shut the schooles indeede and the Temples; but he cannot hinder our privat intercourses and devotions where the Breast is the Chapell, and our Heart is the Altar etc. Obedienc founded in the understanding will be the onely cure, and retraite. God will accept what remaines, and supply what is necessary. He is not obliged to externals, the Purest ages passed under the cruelest persecutions; it is sometymes necessary, and the fulfilling of Prophecy, and are all instruments of greate advantage, even whilst they presse and are incumbent, to those who can make a sanctified use of them. But as the thoughts of many Hearts will be discovered, and multitudes scandaliz’d; so are there divers well disposed persons who will not tell how to guide themselves, unlesse some such good men, as you, discover the seacret, and instruct them how they may secure their greatest interest, and steere their Course in this darke and uncomfortable weather. Some such discourse would be highly Seasonable now that the daily Sacrifice is ceasing, and that all the excercise of your Functions is made criminal, that the light of Israel is quenched: Where shall we now receive the Viaticum with safety? how shall we be Baptis’d? For to this passe it is come Sir. The comfort is, The Captivity had no Temple, no Altar, no King. But did they not observe the Passover, nor Circumcise, had they no Priests and prophets amongst them?5 Many are weake in the Faith, and know not how to answer, nor whither to fly: And if upon the Apotheosis of that excellent Person,6 under a malicious reppresentation of his Martyrdome, engraven in Copper,7 and sent to me by a friend from Bruxelles, the Jesuite could so bitterly sarcasme upon the embleme

Proiicis inventum caput Anglia Ecclesia? Cæsum Si caput est, salvum corpus an esse potest?8

How think you will they now insult, ravage, and breake in upon the Flock; for the shepheards are smitten, and the Sheepe must of necessity be scattered, unlesse the greate shepheard of soules oppose; or some of his Delegats, reduce and direct us. Deare Sir, we are now preparing to take our last farewell, as they threaten, of Gods servic in this Citty, or

4 5 6 7 8

a comparison of Cromwell to the emperor Julian the Apostate See Letter 41. Charles I engraving by Peeter Huybrechts (British Museum 1895, 1214.117). See Plate 10. “Do you throw away the head you have contrived, Church of England? If the head has fallen, can the body be saved?” This is the text which accompanies this print. In Taylor’s response (Diary [1887], III, 69–71), he notes “I remember, that when the Jesuits, sneering and deriding our calamity, showed this sarcasm to my Lord Lucas, [Sir John] Berkenhead, being present, replied as tartly, ‘It is true our Church wants a head now; but if you have charity as you pretend, you can lend us one, for your Church has had two or three at a time’” (70).

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any where else in publique. I must confesse it is a sad consideration; but it is what God sees best, and to what we must submitt. The comfort is Deus providebit.9 Sir, I have not yet bin so hapy as to see those papers10 which Mr. Royston11 tells me are printing, but I greately rejoyce that you have so happily fortified that batterie, and I doubt not but you will maintaine the seige; for you must not be discouraged for the passions of a few. Reason is reason to me where ever I find it, much more where it conduces to a designe so salutary and necesary. At least, I wonder that those who are not convinced by your Arguments, can possibly resist your charity, and your modesty; but as you have greately subdued my education in that particular, and Controversy; so am I confident tyme will render you many more Proselytes: And if all doe not come so freely in with their suffrages at first, you must with your accostomed patienc attend the event. Sir, I beseech God to conduct all your labours, those of Religion to others, and of Love and affection to me who remayne Sir Your etc. London 18 March 1655.

9 “God will provide.” Genesis 22:8 10 either Golden Grove or Unum Necessarium (Eve.a.55), both published in 1655 11 Richard Royston (1601–86; ODNB, I). A freeman of the Stationers’ Company from 1627, Royston was a Royalist who arranged to print the first edition of Eikon basilike and published works by Jeremy Taylor and Peter Heylyn during the Interregnum. He became master of the Stationers’ Company in 1673–4. He was also one of Evelyn’s publishers.

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 10 © Trustees of the British Museum

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Benjamin Maddox1 Letter 89 [86] January 17, 1657*2 f 67r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle LXXXVI To Mr. Maddox

Sir, I am very well pleased to find the esteeme I had allways for the place where you now so deliciously enjoy your selfe,3 so highly justified by the approbation and election of it for your sweete recesse: though I am inclyned to assent with you, that it is none of the most proper Schooles of Architecture; because I have not there observed many publique buildings, to which the frequent recourses, after your Lectures, may be no lesse profitable then your Rules and your Diagramms.4 But the speculative knowledg (if I may so call it) of that Tongue5 (which you will find a wonderfull guide, et Hegemonæ Deæ instar6 not onely into that Art: but many others) you may there attaine to so considerable advantag under a Skillfull Master, as that your Conversation in Italy it selfe, can add little too it: And in order to which (sinc you are pleased to command it) I will adventure to give you my opinion concerning the Authors I should think might best conduce to your designe. You know the Poets more difficult then those who wrote in oratione solutâ,7 and that he who has well conquered Plautus is not easily gravilld with a Latine Author; what may be affirmed of Plautus, or Terenc, will truely be verified in Guarini’s Pastor Fido, and some pieces of Marini which (if my Skill deceive me not) currantly understood, will render all other Italian Writers familiar and easy to you. With him may be joyned some pieces of Cavallero Marini (who composed most of his poems in France) as well as Petracha; 1 Sir Benjamin Maddox (1638–1716; Diary). The son of Benjamin of Boughton Monchelsea, Kent, and grandson of Lady Jane Garrard (1593–1673; Diary) of Lamer, Hertfordshire, Maddox went to Wadham College, Oxford, in 1654. He married Dorothy Glasscock in 1664 and lived at Wormley, Hertfordshire. He was created baronet of Boughton in 1676. He was a wealthy landowner in London. 2 The dating of Evelyn’s letters to Maddox (Letters 89, 97, 101, 111, 129, 140) is very confused, as is Evelyn’s dating of the letters from Maddox. Maddox had written Evelyn on “December the 21.th sty: no:” (i.e., 11 December Old Style) from Tours (Add 78316: f 122 [21.12.n.d.]) in response to an earlier letter. He describes both his architectural studies and his study of Italian. If both this letter and his earlier letter from Bordeaux of 4 September (Add 78316: f 115 [4.9.n.d.]), in which he announces his intention to winter in Tours are dated 1656, then a date of 17 January 1657 for Evelyn’s letter seems probable, and the letter has been misplaced. Maddox remained in France until 1658 (Diary III.222; Add 78316: f 156 [6.7.1658]), and is also mentioned by Sir Richard Browne (Add 34702: f 159 [23.7.1658] and f 166 [2.11.1658]). He was joined in France by Jasper Needham, whom he had known at Wadham College and who acted as his tutor. 3 i.e., Tours 4 Evelyn’s own interests in architecture were well established, though his translation of Fréart de Chambray’s A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern was not published until 1664. 5 French 6 “like the goddess Hegemone,” according to Pausanias, Description of Greece, 9.35.2, one of the graces worshipped by the Athenians, and associated with growth 7 loosened language, i.e., prose

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unlesse the noble Tasso, or the more difficult Ariosto and Dantes (who abounds in archaisms) prove more agreable to you: But I conceive fewer will do your buisiness, and for Prose (without more difficulty) I should reccommend to your choyce Catarina D’Avila;8 not onely because his Languag is very pure and perspicuous, but the Subject likewise which he treates on accommodat[ion] to the Country where you are, and will also instruct you in divers particulars worthy your observation; being certainely one of the noblest and best composed Histories that these moderne Tymes, and partial Ages have produced. I might with those assemble many more, but I consider you are still upon the wing, and that your studies are to be proportion’d to your stay, which arctiore gyro,9 include your course, and rather advise you compendia potius itinerum, quam amœna sectari.10 And this is Sir, what I would say concerning your choyce of Authors; if perhaps I have not already too farr usurped upon the provinc of your more skillfull Præceptor, who is, doubtlesse, best instructed to direct you herein: at least, I would not willingly be of their number whom the Orator thus worthily reproches out of Ennius, Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam.11 For your Voyage into Italy, I shall industriously mediate with my Lady12 upon the first opportunity; though, realy, I doe not conceive all the addition which that Country can contribute to your Education to be Tanti,13 as that you should adventure your health, and the imminent dangers which of necessitie you must encounter, in a place, which hath bin, and yet is, so epidemicaly visited; and especialy, sinc you will be constrained to make use of Inns, and such like Publique Places of accommodation, as are ever most infected, and in the helthiest of tymes obnoxious to Suspicion. Is there any thing, after you have travaild Franc, and learned the Italian, which you may not either reade out of bookes, or see in Prints, and gather by Conversation; and that with infinite more advantage, the hazards of that journey compared, whereoff the Pestilenc now raging is but one ingredient? At least Sir, be assur’d of that e’re you so much as thinke of stirring; And possibly then, when you shall have seriously ponderd every circumstanc, you may looke neerer home with as greate Satisfaction, as (sure I am) you may with much greater accomplishments, then Those who have wandered farther, to be lesse polish’d but more Vaine: But how ever

8 Evelyn’s suggestion of Enrico Caterino Davila, Historia delle Guerre civili di Francia (Paris, 1644; no 5 in the list of “Libri Historici” in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 446; Evelyn Library 447 is London, 1678, English translation, a presentation copy to John Jr “Ex dono Rich:di Bentley”) suggests that most of Maddox’s travel would be in France, where the Fronde had ended less than two years earlier. 9 “on a narrower circuit,” Grotius; see note 10. 10 “to follow shortcuts rather than pleasant paths.” Hugo Grotius, Letter XVI to Aubéry du Maurier (12 May 1615) in Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650; in the 1687 library catalogue), 40. See Reeves, “Grotius on the Training of an Ambassador,” 622. 11 “Directing others how to go, and yet / What road to take they do not know themselves.” Ennius as quoted in Cicero, De Divinatione 1.58.132 (Falconer, trans) 12 Jane Garrard 13 so much

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yet you shall determine concerning this affaire, you shall continualy be accompanied with my best Advises, and the sedulous wishes, for your prosperity, of deare Sir, Your etc.

Says-Court. 17/27 January: 56/57

Richard Browne Letter 90 [87] March 4, 1656 f 67v

Epistle LXXXVII To Sir Richard Browne.

Sir, This noble Person who dos me this honour, and gives me an opportunity to informe you of his Character, will also be a greate no lesse oblige you when you shall understand it is Mr. Robert Paston sonn to Sir William,1 whose Curiosity, or affaires, or both, inviting him to Paris, makes him also ambitious of being knowne to you, and has in order to that required this addresse. I shall not neede to add any thing that can advanc his esteeme with you, after I have named the Person, because when a little conversation with him shall instruct you in his excellencies, and how much he transcends other Gentlemen (who usualy make themselves knowne to you) your ordinary civilitie to all persons in general will render you most ambitious to serve this Gentleman in particular, and be assistant to him in whatsoever may oblige him; since in so doing, you will have made acquist of a Friend worthy your cherishing and extreamely oblige Sir Your etc. Says-Court 4: March 1656.

1 Sir Robert Paston, 1st earl of Yarmouth (1631–83; ODNB, H). Although he held local office during the Interregnum, he spent much of the late 1650s travelling abroad (see Add 15948: f 62 [30.3.1656]). On his return at the Restoration he was knighted and elected MP (1661–73). He was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1667. He became second baronet (1663) and was created Viscount Yarmouth (1673) and earl of Yarmouth (1679). He was on social terms with Evelyn and was a friend of Thomas Henshaw.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Rand1 Letter 91 [88] March 4, 1657*2 f 68

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Epistle LXXXVIII To Doctor Rand.

Had I not a faire Apologie for my silenc (as neither knowing, nor indeede receiving the honour you have don me, in your excellent traduction of Peireskius,3 ’til this very Evening) [RM: which he dedicated to me] you might justly reprôch me of extreame ingratitude, to which of all other vices, I am naturaly most averse; and would thereby at least emulate, what I find to be so conspicuous in you, who have bin pleased to beare in mind such smale, and cursory Civilities as were payed you so long sinc at Wotton, that the bare remembrance of them onely, makes me blush to have forgotten what you mention; or that from an obligation so trivial, I should receive so greate a reccompence: I have Sir, received with a greate deale of honour both your Letter, and the Noncupation, which is sufficient to attract the envy of all men; and but that I am best acquainted with my owne imperfections, there were art and eloquenc in it sufficient to render me criminal, as there is realy danger in receiving such elogies from a person of your learning and parts. I can onely wish that the choyce of your dedication had seconded your judgment in your election of this curious Piece, which would better have become some of a more universal Intellect, or Illustrious Mecænas, then a person so infinitely unresembling the Character which you are pleased to give me; and so uncapable of making you a competent ­recognition. 1 William Rand (c.1617–63; Diary). He entered St Catherine’s College, Cambridge, in 1633, graduating BA in 1637 and MA in 1640. He was also in Leiden in 1652 where he became an MD. He was a member of the Philosophical Society that preceded the Royal Society (Add 78316: f 136 [10.5.1667]). Rand’s translation of Gassendi’s life of Peiresc (The mirrour of true nobility [London, 1657]) was dedicated to Evelyn (see Add 78316: f 130–1 [3.13.1657]), in the wake of the publication of Evelyn’s translation of the first book of Lucretius’s De rerum natura (1656). In the dedication, Rand says that he was distantly related to Evelyn (Diary II.14 n. 3) and this may account for Evelyn’s reference to his having been at Wotton. See Keynes, Bibliography, 7–8. For the larger context of Rand’s dedication, see Hunter, “John Evelyn in the 1650s,” in his Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy. 2 This letter is misdated by a year. Rand’s translation was printed in 1657; Evelyn records the news of the dedication on 5 March 1657 (Diary III.189), and received a letter of 12 February from Rand (Add 78316: f 126 [12.2.1657]). 3 Pierre Gassendi, The mirrour of true nobility & gentility. Being the life of the renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius Lord of Peiresk, Senator of the Parliament at Aix (London, 1657).Evelyn emerges for Rand as the most appropriate candidate “to whom I might pertinently dedicate the same, being apparelled a la mode d’Angleterre” (A3v). No man, he suggests, “is more fit to recommend him to the acquaintance of our English Gentry” (A4). “The compleately-knowing man,” he suggests, “must be Janus-like, double-fac’d, to take cognizance of Time past, and to understand the world from its cradle … as well as of the late-past, or present times wherein he lives” (A4). He goes on to put Evelyn forward as the most appropriate candidate to rectify the faults of the English gentry which “that most noble, ingenious, and pious gentleman George Herbert … recorded in his Church-porch … where … he thus schooles and chides our English Gentry” (A4v).

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Sir, the honour you have don me, et quo me indignum sentio (to use the words of Scaliger to Charles Labbaeus upon a like instanc)4 facit ut illud decus cum pudore detrectem, et tamen nihilominus obstrictus tibi sim. All I can say in your justification is, that you have found out the ready way to magnifie your Selfe; sinc the perfections you are pleased to attribute to your Servant, are indeede due onely to you, it being impossible to describe the virtues of others, without being superlatively virtuous our selves: I should now Sir, extoll your greate paines, and your excellent Skill, having to my best judgment (so far as tyme has given me leave to peruse it) in interpreting a life so variegated with particulars; and yet so universal, with the greatest faith and elegancy imaginable; but this paper being too narrow to containe your owne merits, and my accknowledgments together, I do expressly reserve it, till I come to kisse your hands in Person, and to testifie the my resentiments of the honour you have conferred on me, being extreamely passionate to cherish the good fortune (though not in the least owning the merite of it) which courts me with my greatest inclynation, which is to make acquisition of Persons of your Genius, Curiosity, and Learning, by all which you have so signaly obliged Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 4: March 16565.

Thomas Barlow Letter 92 [89] April 17, 1656 f 68r–v

Epistle LXXXIX To Mr. Barlow.

[RM: Bibliothecarius of the Bodlean Liberary at Oxford: afterward Bishop of Lincoln:] I am very sensible of the honour you have don me in accepting that trifle1 which I sent you: Truely I speake it πρὸς [illegible] to my greate shame, that the poore collection which I have produced no better a present; and I exceedingly magnifie both your humanity, and your modesty, that can take notic of so weake a recognition of the favours I received from you at Oxford. I returne you now a more acceptable present, and that is my excellent neighbour Mr. Pett,2 whom I could willingly longer have enjoyed; but your 4 “by which I consider myself unworthy ... brings it about that I would decline that honour with modesty, and that I would, however, be obligated to you no less.” Letter CCCXXVIII to Carolus Labbeus, Epistolæ, 641. Scaliger’s letters to Labbeus are in Epistolæ omnes quae reperiri potuerunt, nunc primum collectæ ac editæ, etc. (Leiden, 1627; Eve.a.41), 627–91. 5 i.e., 1657. Rand’s dedication was dated 30 January 1656. 1 probably some of the prints alluded to in Letter 84. See also Letter 135. 2 Peter Pett

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conversations attract him in person, as it hath long don the admiration of all that know your great worth and civilities, and amongst them, none more then Sir, Your etc.

Says-Court: 17: April 1656.

Mr. N. N. Letter 93 [90] April 25, 1656 ff 68v–9

Epistle XC To Mr. N. N.1

I am sorry that your memory should serve you so ill, as to missrepresent me before your good Mother in Law, to the dissadvantage of so deserving a Gentleman, as my Cousen T.2 I do not question but you have e’re this perused what I have written to your Mother in vindication both of him and my selfe, and therefore I shall the lesse importune you now; this comming onely to let you know that there was a great deale of more treachery in your management of our discourse, then I imagined you had bin capable off. For when I told you I knew nothing of it, it was (as needes you must accknowledg) in reply to those hollow thankes which you returned me for furnishing Mrs. F.3 with so excellent a Husband: of which indeede I told you that I knew nothing, as not believing it was yet amounted to a Relation so neere; and if you applyd it to any other dissowning my Cousin, you were as fouly mistaken, as in my saying, that for ought I knew He might not be – which words (I protest) I never uttered; nor did I thinke it fit to gratifie your malicious curiosity, which (by this) I perceive serves you sometymes to very ill purposes. But if Mr. W.4 had pleased to answer my request in the pretended by him, but by me much desired, visite, at his returne, I should have renderd him all just Satisfaction, and have shew’d him farther, how necessary I thinke it is, that your Mother were so well re-married; sinc there is so little respect given to her by those who have bin the most obliged, and least deserve it from her. Upon these considerations Sir, and especialy finding my Brother Evelyn5 brought also upon the Theater,6 as conspirers against my Cousen (though how handsomely his owne letter will best interpret) I shall the lesse passe for the offenc I have received; sinc I find it is so natural a thing in you to enlarge, and make buisinesse to no purpose. This I was willing to signifie, that for the future you may becom lesse liberal of talke; I do onely now 1 probably Peter Fountaine, son of Mary Papillon Tuke by her first marriage (see Letter 87). His mother-inlaw is unidentifiable. 2 George Tuke 3 Mrs. Fountaine, i.e., Mary Papillon Tuke 4 possibly Christopher Wase, who was related to Tuke 5 George Evelyn 6 into the issue

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repeate it againe, what I told you on Sonday, That in case your Mother had esteemed me worthy to nominate the Person, it had not bin in my power to doe Mrs. Fountaine a more considerable Servic, and marke of my vallue for her, then by improving my Cousens Interest with her, which I now professe to do without the least base ingredient, designe, or other affection, then that of rendring them both mutualy happy: And if you have any apprehensions that the successe may prove prejudicial to you, I would counsell you not to exasperat your Friends who discerne your cunning, and despise your weakenesse. The best way to secure your Mother from changing her condition (sinc you will needs usurp the droict of bestowing a Widdow, which the Law, and the Booke tell us is sui juris in this case) had bin to beare that reverenc to her, which she deserves; and when she has chang’d it. That may recover both her, and those whom you have not much obliged, and amongst the Croude, Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 25: April 1656.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 94 [91] April 27, 1656 f 69

Epistle XCI To Dr. Taylor.1

[RM: Since Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland] Nothing but an affaire very greate,2 and of consequenc could stay me thus long from rendering you a personal accknowledgment for your late kind visite:3 and I trouble you with this because I feare, I shall not be able to performe that, til the later end of the Weeke, but I shall, after this affaire buisinesse is over (which concernes an accoumpt with a kindsman of mine)4 importune you with frequent visits, and, I hope, prevaile with you that I may have the honour to see you againe at my poore Villa, when my respects are lesse diverted, and that I may treate you without ceremonie or constraint: For it were fitting you did see how I live when I am by my selfe, who cannot but pronounce me guilty of many vanities, deprehending me (as you did) at a tyme when I was to gratifie so many curious persons, to whom I had bin greately obliged, and for whom I have much vallue. I suppose you thinke me very happy in these outward things: Realy, I take so little satisfaction in them, that the censure of singularity would no way affright me from embracing an Hermitage, if I found that they did in the least distract my thoughts from better things; 1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Taylor of 16 April (Harvard Ms Eng 1019; Diary [1887], III, 71–2; see Beal, Index, Taylor 13). 2 possibly a reference to Evelyn’s settling his business with William Prettyman on 28 April (Diary III.170) 3 Taylor dined with Evelyn on 11 April (Diary III.169–70). 4 probably a reference to George Tuke’s impending marriage to Mary Papillon

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or that I did not take more pleasure and incomparable felicity in that intercourse which it pleases God to permitt me, in vouchsafing so unworthy a Person to prostrate himselfe before him, and contemplate his goodnesse.These are indeed gay things, and men esteeme me hapy. Ego autem peccatorum sordibus inquinatus, diebus ac noctibus opperior cum timore reddere novissimum quadrantem:5 whilst that accoumpt is in suspence, who can truely enjoy anything in this life sine verme? Omnia enim tuta timeo:6 My condition is too well; and I do as often wonder at it, as suspect and feare it, and yet I thinke I am not to do any rash or indiscreete thing action, to make the world take notic of my Singularity; though I do with all my heart, wish for more Solitude, who was ever most averse from being neere a greate Citty; design’d against it, and yet it was my fortune to pitch here, more out of necessity, and for the benefit of others then choyce; or the least inclynation of my owne. But Sir, I will trouble you no farther with those trifles though (as to my Confessor) I speake them. There are yet more behind. My Essay upon Lucretius (which I told you was engaged) is now printing, and (as I understand) neere finished;7 My Animadversons upon it will I hope provide against all the ill consequences, and totaly acquit me either of glory or Impiety: The Captive Woman was in the old Law to have her head shaven, and her excrescencies pared off before she was brought as a bride to the bed of her Lord:8 I hope I have so don with this Author, as far as I have penetrated; and for the rest I shall proceede with caution, and take your counsell. But Sir, I detaine you too long, though with promises to render you a better account hereafter, both of my tyme and my studies; when I shall have begged of you to impose some taske upon me that may be usefull to the greate designe of Virtue, and a holy Life, who am, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 27: April 1656.

5 “I, defiled by all the stains of sin, wait day and night with trembling the command to pay the last farthing.” Jerome, Epistulae 4 (Mierow, trans) 6 sine verme: without worm; Omnia enim ...: “I am fearful even when all is safety.” Jerome, Epistulae 7 (Mierow, trans). Jerome is citing Virgil, Aeneid 4.298 7 On 12 May 1656, Evelyn wrote in his Diary (III.173): “Was published my Essay on Lucretius – with innumerable Errata &c.” Evelyn’s An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656) is referenced on several occasions in his correspondence with Taylor. Taylor’s letter of 16 April (Diary [1887], III.71–2), to which this letter responds, had raised concerns about Lucretius’s un-Christian ideas, and added “I hope you either have by notes, or will by preface, prepare a sufficient antidote” (72). Taylor’s letter of 19 July (Diary, [1887], III.74–5), written from Wales, thanks Evelyn for the book. In his letter of 23 August (Taylor, Whole Works, I, liv–lv), Taylor praises Evelyn’s translation, and wonders “[W]hy you did so grudge your annotations to the publike? I am sure you neede not blush at them, but you may well chide yourself for offering to conceale them” (liv). However, his letter of 15 September (Diary [1887], III.76–8) asks “why you will suffer yourself to be discouraged in the finishing Lucretius” (77), while Evelyn’s response of 18 September (Letter 99) reflects his own disillusion with the project, which he seems to have suspended at this point, although Letter 112 (to William Rand; 9 April 1657) suggests that he continued to imagine that he might return to it. A note at the end of Add 78355, containing part of Evelyn’s translation of Book VI of Lucretius, gives 11 September 1657 as the date of completion for the manuscript. For the larger context of Evelyn’s translation, see Barbour and Norbrook in Hutchinson, Works, I, xxviii–xxxiii. 8 “Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails” (Deuteronomy 21:12).

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Nicholas Crisp Letter 95 [92] May 16, 1656 f 69v

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Epistle XCII To Sir Nicholas Crisp: Knight

Sir I cannot divine upon what account the Alderman should thus delight to baffle me; I should not have sent to him at first, but upon your assignation; nor my selfe troubled him this day, but upon his owne intreaties. If the designe be to put me off; or that it signifies a hard bargaine, I beseech you to send me the Conveyanc which I made you of the Tenement,1 and I shall cherefully resigne your Bond: For you must not believe I was so indiscreete to part with it upon tearmes so little considerable had it not bin in relation to your greater Designe. You know it was not a thing pressed upon you, but offered into your advantage; and my cleare opinion is, that unlesse you errect something, you will never put that affaire betweene us into a capacity of continuing as it is; and if you will build (as pretend you doe) I wonder that you will part with so much excellent timber, and materials to facilitate the worke at so cheape a rate: As for the Alderman I take no cognisanc of what is past betweene you: my Mony was (upon accord and Articles) to have bin payd the 25 of March; which upon your Sonns desiers, I gave day for till 25 April. It is now almost as forward in May, and if it had not extreamely dissappoynted a buisinesse for which I asigned the summ upon halfe a request, I could have forborne it longer: But this illfavor’d accident has forced me to breake my word with the person2 to whom it should have bin payed, which I hope will excuse this my earnest writing, especialy, since I have this morning received a note, that the Alderman requires things to which I am no way obliged. Sir, I hope you will find out som expedient to compase this differenc, and do justic to Sir Your etc. Says Court. 16 May: 1656

1 This letter is another reference to Crisp’s project of building “a Mole or Sasse” for the navy within ­Evelyn’s grounds (Diary III.161). 2 probably William Prettyman

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Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 96 [93] May 19, 1656 ff 69v–70

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Epistle XCIII To Penthea.1

If you had not greately reccompenced my expectations, and feares during a silenc so severe (not to give it the name of cruel) with some expressions which were very considerable at the beginning of your excellent Letter I should onely have waited an opportunity to signifie my resentiments, and how profoundly I have deplored the losse of your sweete society. But you have now rendred me all the Satisfaction which I can demand, and all the reward which I pretend too, by believing that all I have written and all I have professed proceeded from a heart full of sincerity, and that never had designe to make other impressions on it, then to let you see how greate my vallue is for you. Dearest Penthea I admire you for your many perfections, but the most illustrious Amity and generosity, your good humour, and Piety do in my opinion gild all the rest, and render you infinitely deare to me. Your Beauty and your witt are but rewards of the rest, that there might nothing be wanting to make you perfectly amiable: for I have bin often summing up your virtues, a speculation of greate delight to me during the absenc of your Person; And really I thought I could not better preserve your memory, then in contemplating upon those attributes which make you to be honoured (with reason) above others of your Sex, whose Altars are frequented for the gaynesse of the shrine onely, and because young men are condemned to court Vanity and losse of Tyme, in during the intercourses of that dangrous period; because the world is not better furnished with such objects as Penthea. But I presse your modesty no farther, though I thinke my lines dare cary nothing of flattery or servile from me: Deare Penthea I exceedingly congratulat the effect of your Voyage, and your safe arrival; since you tell me, how much it has refreshed my Lady your noble Mother and especialy since she is so tender and indulgent to you, because I cannot but believe (sinc that Country is averse to your health) she will shortly manifest it, in permitting you to returne to the Ayre of your native soyle, and where so many languish and long for your arrival, as the Genious of this gloomy place, and the life soule of your Friends. As for Intelligenc, here is no alteration at all amongst the Gallants, Every one observes your motions, and even the person2 amongst them as whom I my Selfe wish the most happy, preserves himselfe still in a capacity to be so, when that blessed opportunity shall come, of which I have so little reason to dispaire, that I will onely wish for the presence of Pen 1 Penthea is identified as “Viscountesse Mordaunt” in the index (Add 78299: f 165). Each occurrence of the name Penthea is written over the name Electra, and the text on f 69v is cancelled. Evelyn is responding to Add 78309: f 7 (2.4.1656), written from The Hague. 2 John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon (1626–75; ODNB). The second son of John, 1st earl of Peterborough, Mordaunt travelled with Evelyn in Italy and was a staunch Royalist who attempted an insurrection in 1658 for which he was nearly executed. At the Restoration he was appointed governor of Windsor Castle and lord lieutenant of Surrey.

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thea. For so I still call that faire one. In short Melestris3 is building a stately Palac in the Country, and therefore often absent from Lycopolis:4 but he sent word to my Sister,5 that in good earnest, he would never marry without her approbation. Of all the Servants of the rich Hermodes Mithradata, Hermodes, ’tis believed, is most in her graces and some affirme it is concluded. Something too I could discover concerning the beloved Pyrander, and the unfortunat adventure of his letters, which fell into the hands of Clara by accident, and extreamely incensd her, but this I reserve: The Letters of your Aulis domae Calama6 I here inclose, and with that the inviolable respects of Your etc. Says-Court 19 May: 1656.

Benjamin Maddox Letter 97 [94] June 11, 1656 f 70

Epistle XCIV To Mr. Maddox1

Sir, Yours of the eight currant found me at my poore Villa, when I had the hapinesse to enjoy Mr. Needham2 three or fowre days a good portion whereof was employed in conversa orations and discourses of you. It is not communicable in a Letter how much prosperity we did augure you; but you will greately oblige me to believe that the cognizanc of your early virtues, sober and religious accomplishments indeare you as perfectly to me, as to the neearest Relative you have left in England. Sir, I esteeme it a very greate favour, that you will sometymes divert me with this friendly intercourse. I shall extreamely cherish it, and wish I had that in exchang for it, which might contribute any thing to your benefit or Instruction, who by that excellent description of your Travaile, have given such a specimen of your Addresses and discretion; as makes me even blush to consider how much I lost my tyme abroad, and of how smale importanc anything which I can add would be to your improvement. Sir, I do infinitely admire, and encourage your procedure, and shall

3 This is presumably a pseudonym for John Mordaunt; all the subsequent names are from romances. The allusion to building may be a reference to his fomenting Royalist insurrection in Sussex at this time. 4 literally, “the city of wolves”: London 5 it is not clear who (if anyone) is alluded to here; Evelyn’s sisters had died in 1634 and 1651. 6 pen 1 If Letter 89 is reassigned to 1657, this is the earliest of Evelyn’s letters to Maddox. It solicits the letters which follow, and offers himself as an instructor and guide. Maddox responded from Bordeaux in Add 78316: f 115 (4.9. n.d.). Evelyn endorses enthusiastically Maddox’s decision to travel abroad. 2 Jasper Needham. Needham “newly return’d out of France” (Diary III.175) had visited Evelyn on 6 June.

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(till your curiosity be sated) possesse my selfe in the hopes of seeing you safely returned and restored to all that honour you and in particular Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 11 June: 1656.

Charles Harbord1 Letter 98 [95] September 11, 1656 f 70v

Epistle XCV To Sir Charles Herbord.

Sir, Since the long absenc of the Doctor2 from his ordinary aboad at London has rendred me destitute of the meanes how I may waite on you in Person; the greate desire I have to pursue that imperfect proposal touching a Match betweene the Gentleman your Sonne, and my Kindswoman,3 to some farther period, will (I hope) qualifie the boldnesse of this rude addresse, and contribute something towards its excuse: I should esteeme my Selfe very happy to understand whether I might repaire to kisse your hands, by which meanes (having now received a more particular delegation from my Unkle) we might discourse the buisinesse more seriously, and (if you please) give it some farther encouragement, of which I shall be very ambitious, as well for the hapinesse of my Relations, as for the honour I shall derive to my Selfe, if it shall please God to render me instrumental in making an alyanc betwixt two such worthy Families, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court 11: September 1656

1 Sir Charles Harbord, 2nd baronet (1596–1679; Diary, H). Harbord was educated at the Inns of Court, was surveyor-general from 1631–42, and held various revenue posts at court both before and after the Interregnum. He was reappointed to the surveyorship in 1660 and was elected MP in 1661. Evelyn dealt with him both about the proposed (but unsuccessful) match between his son and Elizabeth Hungerford in 1656 (Diary III.175–6; Add 78316) and (as surveyor general in 1661) about his tenancy of Sayes Court (Diary III.290). 2 probably Jeremy Taylor 3 As surveyor-general of Crown lands, Harbord’s proposed match between his son and Elizabeth Hungerford (the daughter of Mary Evelyn’s uncle, Edward Hungerford) would have been very useful to Evelyn in dealing with the property title to Sayes Court. Harbord’s son, however, did not marry Elizabeth, who married instead George (later Sir George) Moore of Maids Moreton. See Letter 121.

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Jeremy Taylor Letter 99 [96] September 18, 1656 ff 70v–1

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XCVI To Dr. Taylor1

Sir, My hopes that some Accident might have brought Mr. Thurland2 to Towne has bin the sole cause of the slow returne of my many accknowledgments for your excellent toaken, and most civill letter. However I deferred not the dispatching of your Present to him, which I conveyed by the hands of my Brother3 as soone as I had received it. The Tearme is now approching, and I may then assure you of some returne from him, if he have not himselfe already prevented me: In the meane tyme, I have read over your discourse4 to the Countesse Dowager,5 in which I deprehend (besides the invincible assertions of what you there defend) those fragments of Lucretius which you have made English, as to speake your universal skill; so my vast defects, and no pretence at all to the Encomiums you are pleased to confer upon me. I will instanc in that one Desine qua propter6 – than which, what could be better, or more happily rendered? But you seeme to wish that the rest were also translated; and truely Sir, I had attempted it, if some passages towards the end of the fourth Booke, of which I may say as Homer did of Egypt, (and as indeede may be verified of all the rest) φάρμακα πολλὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ μεμιγμένα πολλὰ δὲ λυγρά,7 which I could neither well omitt, nor by any meanes translate, had not long sinc stayed my carriere at the conclusion of the third, which I forbore to put forth with the other; finding the first to pacifie the importunity of my friends to whom, my travells on the rest was never yet communicated: Thus I passed through the greatest Difficulties of this rude Poet, and gave it over where the roade was more smoth, and (save in that bracke) full of incomparable and 1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Taylor of 23 August (Taylor, Whole Works, I, lv–lvi; Robert H. Taylor Collection, Princeton) in which Taylor tells Evelyn that he has instructed Richard Royston to send him copies of Deus justificatus for himself and Edward Thurland, and praises the translation and notes in Evelyn’s edition of Lucretius 2 Edward Thurland, who was attempting to bring Taylor to Reigate (see Letter 102) 3 George Evelyn 4 a letter in defence of his heterodox views on original sin; see Taylor, Deus justificatus. Two discourses of original sin, contained in two letters to persons of honour, (London, 1656); also argued in Unum necessarium. Or, The doctrine and practice of repentance (London, 1655; Eve.a.55). For Taylor’s views on original sin, see Poole, Milton and the Idea of the Fall, 50–5. 5 Christian Cavendish, countess of Devonshire (1595–1675; ODNB). A fervent Royalist and the daughter of Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Bruce of Kinloss, she was by the time Evelyn knew her the widow of William Cavendish (d. 1628), 2nd earl of Devonshire and lived at Roehampton in Surrey. 6 “Forbear then to be dismayed.” Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 2.1040 (Rouse, trans). In reference to Taylor’s praise of Evelyn’s translation and annotations. See Letter 94, note 7. 7 “drugs, many that are healing when mixed, and many that are baneful,” Homer, Odyssey, 4.230 (Murray, trans) This sentence is repeated in a letter of 18 October to Sir Richard Browne (Add 78221: f 66 [18.10.1656]) which discusses the translation. See also Letter 109.

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usefull variety. But Sir, you shew me a more excellent way and have perfectly convinced my follys; though I should never thinke my selfe Worthy to touch those divine chords with my profane and unskillfull fingers: nor indeede, can we complaine for want of them, so long as your Golden-grove8 flourishes, amongst whose branches those Birds of Paradise sit warbling in most heavenly raptures. However I had now haply obeyed you in the Hymne9 which you particularize, could I have found it in any booke of my poore study: But amongst the few offices which are there I could not encounter it, though I remember to have seene it often: This Sir, is all I have to say, who (without more importuning you) desire to remaine Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 18 September 1656

Thomas Triplet1 Letter 100 [97] September 18, 1656# f 71

Epistle XCVII To Mr. Triplet

Sir, That I was so bold to beg the favour of you to correct that trifle2 of myne now at the Presse, my Brother3 has (I hope) ’ere this made my Apologies, through whose encouragement I was made so hardy: The abstrusenesse of the Author, and the few assistances I met 8 “Golden Grove” was Taylor’s residence in the parish of Llanfihangel-Aberbythych in Carmarthenshire in Wales where, after 1645, he lived as chaplain to the 2nd earl of Carbery. 9 Taylor is soliciting a translation of the hymn “Dies Irae,” which he requested Evelyn undertake (Taylor, Whole Works, I, lvi & lvii). 1 Thomas Triplet (1602–70; ODNB, Diary). He graduated MA from Oxford in 1625, and subsequently became a schoolmaster in Dublin and at Hayes in Middlesex after having been deprived of his livings. Triplet had been a member of the circle assembled by Lucius Cary, Viscount Falkland at Great Tew, and edited Cary’s Of the infallibilitie of the Church of Rome (London, 1651). In 1661 he was made DD and in 1662 canon and later sub-dean at Westminster Abbey. Evelyn alleged that Triplet carelessly proofread his edition of Lucretius (Diary III.173), and blamed his abandonment of the project on this disappointment. 2 An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656) (see Plate 11; frontispiece designed by Mary Evelyn and engraved by Hollar). This letter is probably misdated, as Evelyn refers to the book as “now printing, and (as I understand) neere finished” in Letter 94 (27 April) to Jeremy Taylor, and as having been “published” on 12 May (Diary III.173). He was already complaining of Triplet’s “negligence” in his letter of 4 August (I.37) to Christopher Wase, and was being comforted by John Wilkins on 16 August (Diary [1887], III.76). 3 probably Richard Evelyn, as Triplet refers to him in his letter dated 7 August (Diary [1887], III, 75–6). Since Evelyn refers to a visit from Triplet and his brother on 13 March (Diary III.168), both this letter of Triplet’s and Letter 100 are more likely to date from earlier in the year.

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with (it having never bin attempted by any other that I know of  ) will in part mittigat the censure of the world upon my failings, considering withall, the person,4 and the authority which first engaged me on so hazardous an Adventure; and now to publish my imperfections: I am told it is now under the printers mercy, who in my perpetual absenc from London, have so abused me, that unlesse you step in to my reliefe (whose constant residenc is in Towne) I am like to be miserably handled. I therefore by these humbly render my prayers for your charity; that when I shall from your owne hand, understand the effects of this letter, I may accordingly cause the Printer to waite on you at my Lord Ambassadors,5 and the hower you appoynt: by which you will perpetualy continue to oblige, Sir Your etc.

Says Court 18: September 1656.

4 probably Sir Richard Fanshawe, Evelyn’s cousin, whose dedicatory epistle is prefixed to his Lucretius; see Letter 69 5 probably Willem Nieupoort (1607–78), the Dutch ambassador. In 1656, Triplet was resident teacher in the Dutch embassy (see Letter I.36).

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 11 © Trustees of the British Museum

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Benjamin Maddox Letter 101 [98] September 21, 1656 f 71r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle XCVIII To Mr. Maddox1

Sir, I do not pretend to assert that glorious Inscription, by which you would intitle me to a dignity, which very few are worthy of; but if by approving the pleasant Curriculum2 which you have now finished, and intentions of so sollemne a Recesse may seeme to make the least returne for that esteeme which I perceive you have assigned me in your excellent thoughts; It will be too cheape an accknowledgment for the honour; though exceedingly justifie the affection which I have for your prosperity; and be the most likely to induce me to give you the trouble, which you provoke upon your selfe, if at any tyme my Letters and Advises importune you, as you earnestly desire they may. In the interim, I cannot but believe you have received greate contentment from your remarkes in so considerable a Course as you have run, by the period you are arrived to, and from where your kind Letter takes date; Sir, In that you resolve to give Tours the honour of this Winters retraite, you do infinitely justifie your Servant, who of all the goodly Citties of Franc, chose that sweete retirement,3 where I withdrew from the noyse of Paris, and the confusion of greate Townes: France has not (in my opinion) a more delicious or civill place, nor better accommodated so to a studious Genius. There you may have leasure to make acts of reflection upon all your observations; and furnish your selfe with dispositions prævious to your farther improvements. In order whereto it may be you will esteeme some inspection into the rudiments of Architecture,4 and ornament not unworthy your noble spirit; sinc you may with such ease consult the Archetypes themselves; during your other Travailes (which benefit you cannot hope to find in your naked and miserably demolished Country) and those assistances will be a very greate meanes to cultivate it, and render you knowing in a very considerable part of Education, sadly neglected by most of the Gentry of this Nation: Thus Sir, whilst others behold things with a foolish admiration; you will looke on them with judgment, and be capable at your returne to doe your Country honour by your encouragement, and example. Realy it is a greate desiderat amongst us, and the rather; because not considered as one. But I neede not presse this, nor indeede the pursuite of any

1 This letter appears to be dated correctly. It follows Maddox’s letter from Bordeaux of 4 September (i.e., 25 August Old Style) (Add 78316: f 15 [4.9.1656?]) in which he proposed wintering in Tours, and suggests that the “leasure to make acts of reflection upon all your observations” will enable him to acquire the “rudiments of Architecture” before he goes on to “consult the Archetypes themselves.” 2 This refers not to Maddox’s studies at Oxford (completed in 1654) but to his tour in France thus far. 3 Evelyn spent nearly five months in Tours in 1644. 4 This is the material that Evelyn assembled on his own continental tour and was to use in his Parallel of the Antient Architecture (1664).

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other Accomplishment, where there is so excellent a designe for virtue, and sollid perfection as I have ever rejoyced to detect in you. Sir, I cherish it; and it is a particular affection which makes me thus hardy, as to seeme to counsell you, and which I shall continue it so long as any servic of mine may be capable agreable to you from Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 21 September 1656.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 102 [99] October 9, 1656 f 71v

Epistle XCIX To Dr. Taylor1

Reverend Sir, Mr. Thurland2 being impatient that you should thinke him either unmindfull of you by his Silenc, or ungratefull for his Present;3 has desired me to acquaint you that he is carefull of your Interest and will render you a particular account of it in writing at his returne to Rygate by your friend Mr. Bonnick:4 since his employments at London (which allow him so little truce) deprive him of corresponding with you, for whom he has so very greate an esteeme: In fine, he assures me the buisinesse will be effected (he hopes to your satisfaction) but shall not invite you till his assuranc be perfect, which about Easter Tearme he thinkes it may be: Sir Be as confident I shall most industriously seeke to promote your inclynations of being neere us, whose influenc cannot but be of so greate advantag to us: I have not (as yet) lighted upon the Hymne5 you mention; but if you shall be pleased to transmitt a Copy of it to me, I will endeavor to give an account of it: for I desire nothing more than to be employed in doing you servic. The Anabaptists do so swarme in these parts that they are now building publique conventicles, both at London and here. I extreamely dread the consequenc of this prodigious liberty, and Barbarisme; and very much wonder that the Magistrate, who seemes to proceed with so greate caution and polity, dos no way oppose it. I know not if Salmasius Epistles6 were abroad before you departed from

1 in response to a letter of 15 September (Diary [1887], III, 76–8). 2 Edward Thurland. According to Taylor’s letter of 19 July (Diary [1887], 111.74–5), Thurland was attempting to arrange residence for Taylor in Reigate. 3 probably in reference to the copy of Deus justificatus (London, 1656) which Evelyn had had delivered; see Letter 99. 4 probably John Bonwicke (1622–98; V), curate of Reigate and a strongly committed Royalist. See Surrey Archæological Collections, 13 (1858), 112. 5 “Dies Irae” (see Letter 99, note 9) 6 Claude Saumaise, Epistolarum liber primus. Accedunt, de laudibus et vita auctoris prolegomena, accurante A. Clementio (Leiden, 1656; Eve.a.154).

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London; I had hoped to have found them of a later date then I see they are, but we are promisd others from the Publisher. This is all, and there is nothing worth your notic more, though I wish there were, when I subscribe my Selfe Sir Your etc. Says-Court 9: October 1656

George Evelyn Letter 103 [100] December 15, 1656 f 72r–v

Epistle C To my Brother George Evelyn

Deare Brother I am so deepely sensible of the affliction which presses you, that I cannot forbeare to let you understand how greate a share I have in the losse,1 and how reciprocal it is to us. For your part I consider that your Sex, and your knowledg do better fortifie you against the common calamities, and vicisitude of these sublunary things; so that precepts to you, were but impertinencys; though I also find, that the physitian himselfe has some tymes neede of the Physitian; and that to condole, and to counsell those who want nothing to suport them but their owne virtue, is to relieve them of a considerable part of their affliction: But the feare which I have that the tendernesse of so indulgent a Mothers affection (as is that of my deare Lady)2 may insensibly transgresse its bounds, to so huge a prejudice as we should all receive by it: (if her immoderat griefe should continue) makes me choose rather (being absent) to contribute what aydes I can towards its remedy, then, being present, to renew her sorrows by such expressions of resentiment as of course use to fall from friends, but can add little to the cure; because but compliment: Nor do I hereby extenuat her prudence, whose virtue is able to oppose the rudest assaults of fortune; but present my Arguments as an Instanc of my care, not of my diffidenc. I confesse there is cause of sadnesse; but all who are not Stoicks know by experienc, that in these Lugubrous encounters our affections do sometymes outrun our reason. Nature her selfe has assigned places and instruments to the Passions; and it were as well impiety as stupidity, to be totaly ἄσοργος3 and without natural affection: but we must remember withall that we grieve not as persons without hope; least whilst we Sacrifice to our passion, we be found to offend against God, and by indulging an over kind nature, redubble the losse and loose our reccompenc.

1 After the birth in 1653 of John, George’s first son by this marriage, all his subsequent children died. 2 Mary Cotton Evelyn 3 i.e., ἄστοργος: heartless

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Children are such blossomes as every triflings Wind deflowres, and to be dissorder’d at their fall, were to be fond of certaine troubles, but the most uncertaine Comforts; whilst the store of the more mature which God has yet left you, invite both your resignation, and your gratitude: so extraordinary prosperity as you have hithertoo bin encircled with, was indeede to be suspected; nor may he thinke to beare all his Sailes, whose Vessell (like yours) has bin driven by the highest gale of felicity: We give hostages to Fortune, when we bring Children into the World; and how unstable this is we know, and must therefore hazard the adventure: God has sufferd this for your excercise; feele in him there as well your consolation in his rod, as in his staff: Are you offended that it has pleased him to snatch your pretty babes from the infinite contingencies of so perverse an age, in which there is so little temptation to live? at least consider, that your Pledges are but gon a little before you; and that a part of you has taken possession of the Inheritanc which you must one day enter, if ever you will be happy. Brother, when I reflect on the losse as it concernes our Family in general, I could recall my owne,4 and mingle my teares with you (for I have also lost some very deare to me) but when I consider the necessity of submitting to the divine Arests, I am ready to dry them againe, and be silent: There is nothing of us perished, but deposited: And say not that they might have come later to their destiny: Magna est felicitas, cito esse felicem,5 ’tis no smale hapynesse to be hapy quickly. That which may fortune to all, we ought not to accuse for a few; and it is but reason to support that patiently, which cannot be prevented possibly. But I have now don with the Philosopher, and will dismisse you with the Divine. Brother, Be not ignorant concerning them which are asleep,6 that you sorrow not ever as others which have no hope: for if we believe that Jesus died and rose againe; even so them also which sleepe in Jesus, will God bring with him. They are the words of St. Paul, and I can add nothing to them. In the meane tyme Auxilliarys against this enemy cannot render it the more formidable; and though all griefe of this nature have a just rise; yet may it end in a dangerous fall: Our deare Mother7 is a sad instanc of it,8 and I conjure you to use all the art, and all the interest you are able to compose your selfe, and consolate your excellent Lady, which (after I have presented my particular resentiments) is what I would have hereby assisted you in, who am Sir Your etc. Et consolamini alii alios istis Sermonibus9 Says-Court: 15. December 1656.

4 Evelyn’s second child, John Stansfield, had already died. 5 “It is a great happiness to be happy quickly” Grotius, Letter XXVI to B. Aubéry du Maurier (27 February 1621) in Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650; in the 1687 library catalogue), 67–92. See also Grotius, The mourner comforte:d· An epistle consolatory; written by Hugo Grotius to Monsieur du Maurier the French embassadour at the Hague (London, 1652). 6 1 Thessalonians 4:13 7 Eleanor Evelyn (1599–1635), wife of Richard Evelyn (1590–1640) 8 Evelyn says that her death “proceeded from griefe, upon the losse of her daughter” (Diary II.13). 9 “And wherefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:18. Evelyn cites Theodore Beza’s translation of the Greek text.

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Francis Barlow1 Epistle 104 [101] December 23, 1656 ff 72v–3

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CI To Mr. Barlow, a Paynter.

[LM: Dedicating a Plate of Titians Venus engraven to me.] Sir, I had no opportunity by the hand which convey’d it, to returne you my accknowledgments for the Present you lately sent me, and the honour which you have conferred upon me, in no respect meriting either so greate a testimony of your affection, or the glorious Inscription, which might better have become so greate and eminent Mecænas to patronise, then a Person of so incompetent as you have made choyc of.2 If I had bin acquainted with your designe, you should on my advice have nuncupated this handsome monument of your skill and dexterity to some Greate one, whose relation might have bin more considerable, both as to the encouragement, and the honour which you deserve: From me you can onely expect a reinforcment of that vallue and good esteeme which before your merites had justly acquired, and would have perpetuated: of another you had purchased a new friend; nor lesse obliged the old; because lesse exposed him to envy; sinc by this you ascribe so much to me, that those who know me better, will one [sic] the one side, be ready to censure your judgment, and on the other you put me out of all capacity of making you requitall: But sinc your affection has vanquished your reason so much to my advantage, though I wish the election were to make; yet I cannot but be very sensible of the signal honour, and the obligation which you have put upon me. I should now extoll your courag in pursuing so noble an Original3 (executed with so much judgment and art; but I forbeare to provoke your modesty, and shall in the meane tyme, that I can give you personall thankes) reserve your present as an instanc of your greate civility, and a memorial of my no lesse obligation to you, who remaine Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 23: December 1656

1 Francis Barlow (1626?–1704; ODNB). Mentioned in Evelyn’s Sculptura (1662), Barlow first appears on 19 March 1656 (Diary III.166–7) as “the famous Paynter of fowle Beasts and Birds,” introduced to ­Evelyn by John Wilkins. Barlow created a set of illustrations for Aphra Behn’s translation of Aesop’s fables and satirical prints supporting the Whigs during the Popish Plot. See Hodnett, Francis Barlow, 95–6 and Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain, cat. 109. 2 See Plate 12. The etching is dedicated to Evelyn and signed “R. Gaywood fecit aqua forti Londini 1656.” It was etched by Richard Gaywood from Barlow’s drawing. Gaywood had also produced a portrait of E ­ velyn “ad vivum” in 1654 (Plate 13). Barlow accompanied the print with a letter (Diary [1887], III, 81–2. 3 Titian’s Venus with an Organist, now in the Prado, Madrid. The painting had been in Charles I’s collection before it was sold by the Commonwealth to Col. John Hutchinson. From there it passed to the Spanish ambassador. See Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 236–7.

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 12 © Trustees of the British Museum

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 13 © Trustees of the British Museum

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Elizabeth Puckering Letter 105 [102] December 23, 1656 f 73r–v

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Epistle CII To my Lady Newton.

Madame, Of all things in the world I hate Ingratitude For although I am your debtor Yet long since I sent a Letter, That your Ladyship might know What became of halfe the Doe; How we season’d, back’d [baked] and heate it, How we drank your health, and Eate it: How we wish’t Sir Harry1 heare, From his Cell at in Warwick-Shire, Least our Solitude affright, Till the Lady and the knight, Do repent them of the Sin In leaving us, and come agin: For be sure, you n’ere shall rest, But my Rimes shall so infest Your Sacriligious Priorie That to lie more quietly, You at least for halfe the yeare, Compound with your Neighbours here: And allow us six-moneths too, For permitting you to goe. One thing more I must intreate, It is your Ladyships Receipte, For the ––– that Maiherne2 taught you And I once distill’d, and brought you: Nothing dos my Wife more good, For the tingling of the blood;3 Sinc the bottle full you sent her,

1 Henry Puckering 2 Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (1573–1655; ODNB). The reference must be to a medical cordial. 3 Evelyn records Mary Evelyn’s being unwell on 23 December 1656 (Diary III.184). Her problems with circulation continued to trouble her in later life.

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn Wasted now, dos not content her: And besides, I tell you more, She begins to swell before:4 If Sir Harry heare the thing, Hee’l sweare there has bin tampering; But if he find himselfe agreiv’d, And dos thinke he is deceiv’d; Let Sir Harry send back mine, And I’le willingly resigne.5

But it is tyme Madame to quitt Railliary, when your Ladyship is so serious; but you greately mistake the man, when you expect a Homily upon so short a warning, though yor Ladyship has prevented me with the reward. Obedienc, and yet Rebellion? ’tis a Paradox Madam, and you cannot imagine me so prompt as to be able to reconcile them, without I had the spirit, and dexterity of the Person who has so wittily propos’d it; or at least, if I had the vanity to thinke I could discourse upon it. But that which I would say cannot be comitted to paper; but will be reserved to your returne; because it may neede your Pardon: For Sir Harry must not be dissobliged, because Sir John6 courts his Lady; though it were prodigious a Husband should thinke his Wife dissobedient; because the one has inclynations for her owne home, and the other arguments to promote them. The Interpretation of all is, Madam, that I would say any thing, to recover so publique a losse, and merit of my Country; sinc could I be so happy, I should esteeme my Selfe to have as much oblig’d it; as any its grand Representatives. Concerning your other Case of Conscienc, Selfe-denyal, so long as the impatienc of your absenc continues, I am totaly averse from giving precepts; and besides I find that a man who loves Venison (as I do) is not so a subject so apt to treate of Abnegation, as those who never tast of the bounty, and the Civility of my Lady Newton. In this you are onely unjust, that you can thinke my contemplations could at all be disturbed, when his best Genius (your Ladyship) was wont to honour my Recesses; it being then onely, when I have bin most fit to utter her perfections, if the exercise of her selfe-deniall and modesty could have supported the Elogies I have prepared. Retract then my Deare Lady, that severe imputation, and believe that nothing save your Venison, could so easily have reconciled me: But then Madam, you tell me that your absenc dos increase your fondnesse: What shall I add? You are indeede cruell; but withall you are kind; can the same hand Wound, and poure in Balsame? yes, Madam, Yours can both, and for that I kisse it; and should perpetrate any force upon my selfe in obedienc to your commands; but in that of being satisfied for your absenc which yet the frequent honour of your Lady-

4 probably with Evelyn’s fourth son, George, who died in infancy 5 See the text of lines 1–20 of this poem in Add 78357: f 27. 6 probably Sir John Evelyn of Godstone (the diarist’s cousin) who is recorded visiting Evelyn earlier in the year (Diary III.174)

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ships letters can the best extenuat the sense off, together with those expressions of your Constancy, and indulgenc to my many impertinencys, which with this noble present dos extreamely aggravate the obligations of your Rival, and Madame Your etc. Says-Court: 23 December 1656

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 106 [103] January 16, 1657* ff 73v–4

Epistle CIII To the Lady Carye.

Madame, In obedienc to your Commands I here transmitt you the Booke,1 which (Conscious of my owne defects) I should else have detained longer; and the rather, because so much exasperated by the Villany of the Printer in my absenc from London, I find my selfe engaged to proceede upon the remainder, which as they are the more divertissant, so I hope may appeare more adorned, and more worthy your acceptation. In the meane tyme, I began to wonder with my selfe why your Ladyship should desire to reade so abstruse, and rugged a Poet; till I began too considerd the greatenesse of your Soule; and that you alone of all the faire Sex possesse a Spirit capable of the most refined, and abstracted speculations, and whose beauty has not an attracted more Eyes, then your Virtues has the hearts of as many as have the honour to converse with you; amongst which number, sinc I have the good fortune to be one; and one so much obliged, I was ashamed to present you with any production of mine so unworthy. Madam, a thousand accknowledgments for the honour you did me when you lately made our poore Villa shine with your faire selfe and so illustrious a guest: I have nothing to returne for that high Civilitie, but that I am Madame Your etc. Says-Court: 16 January 1656.

1 Evelyn’s An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura, to which the letter refers, had been published in May 1656.

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Edward Thurland Letter 107 [104] January 20, 1656# ff 74–6 [ff 74v–5 blank]

Epistle CIV To Mr. Edward Thurland:1

[RM: Sir Edward Thur – afterwards one of the Barons of the Exchequer and an eminent Lawyer] Sir, I have read your learned Diatriba concerning Prayer,2 and do exceedingly prayse your Method, nor lesse admire your learning and reason, which by so rare an artifice has made notions that are very difficult and abstracted in themselves, so apt, and perspicuous: Besides your Arguments are drawne from the most irresistible and convincing Topicks, and the designe not onely full of Learning, but usefull also to a good life, which is in deede, the right application of it. Sir, I am so much taken with your piece, and thinke it so excellent a Homily against that abounding Ingredient now in the world; that I presume you shall not neede my perswasions to induce you to make it publique; being a thing which may so greately contribute to the cure of that Epidemical madnesse, and the vindication of Gods Glory: Sinc what Trismegistus so long tyme sayd is most true in our age Ἡ μεγάλη νόσος τη˜ς ψυχη˜ς ἡ ἀθεότης3 and Silius Italicus has interpereted with a Complaint

Heu primæ Scelerum Caussæ mortalibus ægris, Naturam nescire Deum –4

But because you have not onely don me the honour to communicate so freely your thoughts to me; but have also layd your Commands that I should returne you my opinion of it: Truely, I should both greately injure the intrinsique value of the worke, as well as my greate esteeme of the Author if I should say lesse then I have don: so that if I am bold, or impertinent in what followes; it will serv onely to make you the more admire your owne, when you shall find how little can be added to it. and you must onely blame the liberty you have given me, if my Silenc would have become more acceptable. First then

1 This is the first example in the collection of the letter as instructional essay, in this case in the form of a critical response to Thurland’s manuscript. A date of 1657 is more likely, as its location suggests, and because the letter incorporates material from Evelyn’s research for “A Rationall Account of the True Religion” (Add 78367). 2 This manuscript was not published and seems not to have survived. 3 “A great disease of the soul is godlessness.” “Hermes Trismegistus,” i.e., Corpus Hermeticum 12.3 4 “Alas! their ignorance of the divine nature is the chief cause that leads wretched mortals into crime.” Silius Italicus, Punica 4.792–3 (Duff, trans). Evelyn had two copies of Silius Italicus (Amsterdam, 1620 & 1631) in his 1687 library catalogue.

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Your Distribution is most methodical and logical, the Minor produced to assert the Thesis very closely and skillfully handled; but because your Conclusion comes in so long after; whither may it not a little πλεοναζειν,5 considering that your Argument is prayer: I would therefore at the End of some of those chapters, before you arrive to the maine Assumption, upon enumeration of the former syllogismes, mention something of it (by way of ennumeration) that so the thoughts of your Reader might not stray from the Subject, which is to enforce the necessity of Prayer; or else alter the Title, and make it comprehensive of both the parts, as Of God, and Of Prayer, or something equivalent. I do greately approve the reasons you have given for that long digression, to convince those who doubted[:] Democritus, Leucippus, Diogenes, Epicurus and the late Pseudo­Politicks6 with those who faintly assented: as Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Plato, the Stoicks, Polititians and Legislators: But I suppose that since Sextus Empericus was but a dilligent collector of the Placits, and opinions of other philosophers; you shall do more honour to your Booke by omitting the so frequent citing of him. It will sufficiently gratifie the Reader to see his Scrupules satisfied, and their Errours convinced, without so particular an account whither you deduced the Opinions from the Fountaine or from the streame: And therefore you shall better cite Diogenes Laertius, or Cicero, then Campanella for that passage concerning the qualities of Atomes; and it is more proper to aledg Basil de Legendis Ethnicorum Scriptis, Augustine de Doctrina Christiana, or Socrates Scholasticus to prove the lawfullnesse and benefit of asserting your opinions by Examples out of Heathen Poets etc. then Sir Walter Raleighs history7 [note inserted: turne 2 leaves] of the World, who was but of Yesterday. Neither would I mention Selden where you might cite Lactantius, Clemens, Josephus or Eusebius; because they are Authors which every man will judg you might reade: And rather Fonseca, or indeede Molin, then Pinellus, who brought that opinion from them.8 And here, by the way, touching what you affirme concerning the fallen Angels intuitive knowledg, There be, that will replye that Lucifer was never in Patriâ but in viâ onely for so St. Augustine, in those excellent treatises De Corruptione et Gratia and De Dono Perseverantio.9 That the fallen Angels never saw God as Authorem gratiæ but as cultorem naturæ10 enigmaticaly, and not intuitively; being then in probation onely as was Man, and had the same use of their Will: God onely at 5 superfluous 6 These ancient philosophers, some of whom, like Epicurus, were atomists, disbelieved in divine intervention in human affairs and hence in the value of prayer. 7 Here ff 74v and 75 are blank. 8 Throughout this passage Evelyn prefers ancient authors to modern: Cicero’s De natura deorum or Diogenes Laertius’s Vitae philosophorum to Thomas Campanella’s account of non-believers in his Atheismus Triumphatus (Paris, 1636; Eve.a.158); Basil and Augustine on the reading of the ancients to Ralegh’s The History of the World (London, 1617; Eve.b.36 [1628 ed]); Clement of Alexandria’s Protrepticus, Eusebius’s Chronicon, Josephus’s History of the Jews, or Lactantius’s Divinæ Institutiones (the last three also in his library catalogue) to Selden’s accounts of the ancient Hebrews, including his De synedriis & ­præfecturis iuridicis veterum Ebræorum (London 1650; in the 1687 catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1329). In his citation of Pedro da Fonseca (1528–99), Luis de Molina (1535–1600), Lucas Pinelli (1542–1607), it is not clear to which (if any) specific texts he alludes. 9 properly De Correptione et Gratia 10 not as the author of grace but the cultivator of nature

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that moment confirming Michael and his fellows who refused to come into the rebellious Party, what tyme as he condemned the Dragon, and the rest of those lapsed Spirits. Touching the Eternity of the World, I suppose you meane de Eternitate absolutâ; for it were else hard to say which was first, the Sunn or the Light which it projects; sinc they are not onely inseparable but simul tempore. God created the World in his mind from eternity, say they; or as others Deus fecit æternitatem, æternitas fecit mundum, so Mercurius in Pimander.11 In that passage where you prove the existenc of a Deity from the wonderfull structure of the Microcosme; Lactantius his booke de opificio Dei would extreamely delight and furnish you;12 And so in all that scala visibilium ad invisibilia Dr. Charletons Darknesse of Atheisme C.4. no.5. p.130,13 which I therefore mention to you; because one would not say much of that which has already bin sayd in English: Would it not do also well to speake something of natural Conscienc? I suppose where you speake of the Pismire,14 and other Insects, you meane they have not an Intellectual memory; for a sensitive doubtlesse they have; and here you might appositely have sayd somthing concerning that Animalis Religio, of which St. Ambros speakes, distinguishing it from Aquinas Religio rationalis.15 Concerning the Unity of God, upon which you have most rationaly delated: The 10th chapter of the 1 Booke of Proclus would extreamely delight you. Touching the Knowledg of God you must by all meanes, consult that admirable little Treatise of Minucius Felix his Octavius, and St. Augustine de Concubitu Angelorum about our prayers to them, in which you have so imitated the Divine St. Hierom, by your constant assertion of the practise deduced from Scripture, that more cannot be wished; yet something which St. Paule has sayd 2: chap: Epist ad Colossians: And in the 9th of Ecclesiastes may be applyed.16 They affirme that the Devill may be an Ærial-Body, and by that meanes enter into mens bodys without our perception; but I will not importune you farther with those trifles; onely I will mind you of one passage of Iamblicus, speaking of the natural sense of God in man. Ante omnem (saith he) usum rationis inest naturaliter insita Deorum notio: imò Tactus quidem divinitatis melior quam notitia17 and to that purpose Cicero de Natura deorum, Seneca de providentiâ, the Golden 11 “God made Eternity, Eternity the World.” The divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus in XVII. books, John Everard, trans (London, 1649), 118; i.e., Corpus Hermeticum 10.6. 12 Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, De Opificio Dei in Opera (Leiden, 1652; in the 1687 library catalogue). 13 “the ladder of the visible to the invisible”; Walter Charleton, The darknes of atheism dispelled by the light of nature a physico-theologicall treatise (London, 1652; in the 1687 library catalogue), 130. 14 ant 15 See the comparison between Ambrose and Aquinas in Tommaso Campanella, Atheismus triumphatus (Paris, 1636), 97: “Religio naturalis addit supra naturalem cultum ... Religio rationalis est, qua creatura rationis particeps, sapientiam, & rationem Dei, Deumque ipsum nouit, & colit, finem, & rationem finis pernocens.” 16 Proclus (412–85 AD), Platonic Theology, 1.10; Marcus Minucius Felix (fl.200–40 AD), Octavius; Augustine, De Civitate Dei 15.23 on Genesis 6:4 (“when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them”); in Colossians 2:18, Paul warns “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind.” 17 “Before all use of reason, there is recognition of the gods naturally inborn; indeed the touch of divinity is better than the idea.” Iamblichus, De mysteriis Aegyptiorum (Heidelberg, 1598, in the 1687 library

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verses of Pythagoras:and more expressly Lactantius: L:3.c.9. where he proves cultum dei to be naturaly in man, making it a formal part of its definition. Animal Rationale Religiosum. To Conclude Augustine, Clemens, Lactantius, Cyrill, Arnobius, Justin Martyr of old, of the neoterique Aquinas, Plessis Morney, Dr. Andrews, Grotius, Dr. Hammond in a particular opusculum. L. Vives, Bradwardine de Causa Dei, Valesius de Sacrâ Philosophia, Campanella and our most ingenius Mr. Moore (in his Antidote against Atheisme) have all treated on this subject;18 but in so different a manner; and with so much confusion and prolixity (some few of them excepted) that it will greately add to the worth and lustar of your piece, who have comprehended so much in so little and to so excellent purpose; I wish you had as perfectly made good your promise in what remaines, as in what you have begun. I meane touching the forme, matter, posture, place and other circumstances of Prayer, in which you would do wonders upon second thoughts. Sir I have bin bold to note some places with my black-leade where your Amanuensis has committed some Sphalmas, and peradventure some expressions may be advantagiously altered, at your leasure. As in c. 1. where I have marked (1) 2, 3 etc. in the 11 chapter at number 3. where the sense seemes a little perplext: But there is nothing in all this by which you will more assert your owne judgment, then in leaving out, and obelising the glorious elogie which you are pleased to honour me with all, in citing me as an Author of any vallue: By this Sir, you see how bold I am, both to trouble you with my follys, and then to beg pardon for them. But as I sayd at first, you must blame your selfe; partly for enjoyning me, and partly for allowing me no more tyme: But he that has the advantages perusal of any of your discourses, cannot but emerge with the greatest advantages. Sir It was the Saying of the greate Salmasius, and shall be myne. Nihil moror Libros, et combustos omnes velim, si Doctiores tantum, non etiam meliores, qui dant illis operam reddere idonei sunt.19 But such Sir, is your Excellent Booke, and such is your Conversation, from which I do allwayes returne, both more learned and better, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court 20 January 1656.

catalogue), “De cognitione divinorum” (Ficino, trans); Lactantius, Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII, 3.9 (“Of the Chief Good, and the Worship of the True God, and a Refutation of Anaxagoras”) (Leiden, 1652; in the 1687 library catalogue). 18 Philippe du Plessis Mornay (1549–1623), De la Verité de la Religion Chrétienne (1582 edition in the 1687 library catalogue); Lancelot Andrewes (1555–1626), The Pattern of Catechistical Doctrine (London, 1650; Eve.b.26); Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), De veritate religionis Christianae (Eve.a.70 [French trans, Paris, 1649?]); Henry Hammond (1605–60), Of the reasonableness of Christian religion (London, 1649; Eve.a.129[3] [1650 ed.]); Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540), De veritate fidei Christianae; Thomas Bradwardine (1290–1349), De Causa Dei; Franciscus Valesius (Francisco Vallés,1524–92), De Sacra Philosophia; Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), Atheismus Triumphatus (Eve.a. 158); Henry More (1614–87), An Antidote against Atheisme (London, 1653; in the 1687 library catalogue). 19 “I care nothing about the books, and I should wish them all burnt, if they are able to return those who devote their attention to them only more learned, and not also better.” Claude Saumaise, Epistolarum Liber Primus (Leiden, 1656; Eve.a.154), 77.

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Commissioners of the Navy Letter 108 [105] January 21, 1656 f 76

Epistle CV To the Comissioners of the Navy.1

Gentlemen, Being informed by my Servants, and having also observed my selfe the imminent danger that by a late Spring-tyde was like to happen, threatning not onely that little ground of mine which lies contiguous to the defect; but likewise the whole Levell, by reason of some fault in the Sluce adjoyning to Drakes-Dock neere the Ship-yard at Deptford; and considering the greate and unexpected perill which upon the very same tyde and time accrued to the Marshes at Greene-wich, and our neighbours thereabout, I esteeme’d it necessary as to acquaint you with the perill; so to advise you that some speedy and effectual order may be given to the States Instruments here, for the Survey and repaire thereoff, the better to prevent what future encouragement encon[v]enienc may justly be suspected, and feared upon the next high-tyde that shall flow with any stress of weather from a Northwest wind. A very inconsiderable matter will at present secure the Work, and therefore I shall not presse your circumspection herein, as knowing how much better you understand the contingency, and the publique Interest, which is of so greate concernement, as well to the publique as to private Persons, and amongst those to Gentlemen Your etc. Says-Court: 21 January 1656.

Richard Browne Letter 109 [106] February 12, 1657* f 76r–v

Epistle CVI To Sir R. Browne:1

Sir, I now make bold to transmitt you, the Trifle2 which you have so often desired to see. The successe which it has encounterd here is much beyond its merites, as to that part 1 Nehemiah Bourne; Henry Hatsell; E. Hopkins; Peter Pett; Peter Thompson; Francis Willoughby 1 based on Add 78221: f 66 (18.10.1656), and discussing Evelyn’s Lucretius translation, which had been published in May 1656 2 Evelyn’s Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656)

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which concernes your Servant; but it has bin from very indulgent Censors, considering the mischances it met withall at the Printers, whose oscitancy, and cursed negligenc (I my selfe being absent all the tyme it was sweating) has rendred me extreamely impatient, and sufficiently employed, as you may easily deprehend by those frequent ἁμάρτηματα3 and Sphalmas which I have endeavored to reforme with the pen. There being no lesse then 80 Errata’s in the Latine Copie, which yet he printed from a most correct Plantine edition;4 I do not speake of the interpunctations and more tollerable oversights, of which sort there be ὃσα κόνις5 innumerable but some grosse and very material. I know Sir, you did expect a larger volume, and wonder at the ill placing of my houres, that in so long a tyme I should have produced so little: The truth is, but for the importunity of some, and my præingagement6 (as you know) I had not permitted this to see the light; as being Conscious to my selfe of its many defects: But so it is, that partly out of indignation, and partly to redeeme my selfe, I find now some inclynations of printing the rest; that by a second and more carefull Edition, (wherein I shall for the future trust my owne Eyes) I may have opportunity to reforme the mistakes of the first.7 You know what it is I scruple at in the fourth booke;8 and though by the Poet physicaly spoken, yet I had rather much that all the Poems in the world should perish, then that anything of mine should contribute to vice and minister to Vice: so perfectly am I convinced of whatsoever may tend to the dishonour of God, and that the reputation of trimming a folly is not tanti: Though indeede the following three, are of lesse difficulty, and full of incomparable and most usefull variety, upon which if those σκύβαλα,9 my Notes, have rendred you so much contentment how much more remaines there upon which there is hardly a part of curious Learning, but might be introduced without the least violation. Thus Sir, I have to prevent your thoughts, sent but one booke; not onely because I would not over burthen the Expresse, but because it is not yet worthy your propagation and your friends acceptanc from Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 12: February 1656.



3 faults 4 Evelyn’s library catalogue lists the 1566 and 1611 Plantin editions. 5 as common as dust 6 a commitment to publish 7 No further edition appeared, although the manuscripts of Books 3–6 with Evelyn’s notes are in Add 78354–6. See John Evelyn’s translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De rerum natura, xci–ci, and the BL catalogue description of his translation. 8 possibly Lucretius’s espousal of the mortality of the soul: “How living she is wth the body joynd, / How separated, she returnes againe / To her first Principles” (4.32–4 in Evelyn’s translation; see John Evelyn’s Translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De rerum natura, 94 and xxxiv–xliv), a doctrine which “may do Scandal to the very principles of Christian Religion” (Add 78356: f 4), but more likely the sexually explicit material beginning at line 1024, which concludes the book, and which Evelyn omits from his translation. See also Evelyn’s introductory notes to his commentary on Books III and IV in Add 78356. 9 pieces of dung

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Obadiah Walker1 Letter 110 [107] March 7, 1656 ff 76v–7

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CVII To Mr. Obadia Walker

Sir, I have reason to esteeme my selfe very unfortunate and to have lost considerable advantages by it, that having first had the honour to oblige my noble Friend Mr. Hyldyard2 with a Person of your parts and genius, I had not also gained so perfect an Interest in you, as might have encouraged me to importune you sometymes with Letters, and to have hoped for a Commerce of this kind; and especialy sinc I come to understand how sedulous, and inquisitive you have bin of all things that are rare and worthy the observanc in those polite places through which you have Traveled; but my apprehensions of being a troublesome correspondent, and Conscious both how little I had merited, or could returne you in exchang, has made me hithertoo defraud my greatest inclynations and save you from that importunity. I do yet however infinitely rejoyce at the rumors of your speedy approch and returne amongst us, may happly make way for some opportunity of renewing our acquaintanc and repairing that losse, with the benefit of your Conversation, which I shall greately cherish and be extreamely ambitious off. In the meane tyme I make this request (if it may not in the least incroach upon your other occasions) that you will disburse so much for me at the Goldsmiths of Paris, as may purchase a sottocoppa3 of the fairest and best wroght plate, and to bring it over with you; assuring you Sir, that I shall not onely most faithfully refund the mony to you here, but likewise receive it as a signal obligation. This is all, when I shall first have beged of you the favour to render my Servic agreable to Mr. Hyldiards from Sir Your etc. Says Court: 7: March: 1656.

1 Obadiah Walker (1616–99; ODNB). A contemporary of Evelyn at Oxford, Walker graduated MA in 1638 and became a fellow of University College. He was ejected in 1648 and went abroad, and was reinstated after the Restoration, later becoming master (1676–89). He was deprived again under William. Evelyn grew more critical of him after his public conversion to Roman Catholicism. 2 Henry Hildyard. Walker was tutor and travelling companion to Hildyard’s two sons. Evelyn records meeting his two charges in London on 8 May 1657 (Diary III.193). 3 saucer

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Benjamin Maddox Letter 111 [108] [n.d.] [early 1657]#1 ff 77–8

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Epistle CVIII To Mr. Maddox.

Sir, Understanding that you are now shaping your Course towards the more Southern parts of France; and that your intention is to make some aboad at Monpeliers (which resolution of yours I cannot but extreamely approve; seing it is a place full of many learned advantages, curiosities, and excellent conversation) I am bold to make it my request, that you will be mindfull of my plantation, and long sinc-begun designe of propagating a Garden plants; especialy Ever-greenes,2 which have much thriven with me, and might by the advantage of your favour be infinitely improved: particularly in the several Philyrias, Alaternus’s, the Ilex, and what other rarities of that nature you can transmitt in seedes with the least trouble; by which you will infinitely oblige your Servant, who is already far indebted to you for other Civilities. But be pleased to pardon the greate boldnesse I assume, if the Interest which you indulge me carry me on to another particular, wherein I have no other encouragement, then the merites of the Person, and that noblenesse of nature which I have ever discovered to be conspicuous and eminent in you. The affaire in short is this. By some late, and very casual confernc with a friend of Mr. Needhames,3 I understand, that (as the Doctor Bate4 is inclyned to assist his studies and has promis’d to promote his practise) the Doctoral Degree would be of very greate concernment to him,

1 The letter is undated, though it presumes knowledge of the itinerary which Maddox provided in his letter of 21 December (Add 78316: f 122 [21.12.1656?]). Evelyn begins by asking for a small favour (that Maddox send him seeds from Montpellier), before asking for a more substantial “benefit”: the provision of funds to enable Maddox’s tutor and travelling companion, Jasper Needham, to obtain his MD from Oxford. Evelyn justifies the request by appealing to Seneca’s arguments in De Beneficiis. His appeal was successful, as Letter 129 confirms. 2 Evelyn began to lay out the garden at Sayes Court in January 1653. See his letter to Richard Browne of 23 January 1654 (Add 78221: f 63 [23.1.1654]); see Leith-Ross, “The Garden of John Evelyn at Deptford”; and Laird, “Sayes Court Revisited,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, and Plate 14 (Add 78628 A), Evelyn’s 1653–4 plan of the house and garden at Sayes Court. As one of the great botanical gardens of Europe, Montpellier was an obvious source of plants for hedging. Alaternus and Ilex (holly) were not uncommon in England, but Evelyn is the first author cited as referring to Phillyria in OED. That name, however, was given to several plants at that time. All three are recommended in “Elysium Britannicum.” In fact, Evelyn was to use a wider range of trees and shrubbery in the reconstruction of the garden after its devastation by the great frost of 1683–4 (Diary IV.364–5; Letter 474). 3 Jasper Needham 4 George Bate (1608–68; ODNB). Having entered Oxford in 1624, Bate became an MD in 1637. He was physician to Charles I and wrote Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum in Anglia (Frankfurt and Edinburgh, 1650), a defence of the king’s dealings with Parliament. Nonetheless he was also physician to Cromwell and, after the Restoration, to Charles II. He was among the earliest fellows of the Royal Society.

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in respect of the countenanc, and advantages it would give him, as well amongst other Physitians (who would then admitt him to their Consultations) as amongst those Patients, which the Doctor (I heare) would then turne over and ressigne to him. But withall that the charges of this Ceremony is likely to prove so greate a discouragement to him in the procedure, that (conceiving it unreasonable to expect it from the Doctor who has allready appeared so kind to him) he is likely for want of a trifling Summe to let passe the most considerable advantage of his life, casting about to protract this critical opportunity, by undertaking some other charge (for I suppose you have heard that the Doctors sonne is resolved against Learning, and is therefore by his father designed another way) ’till by some extraordinary frugality he may put himselfe into a capacity of taking his degree without importuning his Friends; by which meanes he will not onely lose much precious tyme; but during your absenc also the assistances of the Doctor, and his present intentions to do him good in the way of practise, to the total ruine of that happy designe. This Sir, I thought fit to advertise you off the more punctualy perceiving by the modesty of the man, that you had never else come to the cognizanc of this particular, and so have lost a signal advantage of testif[y]ing your kindnesse to a Person, who is (to my knowledg) as intirely yours in affection, as he has bin the most sedulous, and carefull in your education: and (I thinke) as meritorious (though his blushes will not speake it) as was ever person of his Relation to a Gentleman. But Sir, I pretend not to assemble Arguments; Your selfe is best instructed in this particular, and have doubtlesse reserved for him a far nobler Reccompenc then any I shall propose; as knowing that the deserts of religious, and successfull Tutors can never be sufficiently rewarded; especialy when joyning the qualities, by which he already has bin, and may hereafter be of use to you, you shall thinke him5 (who of all the Philosophers was the best studied in the nature of Benefits) to have spoken reason, where comparing the merits of the Professions, That of a Physitian (and of him who had the Care of our Education) he made this conclusion in favour of the latter. [LM: Seneca de Beneficiis: L.6.c.16.17] Ingratus sum, nisi Illum inter gratissimas necessitudines diligo; and as in this case expressely, immediatly after, In optimis vero artibus quæ vitam aut conservant, aut excolunt, qui nihil se plus existimat debere, quam pepigit, Ingratus est.6 Sir, if a seasonable kindnesse be a dubble benefit, it can never appeare so opportune as at present; nor are you to expect an occasion by which you may ever hope to oblige him, if you let this slip escape, which dos realy concerne your affection, your friendship, and whatsoever else renders him deare to you: I am the more bold to presse it, because I would (in this greatest affaire of his life) have him owe his good fortune onely to your selfe: for otherwise so good a Man, and beloved a Person cannot faile of some friend at a pinch; and that if you neglect it, ’tis never like to be againe in your powre to oblige him; since I am confident God has reserved such a blessing for him (in pursuit of

5 Seneca 6 “If I do not owe to such a man all the love that I give to those to whom I am bound by the most grateful ties, I am indeed ungrateful... Surely, in the case of the noblest professions that either maintain or beautify life, a man is ungrateful if he thinks that he owes no more than he bargained for.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 6.16.16–17 (Basore, trans)

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this employment, with the advantages design’d him) as will in few yeares render him able to resent all your kindnesses. But I perceive Sir, my affection has not a little transported me; and I would heartily beg your pardon, were I not certaine you had already forgiven this impertinency; and that you will returne me an accknowledgment even for this bold Addresse, which I unfainedly protest soly proceedes from my love and affection to you who, I imagine would be infinitely displeased that so deare a friend should miscarry in his fortune at the threshhold of his fortune for a summ so inconsiderable as 50 or 60 pounds, which is the extreame of that charge, as I am credibly informed. I shall not compare his merits with the mony; but because I know the summ bears no proportion to your affection Qui beneficium accipit, maius accipit, quo magis eo indigent;7 and This arriving at such a Tyme, and from such a Friend, comes with the greatest aggravations of your affection imaginable; sinc by it you will have performed a most acceptable marke of your Friendship, and crowned all your kindnesses. This is Corollarium aspergere,8 and indeede a greater honour to the Giver then to the Receiver, Though to my certaine cognizanc, it be more then he either lookes for, or would ever have asked, though not more then is becomming you to offer, as to which you are by the laws of decency in some sense obliged; it being a thing so usual and full of president for Persons of your condition to gratifie their Tutors paynes and care at their departure from them; and the rather for his singular Modesty. Give me leave Sir, to end with another passag of the same Seneca. Gratissima, sunt Beneficia, parata, facile occurrentia, ubi nulla mora fuit, nisi in accipientis verecundia9 etc. For it is the greatest cruelty in the world to suffer a modest man to aske: Qui hoc tormentum remittit multiplicat munus suum.10 But, Sir, I have don, and comitt the successe to your excellent nature, and the providenc of God, to whose blessed conduct I reccommend you and remaine Sir, Your etc.

7 “The more need a man has of a benefit, the greater is the benefit he receives.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 3.35.3 (Basore, trans) 8 to bestow an extra reward 9 “The benefits that stir most gratitude are those which are readily and easily obtainable and rush to our hands, where, if there is any delay, it has come only from the delicacy of the recipient.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 2.1.3 (Basore, trans) 10 “he who spares him this torture multiplies the value of his gift.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 2.1.3 (Basore, trans)

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Rand Letter 112 [109] April 9, 1657 f 78r–v

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Epistle CIX To Dr. Rand.

Sir, I am ashamed to be a debtor so long for your excellent letter; but I blush more at the continuanc, and temper of your style where it dwells on a Subject that cannot support it; and though used with the greatest dexterity, dos not perswade me that you believe what you write when you magnifie any thing, which proceedes from your Servant but what he deferrs to you, who have indeede so just a title to all that I have sayd, when I return’d you my accknowledgments for the honour you did me,1 and all that you have written, when you mistake not the object. I have ever bin of your judgment concerning Machiavel, upon whose Præcepts I have ever looked as upon Scaffolds and steps by which ambitious Persons might possibly ascend; but as no where approved by him for honnest or Virtuous; shewing what men may do, not what they ought to do. But the instanc which you deduce in justification of your choyce of me proves a Complement too greate weighty, and such as I no way pretend too. Touching my Lucretius, when you shall observe how extreamely I have bin abused by the Printer, and a prætended Friend2 (who during my absenc undertooke the care of it) you will find as greate cause to pitty my misfortunes, as to retract your favourable judgment; there being nothing which has more afflicted me, then that any thing should appeare under my cognisanc which might move you to say as once a greate man upon the like misfortune Quanto melius erat non attigisse!3 However to prævent the a worse, I am bold to present you with a Booke full of blots;4 and in the meane tyme beg of you this indulgenc, ’till a second and more polite Edition, and progresse on the Author, let you see the difference by my personal care. The multitude of Copies which I have bin constrained to correct in the most material mistakes to the prejudice and losse of much precious tyme, together with the infinite vexation, will I hope in some measure obteyne pardon for those many σφάλματα5 which may yet doubtlesse have escaped my pen in this confusion. The wretched printer so grossly abusing me even in the Latine Copie, so accuratly done before him by a Plantine edition: by all which you may judg how I have suffered in the rest. I had indeede absolutely determined to proceede no farther on that difficult Author; being (I know not how) provoked to this first Essay by a friend6 who had truely a very greate Empire over me; but finding my selfe thus miserably handled by the Printer, and neglected by him I put in trust with it, partly out of ­indignation and partly

1 in dedicating his Life of Peiresc (1657) to Evelyn 2 Thomas Triplet 3 “How much better had I not touched it!” 4 Evelyn’s An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura (London, 1656) 5 faults 6 probably Richard Fanshawe (see Letter 69)

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to gratifie others. I have bin perswaded to make a thorough traduction, to which I shall be now the more encouraged, if I may be honoured with the assistanc and advise of so learned a Person, and instructed to such a taske as your selfe. What I have performed in the Specimen already published will admitt of infinite indulgence, but those are onely fit to censure it, who shall essay how difficult a thing it is to comprehend matter so Philosophical and abstracted into equal numbers and rime in our poore language: Nor is there any person, whom I know, that can pretend to that advantag, besides your Selfe, who have rather exceeded your Author in elegancy and expression, then, in the least, gon beneath him. And yet I pretend, that my next edition shall ad somthing of ornament and something of more perspicuity. But I dwell too long on ths Trifle, who have so much to admire, when you tell me what you have undertaken, and in what a posture you are to oblige the world with that Sublime piece which I long sinc received from the hands of Sir Henry Herbert.7 There is no more to be sayd, sinc you are so far entered and engaged in it; but that those who shall consider with how excellent a tallent God has endowed you for the worke, cannot but wish your endeavors in this kind should for the future be employed in communicating to the World something of use, light and encouragment to practical Philosophy, as it concernes nature, and the Restauration of Sciences, as you have already fairely begun.8 But Sir, I transgresse the limitts of an Epistle, whilst I pretend to render an account of those many excellent things sprinkled through your kind, and most acceptable Letter to Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 9: April 1657.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 113 [110] May 9, 1657 f 78v

Epistle CX To Dr. Taylor.

Sir, Amongst the rest that are Tributaries to your worth, I make bold to present you with this smale Toaken, and though it beares no proportion either with my obligation, or your merit; yet I hope you will accept of it, as the product of what I have employed for this purpose; and which you shall yearely receive so long as God makes me able, and that it may be usefull to you. What I can handsomely doe for you by other friends (as o­ ccasions 7 Sir Henry Herbert (1594-1673; ODNB). Evelyn says that Herbert gave him a copy of De Veritate (London, 1645; Evelyn Library, no 728) by his brother Lord Herbert of Cherbury (Diary III.58). Presumably Rand was proposing to translate this work into English. He appears not to have done so. 8 In 1657 Rand, a doctor of physic, and Nicholas Culpeper published a translation of Jean Riolan’s A Sure Guide; or, the best and nearest way to Physick and Chyrurgery (London, 1657).

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present themselves) may, I hope (in tyme) supplie that which I would my selfe do. In order to which, I have already made one of my Brothers1 sensible of this opportunity to do God, and his Church an acceptable servic: I thinke I shall prevaile as much on the other; the effects whereoff will shew them selves, and care shall be taken that you have an accoumpt of all this in due tyme, and as you shall your selfe desire it. I will not add that by bringing you acquainted with Persons of so much virtue (though I speake it of my neerest Relatives) I do at all reinforce the kindnesse; sinc, by it, I oblig you mutualy (for so Beneficium dare socialis res est)2 and because it is infinitely short of my his respects, who (with Philemon)3 owes you even himselfe, and which, if I have not sooner payed, I appeale to Philosophy; and the Sentenc of that wise man, who (as some affirme) held intercourse with the Apostle4 himselfe. Qui festinat utique reddere, non habet animum grati hominis, sed debitoris; et qui nimis cito cupit solvere, invitus debet, qui invitus debet, Ingratus est;5 And Sir, you have too far obliged me to be ever guilty of that crime who am, Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 9: May: 1657.

1 probably George Evelyn, in connection with Edward Thurland’s efforts to accommodate Taylor in Reigate (see Letter 102, note 2) 2 “The giving of a benefit is a social act.” Seneca De Beneficiis 5.11.5 (Basore, trans) 3 Evelyn associates himself with Philemon and Taylor (by implication) with St Paul. 4 The correspondence between St Paul and Seneca was exposed as spurious by Erasmus but some continued to believe it genuine. 5 “He who hastens at all odds to make return shows the feeling, not of a person that is grateful, but of a debtor ... he who is too eager to pay his debt is unwilling to be indebted, and he who is unwilling to be indebted is ungrateful.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 4.40.5 (Basore, trans)

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Robert Boyle1 Letter 114 [111] May 9, 1657 f 79

Epistle CXI To Mr. Boyle2

[LM: Son to the Earle of Corke] Sir, I should infinitely blush at the slownesse of this Addresse, if a greate indisposition of body, which obliged me to a course of Physick,3 and sinc an unexpected journey4 (from both which I am but lately delivered) had not immediatly intervened; since you were pleased to command those trifles5 of me. I have omitted those of Brasse etc. because they properly belong to Etching and Ingraving; which Treatise together with five others (viz. Paynting in oyle, Miniature, Anealing in Glasse, Enamiling, and Marble paper) I was onc minded to publish for the benefit of the ingenious;6 but I have sinc bin put off from that designe, not knowing whither I should do well to gratifie so barbarous an Age (as I feare is approching) with Curiosities of that nature, delivered with so much integrity as I intended them; and least by it, I should suffer dissoblige some who made those professions their living; or at least debase so much of their esteeme by prostituting them to the Vulgar. Rather I conceived that a true and ingenuous discovery of those and the like arts would to 1 Robert Boyle (1627–91; ODNB; R). Fourteenth child of Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork (the “Great Earl”), Boyle was educated at Eton, and studied on the continent. He lived in Stalbridge, Dorset, from 1645 until 1655–6, when he moved to Oxford where he set up his laboratory. His mother was distantly related to the family of Evelyn’s wife, the Brownes, and the connection was maintained. Evelyn first met him in 1656, contributed an essay to his History of Cold, dedicated his book Sculptura (1662) to him, and was appointed by Boyle as one of the trustees for the Boyle Lectures after Boyle’s death. See Hunter, Boyle: Between God and Science. 2 See also Add 4229: ff 52–3. The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 212–13 derives from that source. Boyle responded on 23 May (Correspondence, I, 213–14). 3 Evelyn mentions consulting Dr George Bate “about taking preventing Physick” on 21 April 1657 ­(Diary III.191). 4 Evelyn went to visit his brother, George in London, on 25 April 1657, during which he “had a dangerous fall out of the Coach in Covent Garden” (Diary III.192). 5 These must be drawings rather than engravings. Some of Evelyn’s drawings are in the BL Evelyn archive (Add 78610: A–M and Colour Plates 1–2). 6 This is a reference to his unfinished and unpublished “History of Trades” to which he returns in a letter to Boyle on 8 August 1659 (Letter 158). He presented an account of this work to the Royal Society in 1661 (Diary III.268), and published some of this research in his work on engraving, Sculptura (1662). See Add 78339 (“Trades. Secrets & Receipts Mechanical, as they came casualy to hand”) and Add 78340 for material pertaining to this project. A listing of trades, “The History of Arts Illiberall and Mechanick Alphabetically or according to their Antiquity, Succession, Dependance, Dignity, Necessitie etc,” dated 16 January 1660 is contained in Royal Society Cl.P/3i/1, as are the unpublished section of Sculptura, “The Construction of the Rowling Press,” translated from Abraham Bosse and noted as “Read May 14, 1662” (Cl.P/3i/2); “Marble paper,” noted as “Read January 8, 1661” (Cl.P/3i/1); and “Panificium, or The Several manners of

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­better ­purpose be compiled for the use of that Mathematico-Chymico-­Mechanical Schoole, design’d by our noble friend Dr. Wilkinson,7 where they might be taught to those that either affected or deserved any of them; and from them (as from another Solomons house)8 so much of them onely made publique as should from tyme to tyme be judged convenient by the Superintendent of that schoole, for the reputation of Learning, and benefit of the Nation. And upon this score there would be a most willing contribution of what ingenious Persons know of this kind, and to which I should most freely dedicate what I have. In the meane tyme, Sir, I transmitt you this Vernish,9 and shall esteeme my selfe extreamely honoured, that you will farther command whatsoever else of this, or any other kind I possesse, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 9 May: 1657

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 115 [112] May 11, 1657 f 79r–v

Epistle CXII To My Lady Mordant.

Madame, You cannot imagine whith how greate contentment we heare the newes of your happy Nuptials:1 The very tidings made us participate of the Festivity; and as the acclamations were even at this intervall; and as the acclamations were universal; so conspicuous an Accident could not but extreamely concerne your humble Servants, who have so greate an interest in your prosperity, and could have sacrificed all other occasions to have bin assistant at your glorious solemnities. For my owne particular, if ever I had indignation at my making Bread in France etc,” noted as “read March 1, 1664” (Cl.P/3i/19). See Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 75–82; Houghton, “The History of Trades”; Ochs, “The Royal Society’s History of Trades”; and Hanson, The English Virtuoso, 75–80. Evelyn’s decision to abandon the project can be situated in relation to ongoing arguments over the social locations of mechanical knowledge and its practitioners. See Smith, The Body of the Artisan, 228–34 and “What is a Secret? Secrets and Craft Knowledge in Early Modern Europe.” 7 not John Wilkinson (1588–1650), late master of Magdalen, but John Wilkins (1614–72; ODNB; R). He took a BA (1631) and an MA (1634) from Oxford. Master of Wadham College (1648–59) and Trinity College, Cambridge (1659–60), then dean of Ripon Cathedral and bishop of Chester (1668–72). He was a founder and original fellow of the Royal Society, and (until 1668) one of its secretaries. Evelyn had met him in Oxford in 1654 (Diary III.105–6, 110–11). 8 a college of natural philosophy in Bacon’s fable of political philosophy, The New Atlantis (1626) 9 See also Letter 188, note 2 (13 September 1661) to Boyle. 1 Evelyn dined with the newly married Mordaunts on 1 June 1657 (Diary III.194). He says they were ­married on 7 May (Diary IV.34). This letter refers to a portrait of Elizabeth Mordaunt by Louisa Hollandina (Letter 30, note 3 and Add 78404).

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Genius, it has bin for not inspiring me with something extraordinary at this conjuncture; that amongst the rest of the witts, who cast their Lawrells at your Feete, I might have say’d something that was greate, and worthy the subject of your Epithalamion. But because it was not in the Orb of inferiour Poets, where Apollo himselfe (the illustrious Bridegroome) did præside, your Ladyship will neither accuse my silenc, nor reprove my reverenc. Madame, My Wife (who returnes you a thousand accknowledgments for the Royal favour, and her Highnesse the *Princesse’s mindfullnesse [RM: *Her picture drawne by the Princess Louise, and sent to my Wife.] of her; because it reppresents so much of a Saint, and so much of your faire selfe) dos infinitely congratulate your felicity, and agure you Both, all the Satisfactions of a Condition the most agreable to Persons, who (as your Ladyship) know how to render it so; and by becomming one of the Society of those that propagat the World, have defered so greate an ornament to the State. Madam, I kisse your Ladyships hands, with a profound convict inclynation, and beseech you to present my most humble servic to that noble Person, by whose permission I presume to continue Madam, Your etc. Says-Court: 11 May: 1657.

Edward Snatt1 Letter 116 [113] May 17, 1657 ff 79v–80

Epistle CXIII To Mr. *Snatt:

[LM: *My old Schole-Master, at the Free Schoole of Lewes in Sussex.] By the mediation of my worthy Neighbour Mr. Heath,2 I received your Letter or rather, indeede, your Panegyrique, which, how you will be able to justifie (who are so well acquainted with my greatest imperfections) truely, I cannot tell. This onely I know, that whither I have merited, or no (without a considerable ingredient of mortification) the Art, and Eloquenc you there employ were a sufficient temptation to glory, as there is realy danger in receiving such elogies from a person of your Eminency and Learning, capable to draw envye from the eyes of all men, and to ranke however unduely bestowed upon me; yet to make me wish at least that I could with any justic, prætend to the Character. What shall I say more Sir, The honour which you have don me, and of which I am most 1 Edward Snatt (c.1600–c.1660; Diary). Admitted to Cambridge in 1615, he took his MA in 1622 and was Evelyn’s headmaster at the Free School in Southover, Lewes (1630–7). Evelyn refers to his being dead by August 1663. He was married to Alice Page and his son, William, whom Evelyn later attempted to assist (see Letter 211), became a nonjuring clergyman. Snatt responded to this letter on 25 May (see Diary [1887], III, 95–6). 2 Robert Heath, also a former student, who had conveyed Snatt’s letter to Evelyn

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u­ nworthy, makes me blush at the deffects, and yet obliges me to returne my accknowledgments. But these are faults, we too easily pardon in our Friends; so difficult a thing it is, not to flatter our selves with the beauty of our owne productions, how mutilated, and deformed soever they must needs appeare to such a Quintilian as Mr. Snatt. Did not this same – Cur ego Amicum Offendam in Nugis3 – marr all commerce of this kind; and realy Sir, I should be ashamed at the vanity of transmitting you my Bookes,4 were it not with designe of receiving your instructions, and to be admonished of my Errors. These are therefore the returnes which I conjure your to make me; and believe it, Sir, none shall more gratefully embrace that kindnesse; nor more humbly revere your Dictats: For though I have not the honour to possesse your Picture in my study (as that Learned Prelat had his Mulchasters)5 yet I beare in mind the præcept of my Poets Master Epicurus, recorded by Seneca. Aliquis Vir bonus eligendus est etc.6 you know [w]hat follows. Ideäs are to the Imagination, what the Effigies is to the Eye: Et o felicem illum, qui non Adspectus tantum, sed etiam Cogitatus emendat!7 Let the Philosopher then recommend Cato, or the lesse severe Lælius;8 I shall prefer Mr. Snatt, my deare Præceptor, to whom though I cannot defer the honours, which they did to theirs, by their learned, and noble workes; I shall yet endeavor to do my best; at least, I hope, give him no cause either to repent him of his Instructions, or reproach my negligenc; though for any present merite, from the successe of this Essay, I so little pretend to the Laurell, that, as to that paragraph of your Letter, I shall onely thanke you in the period of Catullus to Cicero Gratias tibi maximas agit, Pessimus omnium Poëta: Tanto pessimus omnium Poeta, Quanto Tu optimus omnium Patronus Præceptor.9 I confesse it was my full determination to stop here, as even tyred with the ungratefull labour of a Translation, and my selfe so incompetent for the worke: But the mischief is οὐ λέγειν δεινὸς, ἀλλὰ σιγα˜ν ἀδυνατος as Epicharmus10 has somewhere defined him. Something I find it necessary to do: and especialy, now being provoked by a person who has so greate an Empire over me as your Selfe; so that 3 “Why should I give offense to a friend about trifles.” Horace, Ars Poetica 450–1 (Fairclough, trans) 4 Evelyn had sent Snatt his translation of Lucretius. In his reply, Snatt urges Evelyn to finish the translation: “The five younger brethren will grieve if you clothe not them in as rich garments as their elder brother” (Diary [1887], III, 95). 5 Lancelot Andrewes kept a portrait of his schoolmaster, Richard Mulcaster, in his study. 6 “Cherish some man of high character, [and keep him ever before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and ordering all your actions as if he beheld them].” Seneca, Epistulae 11.8 (Gummere, trans). Evelyn’s “eligendus” (as in Erasmus’s and Lipsius’s texts) is “diligendus” in modern editions. 7 “Happy is the man who can make others better, not merely when he is in their company, but even when he is in their thoughts.” Seneca, Epistulae, 11.9 (Gummere, trans). Modern editions read “qui non praesans tantum.” Evelyn’s reading occurs in Lipsius’s 1605 edition of Seneca’s Opera and subsequent recensions of Lipsius’s text. 8 Gaius Laelius (c.190–after 129 BC), known as “the wise,” was a close friend of Scipio who published the work of Diogenes in Rome and had a high reputation as an orator. 9 “To thee his warmest thanks [Catullus] gives, the worst of all poets; as much the worst poet of all as you are the best [advocate] of all.” Catullus, 49.5–8 (Cornish, trans). Evelyn substitutes “præceptor” for Catullus’s “patronus.” 10 “Thou art not skilled in speech, yet silence cannot keep,” cited in Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, 1.15.15 (Rolfe, trans). Epicharmus, a native of Smyrna, was a fifth-century writer of comedy known for his burlesques. The maxims, ostensibly from his plays, were widely known.

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partly out of indignation at the Printer, and partly to gratifie my Friends, I am perswaded to make a th[o]rough traduction, and proceede on the worke, towards which I am now so greately encouraged in the hopes and expectations of your Presenc and oracular assistances; whither I shall certainely referr all such difficulties, as may in the interim occurr. Hasten, therefore, Deare Sir, to him who shall heartily embrace you, and extreamely cherish the good fortune that shall bring you to me one who so passionatly desires to see you, and so much honour you, as Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 17: May: 1657.

Elizabeth Puckering Letter 117 [114] June 8, 1657 f 80

Epistle CXIIII To my Lady Puckering:

Madam, If to accknowledg a Crime, were to expiat it, my apprehension of your just indignation would disband, after your Ladyship shall have received this Expresse. For I even blush to say it. I am both a debtor to your Commands, and your last letter: yet neither with designe of ingratitude, or the least remissenesse in your Service. But because it was my hopes to accompany my answer, with the effect of your injunction; which till now I could not complye without without greate diffidenc of the Seacret, till I should receive it from a person,1 whose arival I dayly expected, and is now but lately come over. But e’re I make you a farther account of that; give me leave to congratulat the health of my dearest Lady, and best neighbour Sir Harry:2 Madam, the Parable of the Samaritan shews us that our Neighbour3 is not allways he that dwells neerest us; but he that most loves us: and if this be a Convertible proposition, I shall ever glory in a relation to which I pretend with a passion inviolable – beyond all impeachments of distanc or intervall of place. Madam, we languish here for your presenc, and live onely in contemplations of your virtues. Madam, I will once more hope to see you, yet and it is that onely has preserved me hithertoo from seeking to augment my Solitude, and remove. Madam, be not cruell, least your Servants despaire. Hope is a good breakfast, but an ill Supper. I am my dearest Lady, Madam Your etc. Says-Court 8 June: 1657

1 probably Elizabeth Mordaunt 2 Henry Puckering 3 The Puckerings still owned Charlton House in Kent but also lived at The Priory in Warwick.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jeremy Taylor Letter 118 [115] June 9, 1657 f 80

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Epistle CXV To Dr. *Taylor1

[LM: *to come and christen my son: George]2 Sir, I heartily accknowledg the Divine mercys to me, both in this, and many other instances of his goodnesse to me: but for no earthly concernement more then for what he has conveyed me by your charity and Ministration towards my eternal and better Interest; and for which I wish that any new gradations of duty to God, or accknowledgments to you from me, may in the least proportion second my greate obligations of duty to God and which you continue to reinforce by new and indelible favours; which I know my selfe to be so much the more unworthy off; as I am infinitely short of the least perfection that you ascribe to me. And because you best know how much a truth that is, I have least no reason to looke upon that part of your letter, but as upon your owne Emanations, which like the beames of the Sunn on darke and opacke bodys make them shine indeede faintly, and by reflection: Every one knows from whenc they are derived, and where is their native fountaine: And since this is all, the Tribute which such dim lights repay τὰ σὰ ἐκ τω˜ ν σω˜ ν σοὶ προσφερομεν.3 I must never hope to oblige you; but what I am able, that I will doe. Sir, I had forgotten to tell you (and it did indeede extreamely trouble you me) that you are to expect my Coach to waite on you presently after dinner, that you are not to expose your selfe to the casualty of the Tydes in repairing to doe so Christian an offic for Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 9: June, 1657.

1 See Taylor’s letter of 9 June (Harvard bMS Eng 991; Diary [1887] III, 97; Beal, Index, Taylor 22), with Evelyn’s draft response. 2 George Evelyn was baptized on 10 June (Diary III.194). He died in infancy. 3 “Thine own of thine own we offer unto thee” (Greek Orthodox liturgy).

210 George Tuke Letter 119 [116] June 9, 1657 f 80v

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Epistle CXVI To my Cousen Tuke.

Sir, It has bin a thing designed (ab initio) to intitle you in a dubble Cognation to this little Infant,1 by our mutual requests, that you will become one of its Susceptors, and assistants in making him a Christian. This favour I the more easily promise my selfe, not onely because it is a thing of Course amongst friends (though on our part to be esteemed for a very greate obligation) but because I desire it may be honoured with your name, which has ever bin the most signal in our Family, and that I do unfainedly wish, I might upon a like encounter, be thought worthy to serve you, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 9: June: 1657.

Jacques Le Franc1 Letter 120 [117] June 18, 1657 f 80v

Epistle CXVII2 To Monsieur Le Franc.

[*The French Minister at Norwich, whom I caused to be ordained by a Bishop etc.3 he was once a Papist: and of the Pope’ Oratorians order.] Sir, Give me Leave to take the same Libertie, and to make use of a Languag whereby I can best expresse my Selfe affection, and the resentiments I have for your friendly letter. I am extreamely glad to understand you have found so much civility and encouragement in the Place where you take so much paines: Dignus est operarius mercede suâ;4 and you cannot

1 George Evelyn, son (1657–8). Evelyn records his death from a “dropsy” on 15 April 1658 (Diary III.210–11). 1 Jacques Le Franc (d. 1680; Diary). He was minister of the Walloon church in Norwich (1657–64) and rector in the same city of St Clement’s (1668) and St John’s, Maddermarket (1677). Evelyn first heard him deliver a sermon in 1655 (Diary III.160) and introduced him to Jeremy Taylor in 1656 (III.171) who proposed him for ordination in the same year (III.172). 2 This letter is in reply to one from Le Franc on 29 May 1657 (Add 15948: f 63 [29.5.1657]). 3 Evelyn describes his role in Le Franc’s ordination in Diary III.172 (6 May, 1656). 4 “the labourer is worthy of his hire.” Luke 10:7; 1 Timothy 5:18

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but receive a greate deale of Satisfaction in discharging what you have undertaken, with so much fruit and integrity. But Sir, I must no ways owne any of those particular favours, which you are pleased to repeate, as derived from me; they have bin the least effects of my esteeme for you; and what you have don me the honour in accepting of, so that till I shall be in some better capacity to serve you, I hope you will forbeare to reproch me. In the meane tyme, Sir, I am infinitely pleased that (through any effects of mine and the providenc of God) your Judgment is so well established, and your expressions so Cordial for the Church of England. It is that for which I give God thankes: Proceede, Deare Sir, to adorne by your profession the Holy Function, the gift you have received, and that Church which you have with so much prudenc embraced, that your piety, your Learning and the Successe of your labours, may do honour to God in the greate interest of Soules, and be the best conviction of the dignity of your Ordination above the new invention of the Classis5 Hæc meditare, in his esto: ut tuus profectus manifestus sit inter omnes.6 Je suis Monsieur Vostre etc. Says-Court: 18 June: 1657.

Charles Harbord Letter 121 [118] June 21, 1657 ff 80v–1

Epistle CXVIII To Sir Charles Herbert.

Sir, I was very sorry to find my endeavors to serve you in the transaction of this affaire1 so hardly expounded, as that you should conceive my Letter compounded of reflections, other then such as to acquaint you with what I received under my Unkles owne hand and which (if this doe not perfectly vindicate me) I shall transmitt to you, upon your least intimation. It is very true, that the proposition which you left with my Aunt2 was a thing indeede de novo, and had no relation to former discourses (as you are pleasd to call them) but sinc she told you nothing could be determin’d, in that variation, ’til she had first acquainted her Husband with it; and that you thought it reasonable it should be so; I ad as much admire you should be offended, that I send you his replye, and the particulars wherein he requests things proportionable to so much equity. And this Sir, I thinke dos no 5 a Presbyterian division of the clergy 6 “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear unto all.” 1 ­Timothy 4:15 1 On 25 June and 7 November 1656, Evelyn went to London to see Harbord “to treate about a match betweene his Eldest Sonn and my Co. Eliz: Hungerford ” (Diary III.175–6, 184) which was unsuccessful. Elizabeth was the daughter of Edward Hungerford of Cadenham, Mary Evelyn’s uncle. See Letter 98. 2 Susan Prettyman Hungerford

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way emancipate my judgment to the conveniency of my friend (as you tearme it) nor, I presume have I in anything carried my selfe missbecomming the nature of the Treaty so far as I have bin concerned therein; having onely had the honour so far to be the common medium, and property of you both, without other designe then to serve you freely, and nobly. But I perceive Sir, that the Gentleman your Sonn is reserved for som greater Fortune; for since you are not pleased to comply with my Unkle in any particulars (though your Selfe thought it just to make new propositions) I shall easily (according to your intimation) desist to give you farther trouble; but wish you as ample a fortune for your Sonn, as you doe the Lady, my kindswoman; though more felicity I cannot, because I know her qualities admitt of no Superior: and so I kisse your hands, and remaine Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 21 June: 1657.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 122 [119] June 28, 1657 f 81

Epistle CXIX To Dr. Taylor

Sir, I intended (according to my promise) to give you a visite upon Thursday, that I might then have had the honour to waite on you to my Lord Hattons;1 but you know what an accident2 has happned, and how apt a one it is to carry its excuse about with it: But I hope it will be no where to your prejudice if I might assure my selfe of the honour of seeing you here one Wednesday; because I shall then have a handsome opportunity to make both my Brothers knowne to you, who very much desire your accquaintanc. Sir, I returne you a thousand accknowledgments for the incomparable Booke3 which you sent me, and do wish you may find many Friends worthy those rare Characters: But my feare is, though in several persons there may reside many of them, and so divers individuals goe to the complexion of such a Fri[e]nd; yet to encounter all those perfections in one person (which neither Toxaris nor Menesippus4 ever could pretend to) will prove no lesse difficult, then to find the Orator of Cicero, the Architect of Vitruvius, or the Superlative Good of the 1 Christopher Hatton, 1st Baron Hatton of Kirby (1605–70; ODNB). He was a distant relation of Evelyn (through Evelyn’s uncle Thomas Evelyn of Long Ditton) and befriended Evelyn and lent him money in Paris. Many of his papers are with the Nicholas papers that came into Evelyn’s possession through Sir Richard Browne. On his tour of England with his wife in 1654, Evelyn visited Hatton’s home, Kirby Hall, in Northamptonshire (Diary III.133–4). 2 In Letter 123, written two days later, Evelyn refers to Mary Evelyn’s “cold, assiduous sweats, and feavorish returnes.” 3 A Discourse of the nature, offices and measures of Friendship, with rules of concluding it (London, 1657). 4 These are characters in Toxaris: A Dialogue of Friendship by Lucian (b. c.620 AD).

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Philosophers, Things rather to be desired then hoped for. Yet this I can affirme, that if any such there be, there lives none more worthy of him then He who knows how so well to define him; For he onely understands how to treate him, and how to vallue him. And yet with all this, I cannot thinke you would have employ’d so much tyme in describing what it were impossible to find; and therefore, abating onely those things which are ὀυκ ἐφ ὕμι˜ ν,5 I find nothing which more resembles your selfe; For it cannot be, that what were not before in you, should come so handsomely from you: And if he be the best friend from whom we derive the greatest benefit, I have then found him whom you describe; and shall importune you no farther then to let him know that I am realy and unfainedly Sir his most humble etc. Says Court: 28 June: 1657.

George Evelyn Letter 123 [120] June 30, 1657 f 81r–v

Epistle CXX To my Brother George Evelyn.

Deare Brother I am not pleased at the intemperanc of my Ladys1 noble present, because you not onely oblige us, but oppresse us with your kindnesse, and leave no place for an accknowledgment big enough to expresse it. This realy it was which made me wish I could with any decency have found a person that might exempt my Lady of the Trouble she so kindly accepted: Because I knew the greatenesse of the Obligation alone could never be returned by me with equal and commutative justic; your selfe having bin also so much before hand with us in this kind, that the best, and the noblest things I can produce proclaime your bounty and the greatenesse of your mind. By this you render my House a perfect Lottery, or prepare it for Plunder. Realy, I could reprove my Lady for it, and had nothing to preserve my temper, but her fetters of silver and the cords of so signal a friendship. But Brother, though I professe (and have Reason) to vallue this infinitely; yet her Love, and affection to us is of so much greater Vallue, that the honour which she did us was of it selfe so high an obligation, that this can add nothing to it: her Ladyships kindnesse and noblenesse to us having always so exceeded, that I know of no other ambition, I can be capable off, then how I may worthily resent the least of your Favours. And yet you thinke this Charge is not sufficiently considerable, unlesse you also invite a trouble by your kind Invitation. I pray God restore my deare Wife to so much health (which after a slow recovery she now gives us some hopes of, 5 “not in our power”; see Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1. 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn was one of the godparents of Evelyn’s short-lived son, George. She had probably sent a generous baptismal gift.

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though her cold, assiduous sweats, and feavorish returnes keepe her yet in bedd and very weake) as both she and I may live to accknowledg these kindnesses of yours by any real demonstrations of a true and worthy affection, such as becomes our endearements. But Sir, if I should attempt to make a perfect rehersal of my Debts to you and my Lady here; this paper would be too narrow to comprehend them, and it would be beyond the Patienc of your Servant to beare it, who tells me you are designed for Wotton this very day; and therefore prays to be dismissed. I beseech Almighty God to blesse you, and my deare Lady, which is the best returne I can make for all your noble Favours to Deare Brother Your etc. Says-Court: 30 June: 1657.

Elizabeth Puckering Letter 124 [121] September 2, 1657 ff 81v–2

Epistle CXXI To my Lady Newton.

Madam, I have too greate a Losse,1 and am too deeply sensible of it, to quit the remembranc of so noble and deare friends at this Interval, and in a conjuncture where they are so precious: Madam, the honour which I did ever preserve for your Ladyship comes from a principle which is the least obnoxious to the depravednesse of evill tymes, or a worse nature; so that I hope you will never entertaine so much as a thought that may prejudic that incomparable Ideä of your Virtues which allways presents it selfe to me, when I would converse with any thing that is most perfect and agreable. If I expressed inclinations to abandon this habitation, it has bin, because I did not thinke it worthy the keeping after it became destitute of so worthy a Neighbour; But Madam, I am yet Here, and that is my infelicity; because I discover no Symptoms of your Ladyships Returne.2 However, Deare Madam, I conjure you to believe that no mutation of my condition whatsoever, can, in the least violate a respect so unspotted and intire, as is that by which I both love and revere your Person. Madam the fairest productions grow not by observation of minutes; but larger periods. Friendship is that noble Plant, where the Soyle is ingenuous, and the roots grow deepe whilst it lies most hidden; so that, till your Sweete and benigne influences are altogether eclipsed, I shall forever render your Ladyship these fruits of my accknowledgments for your many and greate favours to Madam Your etc. Says-Court; 2d: September 1657.

1 The departure of the Puckerings from Charlton House, Kent, to live permanently in The Priory, Warwick, had occurred in the previous year (Diary III.182). 2 Henry Puckering did not sell Charlton until 1659.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Edward Reynolds1 Letter 125 [122] December 3, 1657 f 82

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Epistle CXXII To Dr. Raynolds.

Sir, Understanding that the East India Merchants have requested you to preach before the Company on Friday next, my humble suite to you is, that you will be pleased particularly to insist upon the Sacrednesse of that sollemn Oath which hath bin taken by Us.2 I am the more earnest to presse it; because that by my conversation amongst some, I observe men too apt and dilligent in contriving how they may equivocat, and evade it, which must needes end in the total Subversion of this hopefull designe, and the universal detriment of many innocent and well meaning Adventurers, who shall concredite their Tallent to faithlesse and negligent stewards.3 I suppose Sir, you have bin informed by the obstructions in our first Assembly, how triflingly, yet how industriously the Anabaptistical Spirit appeared against an Oath, the expresse directions of our Charter, and so essential to the Consolidations of Communities: Yet these men were contented that the Governor, and Comittè should be sworne, so themselves might be at liberty; which could have no other significaiton in it, then that whilst others were obliged to transact uprightly, a few of those (who were to be principal Agents abroad) might enjoy the immunity of Free-Trade, and other oblique wayes of prejudicing the Society at home: I doe not add that the proclivity of this Age to Atheisme, to Injustic and the violation of all things that are Sacred, and adopted into Religion dos reinforce the necessity of your Caution upon this particular; since it is to be presumed that the representation which you shall make of so Sacred an Obligation, apposite, and becomming the nature of this weighty affaire, may very much prevaile with, and rectifie the Judgments and Designes of your Audition. It will be an exceeding engagement to the Company, and in particular oblige Sir, your most humble, though unknowne, Servant etc. London the 3d: December 1657.

1 Edward Reynolds (1599–1676; ODNB). He was briefly vice-chancellor of Oxford and dean of Christ Church (1648–50/51), and warden of Merton (1660–1). He was consecrated bishop of Norwich in 1661. 2 Letter 126 refers to Evelyn’s investment in the East India Company. 3 In Diary III.201–2, Evelyn records his fear that Anabaptists, who were previously private traders to the east and were, by their religion, forbidden to swear an oath, would subvert the new company. He notes the “dissorder” over the oath, and Reynolds’s sermon concerning “all the Perfections of a trusty person in publique affaires.”

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Philip Stanhope1 Letter 126 [123] December 6, 1657 f 82r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CXXIII To the Earle of Chesterfield

My Lord, It is now three or fowre Moneths sinc Mr. Ediscomb2 did expresse it as your Lordships pleasure, that if I could not advanc £1000 more, I would receive in that smale stock which your honour was pleased to command of your Servant; and that in reguard the motion was suddaine I would prepare my selfe for it, which I promised to do by Michaelmas tearme. These are to informe your Lordship, that I have bin to receive your Commands, at your House; but your Lordships absenc preventing me of that honour; I am bold by this addresse to let your Lordship understand, that I am now ready to receive the mony in case your Lordships desires still continue; and that however, you will be pleased to order, that £500 of the money may be payd in some tyme this next tearme at farthest, because I am particularly engaged to dispose of such a Summ to the East India Company, within a short tyme, and upon a prefixed day: As for the remainder, it shall be at your Lordships pleasure, whither you will still continue it, or pay it in: and of your honours ressolution resolution herein I shall beg that you will be pleased to signifie your Commands to Mr. Thurland,3 or to my Lord, your honours most humble etc. London 6: December 1657.

Elizabeth Puckering Letter 127 [124] January 6, 1657 f 82v

Epistle CXXIV To my Lady Newton.

Madam, I have seene your kindnesse and tasted of your Friendship in so signal an instanc, that if any misfortune should render make this Letter arrive later then it is designed, there were 1 Philip Stanhope, 2nd earl of Chesterfield (1633–1713; ODNB, P). Succeeding his grandfather as 2nd earl in 1656, Stanhope was a staunch Royalist during the Interregnum and became chamberlain to Catherine of Braganza at the Restoration and a privy councillor in 1681. As his second wife he married in 1662 Lord Ossory’s sister, Lady Elizabeth Butler (1646–65), daughter of James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond. 2 probably Chesterfield’s steward. The Calendar of the Committee for Compounding 263: 84 reports that on 25 October 1659, a “Mr Edgcomb,” who had been a messenger between Chesterfield and Sir Henry Every, refused to give evidence concerning Chesterfield’s role in Booth’s Uprising. Evelyn had lent Stanhope £1500 in 1655 (Diary III.151). 3 Edward Thurland

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wittnesses enough at the eating of the Venison to testifie how acceptable it was, and how obligingly you impart your favours to me. But Madam, the returne which I am able to make you for all this beares so smale a proportion; that unlesse my blushes were vocal (which realy reproch my impuden[c]e) and could expiate the presumption, I should be tempted to a reconciliation, and the lesse regrett at the distanc of the Priory. For your Ladyships favours are so greate, and my merits so little, that as nothing could more rejoyce me then the honour of seeing you; so would nothing certainely more confound me. This Madam is a Paradox: but I rest upon your Ladyships goodnesse who measure not your Charities by Interest: since so we receive blessings from heaven without the least hope to repay them. Madam, I can better smile at the accident of the Depilatory, because it gave divertisment to your Ladyship: But I am sorry if it were to the prejudic of any body you love; and therefore for the future, there should be continual tryals made ’till it easily quitts the skin, and then it is to be taken off, and the place washed that the operation proceede no farther. Madame, My deare Wife, concerning whom you so kindly enquire, is not so forward to returne gratifie me with the returne your Ladyship imagines, as having lost her best Ideä, and the presenc of her designed Goship, and best of Friends, to whom she dos by me present her most humble Servic and all other recognitions of your Ladyships favours to Madam Your etc. Says-Court: 6 January 1657.

Thomas Henshaw Letter 128 [125] January 6, 1657#1 ff 82v–3

Epistle CXXV To Mr. Henshaw

Sir, I was well pleased to find you so willing to relieve me of a burthen which I would yet (without murmuring) have carried to the extreamest promanade of that Garden, if the sence of my undertaking had not made you so willing to acquitt me, and which I should have received as the greatest obligation did not the honour which you, and that noble Person (you mentioned) designe me, pursue me with a greater; and to which you may still superadd, if you shall please to make my excuse for not waiting on him in returne of his last civility, though don me in my absenc. But that I may no longer deprive my selfe of so much hapinesse, I beseech you to honour me with a friendly notic when you intend

1 This letter is misdated. Evelyn notes on 30 December 1656, “Dined with me Sir William Pastons sonn, Mr. Henshaw & Mr. Clayton” (Diary III.186). Paston and Henshaw had also visited him on 23 April 1656 (170).

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to come over, that I may be secure of enjoying you without any pretence or impediment, and as I ought, for a favour so greately to my advantage. Sir, I beseech you to present my humble Servic to Mr. *Paston,2 [RM:*since Earle of Yarmoth:] and to adjourne my hapinesse to a suddaine no long expectation. I wish had my selfe determined to have learned it from your owne mouth to morrow, if your Mercury did not assure me of your being from home. Sir, I remaine for this, and all your other favours Your etc. Says-Court: 6: January: 1657.

Benjamin Maddox Letter 129 [126] January 10, 1657#1 ff 83–4

Epistle CXXVI To Mr. Maddox.

[LM: In behalfe of Dr. Needham,2 to assist him on the charge of his Commencement: Cambridge] Sir, I perceive by the successe of my Letter3 and your most civil Reply, that I was not mistaken, when I thought so nobly of you, and spake those little things neither in diffidenc of your bounty or to instruct it, but to give you notic when it would arrive most seasonably, and because I found the modesty of the Person might injure his good fortune, as well as the greatenesse of your kindnesse. (And though there was no doubt but that my Lady your Grandmother,4 had already noble inclynations to serve him; yet when your care should be superadded and appeare in it too, it must needes become the more acceptable to the Receiver. And in Benefits of this nature we must, you know, secure even circumstances, that what is to be but once don, be Intirely don, and as you have don this, opportunely and without asking; since non tulit gratis, qui cum rogasset accepit:5 But I have don with this 2 Sir Robert Paston 1 This letter must be misdated, as it reports on the outcome of the appeal Evelyn had made in Letter 111 (early 1657?), and makes suggestions to Maddox about his itinerary in the south of France. Maddox reports on his visit to Montpellier, and responds to Evelyn’s queries in his letter of 25 September 1657 (Add 78316: f 118–19 [25.9.n.d.]), which Evelyn seems unsure of dating, as his endorsement states “about 1656.” A date of early summer 1657 seems likely. 2 Jasper Needham 3 Letter 111 4 Jane Garrard, Maddox’s grandmother and the aunt of George Evelyn’s second wife, Mary Cotton Evelyn 5 “The man who received a benefit because he asked for it, does not get it for nothing.” Seneca, De Beneficiis 2.1.4 (Basore, trans)

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Sir, if you pardon the Liberty; The next newes I shall write is that your Tutor is a Doctor, and the Paradox will be, that his Pupil has made him so, and that must needes bring both joy and honour to you.) Sir, you are pleased to informe me of your Course,6 and I cannot but infinitely approve of your motions, because I find they are designed to places in order to things of greater advantag then the Vanity of the Eye onely, which to other Travilers, has usualy bin the Temptation of making Tours: For at Marselles and Tolon you will informe your selfe of the strength and furniture of the French on the Mediterranean Seas; you will see the Gallys; the Slaves, and in fine, a very map of the Levant; for should you travell as far as Constantinople it selfe, or to the bottome of the straites,7 you would find but still the same thing; and the Maritime townes of Italy are no other. Nismes, dos so much abound with Antiquities, that the differenc twixt it and Rome, is, that I thinke it has very few more worth the visiting, and therefore it may as well present you with an Ideä of that greate Citty, as if you were an ocular spectator of it: for it is a perfect Epitome of it. Montpelier is the next in order; where, I suppose you will make some longer stay: because there are Schollars, and students and many rarities about it.8 There is one Peter Borell9 a Physitian, who hath lately published Centuries Historical and Medicophysical, where, in his first observation de Planta Alöe he speakes of a Tree,10 that brake out of the Earth in the Garden there, with a noyse as if it had bin the report of a Canon, and in fowre Dayes rosse, to be of so prodigious a stature, ut etiam quercum mediocrem aequet (i) treginta circiter palmorum altitudine; and that with such celerity that (to use his owne expressions) incrementum ejus, etiam oculis percipi possit:11 This, he says, grows in the Gardin of one Monsieur Perier12 an Apothecary at Montpeliers, and speakes it so confidently that I know not how to discredit it: But I shall be much better assured by your 6 In the letterbooks, this is one of the first of many letters that Evelyn was to write to protégés about what should be seen and done on a continental tour, although he had treated the subject extensively in the prefatory letter to The State of France (1652). It echoes Evelyn’s own tour of the continent in the mid-1640s and foreshadows both his “Elysium Britannicum” (first announced to Sir Thomas Browne in 1660 [Letter 165] and Browne, Works, IV.273–9) and his continuing interest in gardens. 7 the Dardenelles 8 Montpellier was an important stop on the continental tour. See Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 295–303. 9 Pierre Borel, Historiarum, et obseruationum medico-physicarum, centuriæ IV (Paris, 1656; in the 1687 library catalogue). Borel (Petrus Borellius) (c.1620–71) studied at Montpellier and received his medical degree from the University of Cahors in 1643. In 1653 he went to Paris and produced works on chemistry, medicine, philology, antiquities, and the plurality of worlds. In 1654 he was named physician to Louis XIV. See Chabert, “Pierre Borel (1620?–1671).” Maddox responds: “Concerning the Aloës plant you mentioned I have since informed myself, and can assure you there is such an one, & saw it in the Kings garden here; it is a hundred years in growing, & at the hundred years end from being a plant becomes in 8 or 10. Days a very high tree, but with so great a violence & celerity, that it rends the earth & makes a very great ravage, & so great a noyse that I heard say from a credible marchant in this town, who has heard it, that it may very well equall the report of a Cannon” (f 118r–v). Evelyn incorporates these remarks into “Elysium Britannicum,” See Elysium Britannicum, ed. Ingram, 412. 10 quoted in John Ray, Historia Plantarum (London, 1688; Eve.c.16), II, 1198. Ray was in Montpellier in 1665 (Stoye, English Travellers Abroad, 295–6). 11 “so that it equals even a modest oak tree around 30 palms in height”; “he could see its growth even with his eyes.” 12 Maddox confirms that the “defunct Monsieur Perier” had “the tree in his garden” (f 118v).

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particular and ocular inquiry. Montpelier was wont to be a place of rare opportunitie for the Learning the many excellent receipts to make Perfumes, Sweete pouders, Pomambers, Antidots, and divers such curiosities which I know you will not omitt: For though they are indeede but Trifles in comparison of more solid things; yet, if ever you should affect to live a retired life hereafter; you will take more pleasure in those Recreations then you can now imagine: And realy, Gentlemens despising those vulgar things, deprive themselves of many handsom advantages to improve their tyme, and do Servic to the desiderats of Philosophy, which is the onely part of Learning which is best illustrated by Experiments, and after the study of Religion, certainely the most noble and virtuous. Every body hath Book-learning, which verily is of much ostentation, but of smale fruit unlesse this also be superadded to it; and therefore I conjure you Sir, that you do not lett passe, what ever offers it selfe to you in this nature, from whom so ever they come. Commonly indeede persons of meane condition possesse them; because their necessity, renders them industrious: but if men of Qualitie made it their delight also, Arts could not but receive infinite advantages, because they have both meanes, and leasure to improve and cultivat them; and as I sayd before, there is nothing by which a good man, may more sweetely passe his tyme in. Such a Person I looke upon as a Common Breathing Treasure, a blessing to his conversation and an incomparable advantag ornament to his country. And this is to you Sir, the true Seede-tyme, and wherein the foundations of all noble things must be layed. Make it not the field of Repentanc: For what can be more glorious then to be ignorant of nothing, but of Vice, which indeede has no solid existenc, and therefore is nothing. Seeke therefore after nature, and contemplate that greate Volume of the Creatures whilst you have no other distractions: Procure to see Experiments, furnish your selfe with receipts, models, and Things which are rare: In fine, neglect nothing, that at your returne, you may bring home other things then Talke, Feather, and Ribbon the ordinary traffiq of vaine and fantastique Persons. I must believe that when you are in those parts of Franc you will not passe Beaugensier13 without a visit; for certainely, though the Curiosities may be much dispersed sinc the tyme of the most noble Pierescius,14 yet the very Genius of that place cannot but infuse noble admirable thoughts into you. But I suppose you carry the Life15 of that Illustrious and incomparable virtuoso always about you in your motions; not onely because it is so portable; but for that it is written in such excellent language by the pen of the greate Gassendus; and will be so fit an Itinerant with you. When you returne to Paris againe, it will be good to refresh your Gymnastique Exercises, to frequent the Court, the Barr, and the Schooles sometymes: But above all, procure acquaintanc, and settle a Correspondenc with learned men; by whom there is so many advantages to be made and experiments gotten. And I beseech you forget not to informe your selfe in as dilligently as may be, in things that belong to Gardning, for that will serve both your selfe, and your friends, for an infinite diversion. And so will you have nothing to add to your 13 Evelyn records stopping at Beaugency on the Loire near Orléans in 1644 (Diary II.136–9). Maddox regrets “that I was so unhapplily ignorant, as to have omitted the sight of it” (f 119). 14 Nicholas Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580–1637). See Miller, Peiresc’s Europe. 15 William Rand’s translation of Gassendi’s life of Peiresc, The mirrour of true nobility (London, 1657) was dedicated to Evelyn (see Letter 91).

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­ ccomplishment when you come Home, but to looke over the Municipal Laws of your A owne Country, which your Interest, and your necessities will prompt you to. And then you may sweetely passe the rest of your Days in reaping the harvest of all your paines, either by Serving your Country in some publique Employment (if the integrity of the Tymes invite you) or, by securing your owne felicity, and indeede the greatest upon Earth, in a privat unenvied even, Condition, with those advantages which you will bring it of Piety and knowledg. Ô the Delices and reward of thus employing our Youth; what a beauty and satisfaction to have spent ones Youth innocently and virtuously! What a Calme and Serenity to the Mind! what a Glory to your Country, to your friends, a contentment to your Instructors, in summe, how greate a recompenc and advantage to all your concernements! And all this Sir, I foresee and Augure of Mr. Maddox, of whome may this be the least portion of his Panegyricque, whilst it serves me onely to testifie how greate a part I take in all your prosperity, and how greate an honour I shall ever esteeme it to be accounted Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 10 January 1657.

Conrad Burgh Letter 130 [127] January 12, 1657 f 84

Epistle CXXVII To Monsieur Conrad Burgh.

Sir, I have esteemed it one of my greatest misfortunes, that sinc I had the hapinesse to begin a Conversation with a Person of so much honour, I have had so few opportunities of cherishing, and improving it; especialy, when I consider the now antiquity of our first acquaintanc, the Place, our mutual Genius;1 and, in particular your owne extraordinary humanity in searching me out with your friendly Letters:2 To this infelicity succeeded likewise my Absenc in the farthest parts North of England,3 at a tyme when I should most have testified my resentiments for your favours, by serving of your friend to the uttermost of my power: But having now at last the happinesse to be knowne to my Lord Embassador4 (with whom I frequently discourse of you) and his Excellency so freely offering me the opportunity I have so long sought, of conveying my Servic to you, I could no longer

1 Evelyn had met Burgh in Rome. 2 See Add 78316: f 23 (9/19.1.1652); f 67 (13/23.5.1654); and f 75 (22.9.1654). Later in 1658 Burgh wrote to Evelyn from Amsterdam apologizing for having been unable to help Evelyn’s correspondent Dr Berenclow in his attempt to purchase works of art for him (Add 78316: f 158 [29.8.1658]). 3 Evelyn was in the north of England in July–August 1654 and the northeast in July 1656. 4 Evelyn records several visits with Willem Nieupoort in Diary III.

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deferr the giving you this account of my Silenc, as well to renew our Acquaintanc, and Correspondency, as to beg of you that I may receive the honour of your Commands, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 12 January 1657.

John Barkstead1 Letter 131 [128] January 14, 1656#2 f 84r–v

Epistle CXXVIII To the Lieutennant of the Towre

[LM: This was written for another gentleman of acquaintance with the Villain: (who was now Lieutennant of the Towre. Baxter by name) for I never had the least knowledg of him.] Sir, I should begin with a greater Apologie for this Addresse, did not the consideration of the nature of your greate Employment, and my feares to importune them carry with them an Excuse which I have hope to believe you will easily admitt that I do not give you the importunity But as it is an Errour to be troublesome to greate Person[s] upon trifling ­affaires; so were it no lesse a crime to be silent in an occasion, wherein I may do an Act of Charity, and reconcile a Person to your good opinion, who has deserved so well, and I thinke is so innocent. Sir, I speake in behalfe of Dr. Taylor,3 of whom I understand you have conceived some displeasure for the mistake of his *Printer [LM: *setting the picture of Christ praying before his Collection of Offices,4 contrary to a new Act concerning scandalous Pictures, as they call them.]; and the rediest way that I can thinke off to do him honour, and bring him into esteeme with you, is, to beg of you, that you will please to give him leave to waite upon you, that you may learne from his owne mouth (as well as the world has don from his Writings) how averse he is from any thing, that he may be charged withall to his prejudic, and how greate an adversary he has ever bin in particular 1 John Barkstead (d. 1662; ODNB), a regicide, was returned to England in 1661 and executed at Tyburn. 2 This letter must be misdated, and probably belongs to 1658, as its place in the letterbook suggests. Spurr (ODNB entry on Taylor) suggests that it “may be connected to the council of state’s recommendation of 22 December 1657 that Peter Gunning and Taylor be summoned for ‘an account of the frequent meetings of multitudes of people held with them’ and that the ban on the prayer book be enforced (CSP Dom., 1657–58: 226).” Taylor left for Ireland in June 1658. 3 Jeremy Taylor 4 A Collection of Offices or Forms of Prayer in Cases Ordinary and Extraordinary (London, 1658; Eve.a.56), a work intended as a substitute for the suppressed Book of Common Prayer, was entered in Stationers’ Register in 1657 but published in 1658.

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to the Popish Religion, against which he has employed his pen so signally, and with such successe. And when by this favour you shall have don justic to all Interests, I am not without faire hopes, that I shall have mutualy obliged you, both by doing my endeavor to serve my worthy and pious Friend; and by bringing so inocent and deserving a Person into your Protection, who am Sir, Your etc.

From Greenewich 14 January 1656.

Richard Browne Letter 132 [129] February 14, 1658* ff 84v–5

Epistle CXXIX To Sir Richard Browne.1

Sir, By the Reverse of this Medall,2 you will perceive how much reason I had to be affraid of my Felicity, and how greately it did import me to do all that I could to prevent what I have apprehended, what I deserved, and what now I feele, God, has Sir, taken from us that Deare Child, your Grandson:3 Your Godsonn; and with him all the joy and satisfaction that could be derived from the greatest hopes. A losse so much the more to be deplored, as our contentments were extraordinary and the indications of his future perfections as faire and legible as, yet, I ever saw, heard or read off in one so very young: You have Sir heard so much of this, that I may say it with the lesse crime and suspicion. And indeede his whole life was from the beginning so great a Miracle, that it were hard to exceede in the description of it, and which I should here yet attempt, by summing up all the prodigies of it, and what a Child at 5 yeares old (for he was little more) is capable off, had I not given you so many minute and particular accounts of it by several expresses, when I then mentioned those things with the greatest joy, which now I write with as much sorrow and amasement. But so it is, that it has pleased God to dispose of him, and that Blossome (Fruit rather I may say) is fallen; a six days Quotidian having deprived us of him, an accident that has made so greate a breach in all my Contentments, as I do never hope to see repaired: because we are not in this life to be fed with wonders; and that I know you will scarse hardly be able to support the affliction and the losse, who beare so greate a part in every thing that concernes me. But thus we must be reduced when God sees good, and I submitt for sinc I had therefore this blessing for a Punishment, and that I 1 Based on Add 78221 f: 77 (15.2.1658). Browne replied to this letter in one of 2 March 1658 (Add 15948: f 64 [2.3.1658]). 2 Evelyn had rings made in his memory with the words “Dominus Abstulit” (“the Lord hath taken away”). 3 Richard Evelyn, son. In Diary III.206–9, Evelyn describes the boy’s final illness and death, and says that he died of “a Quartan Ague.”

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might feele the effects of my greate unworthynesse: But I have beged of God that I might pay the fine heare; and if to such belonged the kindgome of Heaven I have one depositum there, Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit,4 blessed be his name; sinc without that consideration it were impossible to support it; for the stroke is so severe, that I find nothing in all Philosophy capable to allay the impression of it, beyond that of cutting the channell5 and dividing with our friends, who realy sigh on our behalfe, and mingle with our greater sorrows in accents of piety and compassion, which is all that can yet any ways alleviat the sadnesses of Deare Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 14 February 1657.

John Mordaunt Letter 133 [130] February 24, 1658* f 85

Epistle CXXX To Mr. *Mordant.

[RM: *Son to the Earle of Peterbourgh. now Lord Vicount Mordant] Sir, If an urgent occasion had not surprised me, I had immediatly made you this returne to your Commands; but your Expresse is wittnesse of that Accident,1 who encountred me upon the way, and I presume by the slow advanc of the Season, that the tyme is not lost to your prejudic. The Berries which I transmitt are to be sowed about the enteranc of March, in a Bed of well sifted mould somewhat more then halfe inch deepe: If this be in a Case or Large box, it will be the more secure: They must be set in a coole place, and within lesse then two Moneths they will appeare, and may very early (the next Spring after) be transplanted into those places which you designe for them, without any other trouble or œconomie. Sir, I am greately obliged to you for your late civility, and that in the Circle of so greate a Jubilie2 you could Sympathize with our afflictions, and realy Sir, I have found that the Sharing Griefe is like to the cutting of Rivers, and has don the part of no little diversion to us: it is the best signification of a noble mind, and it cannot be feared now that Tyme should snatch the honour from me of composing my Sorrows, to the Cure whereoff you have so much contributed. Sir, I am heartily displeased that I can serve you 4 “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” Job 1:21 5 the lessening the grief by spreading it among friends; see Letter 133. 1 i.e., of meeting with Evelyn 2 Although this seems to refer to the anniversary of Mordaunt’s marriage, Evelyn’s first notice of their ­wedding was on 1 June 1657 (Diary III.194).

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in an Instanc of no greater concernement; but I shall beg of God to exempt you from these sad experiences, and do Augure to you, and my Lady, all happinesse in the Blessings you enjoy who am Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 24: February 1657.

Richard Browne Letter 134 [131] March 20, 1658* f 85r–v

Epistle CXXXI To Sir Richard Browne,

Sir, To pacifie your importunity, and your zeale for the composure of your poore Relations, after our very greate losse, I can onely tell you, that the Intervalls which we enjoy, and the short Truces which we sometymes have from the sad remembrances of our misfortunes, are chiefly due to the effects of your Letters, and the continued consolations of our Friends; so that I hope we shall do as becomes us, and not suffer this griefe to triumph over our Reason, or our Religion. My Wife is much refreshed with your kind letters, and indeede there is nothing wanting from all that love us, which can contribute to our settlement: onely that which is due to Nature will have its course, and a wound so deape and so deadly is not to be obduced without a scarr. Sir, be assured that I doe all I am able to comfort her, and to compose my selfe, that I may be the more thankfull for, and the more usefull to the rest whom God has yet spared me; and that I may live to resent this, and all other your many favours conferrd on Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 20 March 1657.

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Thomas Barlow Letter 135 [132] April 5, 1658 f 85v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CXXXII To Mr. *Barlow.1

[LM: *Protobibliothecary2 of the Bodlean Library at Oxford and then newly Provost of Queenes College there] Sir, Were I not perfectly assured that I had never dissobliged my noble friend Mr. Pett,3 I should not resent that as a reproach which has made him thus prodigal of your Civilities: For I realy blush at the Trifles which you are pleased to mention; and am displeased with all my heart, that it dos not yet lye in my power to testifie how much I esteeme my selfe obliged for the honour you doe me. You are indeede engaged to the Sedulity of Mr. Pett, and to the affection which he expresses for the adorning of that excellent Library: But so long as Mr. Barlow præsides there it dos want nothing which can contribute to its ultimat perfection. Sir, I do sincerely congratulate the late accesse to your Condition long sinc due to your merites;4 and I desire nothing more then that you will honour me with your Commands, who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 5 April: 1658.

1 Barlow had written Evelyn on 25 March, noting “I understand by my Friend Mr. Pett, that you have been pleased charitably to contribute some prints and a little book of drawings ... for our library; this paper comes to kiss your hand and give you hearty thanks for your continued kindness to us” (Diary [1887] III, 104). See Letter 84 and Letter 92. 2 Although Evelyn refers to Barlow as “Bibliothecarius” when describing his visit to Oxford in 1654 (­ Diary III.106) and identifying him in Letter 92, Barlow’s actual post was Protobibliothecary, the title of the senior keeper of the collection according to Bodley’s statutes for the library. 3 Sir Peter Pett 4 Barlow was elected provost of the Queen’s College on the death of Gerald Langbaine.

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Peter Pett Letter 136 [133] April 5, 1658 ff 85v–6

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Epistle CXXXIII To Mr. *Pett

[LM: *Fellow of All Soules in Oxford and Bachelor of Laws.] Sir, In what I have written to Mr. Barlow, you will perceive, to what a period you have obliged me, by making those meane things,1 which you were pleased to accept, an Instrument of such a Returne from you both, as I am ashamed to owne. I can by this onely discover how worthy you are to receive greater matters, and how sorry I am that I have am hithertoo bin no better qualified to gratifie my perfect inclynations towards the farther advancment of your ingenious designes.2 But I shall watch all opportunities with affection and Industry, by which I may hope to serve you or Mr. Barlow, and to cherish your Esteeme of me, if either by the Traduction of that Piece of Naudæus,3 or any other Commands of yours I may hope to conserve and secure it. As to your enquiry concerning Lucretius,4 I know not whither I may tell you I have translated it, till it have received your judicious approbation; but I have don what I was able, and had almost finished the last booke a little before God sent me that severe affliction in taking away my deare and prodigious Child;5 sinc which my Mind has bin so discomposed, that I have never so much as once touched those papers; nor indeede anything else with Satisfaction; and I may shortly give you another Instanc, by which you will find, how much it concerned me to mourne, that God found me so unworthy to keepe him longer, in whom I had so greate a felicity: But to him who sees what is best for us, I submitt; for I know Non eripitur nobis, sed recipitur à Deo, quem ille nobis præcario dederat, and (as your Law sayes has speakes it) commodati titulo.6 I may happly by the grace of God, cast an Eye againe upon those neglected Sheetes after a while, and (I hope) with the rest much improove the Version of the first, which came out with so many deformities both of my owne and the Printers, that I very much admire any man should be so prodigal of his Suffrages as to commend that which is so full of defects 1 Evelyn’s donation of prints to the Bodleian (see Letters 84, 92, and 135), and Barlow’s inclusion of Evelyn in the library’s Benefactors’ Register (see Diary [1887] III, 64; Diary III.385) 2 Evelyn is replying to Pett’s letter of 29 March (Add 78316: f 153v [29.3.1658]). A draft of this response is on the recto of the leaf. Evelyn had offered the manuscript of his translation of Naudé, and Pett (and Barlow) responded enthusiastically. 3 Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library ... By Gabriel Naudeus was not published by Evelyn until 1661. The manuscript is now with Barlow’s papers (Queen’s College, Oxford, Ms 231). 4 Evelyn’s translation had been published on 12 May 1656 (Diary III.173). In Pett’s letter of 29 March, he urged Evelyn to complete the work. 5 Richard Evelyn, son 6 “He is not snatched from us, but he is received by God, one whom He gave to us by entreaty and under the heading of a thing borrowed.” Hugo Grotius, “ Consolatoria Oratio ad patrem super morte,” Poemata omnia (Amsterdam, 1670), 317.

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and so imperfect, that scarsly pretends it to pardon; much lesse to prayse. I shall therefore make it my earnest request that those noble Personages which you tell me are weaving that Chaplet;7 may reserve it for some other head, and occasion; or when, to become the dignity which they designe me, I shall have performed something of more worthy, and merite. And by so doing Sir, you shall most of all oblige Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 5 April 1658.

George Evelyn Letter 137 [134] June 12, 1658 f 86r–v

Epistle CXXXIV To my Brother George Evelyn

Deare Brother In accknowledgment of your greate Civilities to me, and mine for the Diversion which we have received from your conversation, I have purposely dispatched this paper. The Returne which I shall earnestly desire, is the confirmation of the health and progresse of your Deare Lady,1 of whose many and incomparable excellencys, I am now an experienced Testimony, and thenc an admirer of her virtue and your happinesse. Brother be this Recorded. God his [has] signaly restored her to you once againe, and had not given you these notices, but for your benefit, and advantag. Possibly, something might be amisse: sit downe, and enquire after it, and so preserve long that Deare-deare Person, who is to receive all advantages by your piety to God, and the assiduous care of your Family for which you must account, and over which you are now Sacerdotis vice,2 and especialy during this grand Catalysis3 and universal dissolution; To speake seriously, Brother, I have ever found upon all such admonitions, those indications and advices expressed by the Apostle 1. Cor: 11 ver: 28. 30. 31. 32.4 of rare effect and much import after the greate (but just) Severities, which I have (in my life) frequently tasted; and if I am bold to reccomend them to you, it is because I love you as my selfe, and because I cannot more 7 the poet’s wreath of laurel 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn was ill and had been staying at Sayes Court (Diary III.216). 2 the substitute priest 3 Evelyn may be referring simply to the very odd weather that he records on 2 and 3 June, and the arrival in the Thames of a large whale (Diary III.214–15), but he may also have known of the ill health of Cromwell, who was to die on 3 September. 4 “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup … For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.”

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oblige you, then by doing my endeavor to perpetuate your felicity whereon so much of mine depends: Not yet by diffiding of your Piety and your prudenc upon these emergencies; but to encourage and to promote them; for Qui monet ut facias, quod jam facit, ipse monendo Laudat, et hortatu comprobat acta sua.5

Deare Brother Indulge me this Charity, and let the expresses of it, and the effects, make up the better part of the Returnes which I owe you for the many obligations which you have accumulated upon Sir, Your most etc.

Says-Court 12 June: 1658.

Thomas Henshaw Letter 138 [135] June 22, 1658 f 86v

Epistle CXXXV To Mr. Henshaw.

Sir, I am so highly displeas’d at the Accident1 which invited me to London, when I might have had the honour of your company; that I would do very much, and no lesse suffer to obteyne such another opportunity of enjoying it. And therefore that you are still pleased to assigne me another Day (after the trouble which you have already undergon) dos reinforce the favour; and so greately oblige your Servant, that I do assure you, there is nothing shall have power (God willing) to tempt me from Home, so long as I may have hopes to recover that losse, by enjoying your so friendly-offer’d conversation; when we may both discourse of your Injunctions in particular, and laugh a little, at some Passages which I shall recount to you, concerning your cold entertainement at my solitary and suspicious Villa. In the meane tyme, if your more instant and pressing affaires take you up on Wednesday; I may yet hope, that Thursday you will blesse me with an occasion to repaire the rudenesses which you received here, by accknowledging my resentiments for the misfortune, and by perfectly acquitting my Selfe of all other your Commands to Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 22: June: 1658.

5 “He who reminds thee to do what thou art already doing, by so reminding praises thy acts and by his very exhortation approves them.” Ovid, Tristia 5.14.45–6 (Wheeler, trans) 1 Evelyn records going to London on 21 June (Diary III.217) and Henshaw’s visiting him again on 30 June.

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Richard Evelyn Letter 139 [136] July 2, 1658 ff 86v–7

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Epistle CXXXVI To my Brother Richard Evelyn.

Deare Brother I am very joyfull at the occasion you have given me, and of the honour you have designed me; this being the opportunity I have so long breathed after, that I might congratulate to you that Blessing which onely seemed wanting to the accomplishment of your Felicity,1 and by it to put a period to all your Sollicitudes, there being nothing now left you to desire but the perpetuity of these singular emanations of the divine beneficence towards you, so univocal and genuine. I shall by the grace of God, waite upon you by the Tyme appoynted, and though not with all the trouble you invite (’till my Sister2 be upon her leggs againe) yet with the best resentiments of your kindnesse; as now (by this Expresse) with all our due Services, congratulations and respects, especialy these of Deare Brother Your etc. Says-Court: 2d: July: 1658

Benjamin Maddox Letter 140 [137] July 13, 1658 f 87

Epistle CXXXVII To Mr. Maddox.

Sir, I had this day the honour to receive a Letter from you;1 if at least I could derive as just a title to it being opened, as when it was Sealed up; the Character you it bare within, so little agreeing with resembling the Superscription without, that by it alone you discover your selfe to be a Traviler in the Region of Compliments. I will not say it is want of Judgment in you; but I may accuse as greate a defect; That you treate me not like a Friend but pursue me immodestly, and as you ought not, who are Conscious how little I merite your Encomiums and how ill I support them. But Sir, it is not in the power of Eloquenc so far to transport me, as to believe all I heare. Thus much I indulge to the local Genius, and 1 Evelyn was godfather to Richard’s son, George, who was baptized on 6 July but was dead by 27 July ­(Diary III.219). 2 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn 1 Add 78316: f 156 (5.7.1658—i.e., 25.6. Old Style).

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to the excesse of your civility; but be sparing in these Instances, which it would better become me to reverberate: for so the dimmer lights pay their tribute to the Son, and the Rivers to the Ocean, But this is infinite. Sir, If the postscript which I scribbl’d at the foote of Dr. Needhams2 letter, came safely to hand, you had there what advice I could give you concerning Prints; which was to be temperat in your Collection, and confine it onely to the best, and most rare: These will perpetualy divertise you, the rest you will grow weary of in tyme. I was bold to reccommend some designes and other excellent things, which I chose out for you at the Vendition of your old friends Mr. du Clynes3 Cabinett, and which my Lady4 has purchased for you – It were to be wished that you would now resolve to come-over, and enjoy the many Curiosities that are amassed for you to invite you, and that none might make advantage of your Absence to your prejudice. Verbum sat.5 Sir, If there be anything else wherein I may Serve you, freely, and sans Ceremonie, Command, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 13: July: 1658.

Philip Stanhope Letter 141 [138] July 30, 1658 f 87r–v

Epistle CXXXVIII To the Earle of Chesterfield.

My Lord, If this addresse kisse your Lordships hands with a rudenesse unbecomming your Servant, because it is to be your honours remembrances of a favour which you were once pleased to promise me; the fitnesse of the Season, the agreablenesse of the Company, and the particular inclination of once your Lordships Governesse,1 now your humble Servant, is 2 Although Evelyn wrote to Jasper Needham about pictures in 1650 (Letter 24), this letter to him is not extant. 3 Francis Cleyn [i.e., Franz Klein or Clein] (1582?–1658; ODNB) is described by Griffiths as “one of the most significant artists working in England in the first half of the seventeenth century” (The Print in Stuart Britain, 118). He had met Sir Henry Wotton in Italy and was hired by James I for the tapestry works at Mortlake. He also produced illustrations for books, including George Sandys, Ovid’s Metamorphosis English’d (London, 1632; Eve.b.54) and John Ogilby’s two translations of Homer (both in the 1687 library catalogue). His print cabinet would probably have included prints by other artists. 4 Jane Garrard 5 “Just say the word.” Evelyn visited Maddox on 4 October (Diary III.222). 1 Philip Stanhope married Elizabeth Butler, daughter of the duke of Ormond (1640–65) in 1660. Hamilton describes her as “neither scrupulous in point of constancy, nor nice in point of sincerity” in Memoirs of Count Grammont, I, 140.

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the best apologie which I can make for beging Venison at a tyme wherein it is so precious: But so, my Lord, the obligation reinforces; and I know your Commands are so universal, that upon your honours least intimation, a Warrant might be served from Bocton,2 and your Servants rejoyce at Wotton, crowning our festivities and the hospitality of my brother with your Lordships bounty, and our cups with your health: Nor is this (my Lord) to open a gap to the Licentiousnesse of an importunate Beggar. My Lord, I shall esteeme my obligation too greate to render me presumptuous, and my selfe too unworthy to pretend any future merit; so that if your Lordship do at once forgive, and gratifie my confidenc, I receive a dubble favour, and must eternaly acknowledg my selfe, My Lord Your etc. Wotton 30 July: 1658.

Philip Stanhope Letter 142 [139] August 10, 1658 f 87v

Epistle CXXXIX To the Earle of Chesterfield.

My most noble Lord, You have oblig’d me beyond expectation; for though you were Pleased to tell me, in your first, that you would send me a Buck;1 yet my duty soone gave me the best interpretation of it, and that it became me to prevent you that trouble, by an expresse of my owne, who was designed to kisse your Lordships hands, as well to accknowledg the honour you have don me in granting me a Buck, as to attend your Lordships pleasure for the execution of it. But thus, my Lord, you have attain’d the greatest sublimity of real honour, that you can descend to the Lowest of your Servants, and make acquisition of Vassals by actions which cary their rewards without precedent. For your Lordship is all humanity; and dos so sweetely oblige, that there is nothing left to protect your honour from as frequent an exercise of your Virtue, as your Selfe is pleased to invite, but the profound respect which I devote to you, and the indignity of the Recipient, which, my Lord, shall eternaly render my modesty as conspicuous as your Lordship is generous, and beyond that, there is no discovery. My Lord I am hugely pleas’d with the History of the Chase; for so it became the heroick-beast to give the noblest diversion; which makes me want faith to believe that he could shead any tears, except those of Joy, that he fell by your noble hand. – Jugulóque haud inscius accipit ensem2 2 Evelyn records receiving a buck from Stanhope on 9 August 1658 (Diary III.219). Bocton Malherbe in Kent was Stanhope’s residence at this time. 1 See Letter 141 2 “and, unfaltering, welcomes the sword to his throat.” Virgil, Aeneid 10.907 (Fairclough, trans)

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Which, my Lord, are the words of almost as good a Poet, as the Author of Gundibert,3 when the stout Mezentius fell under the hand of Æneas.4 My Lord, we have now no more to performe, but the obsequies; to entomb this Spoyle, and according to the rites of the Antients, weepe over him with teares of French and Spanish,5 which do religiously croune your Lordships health at the Circle at Wotton; a Circle, my Lord, not unworthy (though your Governesse, and your Servant make a part) of your most civil and obliging wish; but too greate an honour, for me to hope, who have enough to make me both beloved and envyed; sinc you permitt me to subscribe my Selfe My noblest Lord Your etc. Wotton: 10: August 1658

George Evelyn Letter 143 [140] October 15, 1658 f 88r–v

Epistle CXL To my Brother George Evelyn:

Deare Brother I returne you innumerable thankes for putting me in minde of any thing wherein you thinke I may be capable to serve you; however, I hope, you could not imagine that it was possible I should forgett your commands; nor truely did I, ever intending to transmitt them to you, by the returne of the Carrier, as a smale instance of my greate, and many obligations to you, for your noble and bountifull present, the exuberances of your Garden, the pride and glory of mine.1 Brother I had ever an infinite esteeme for you (as by all the bonds of Relations and blood, I am engaged) but were it possible for that to admitt of farther accesses and degrees, it must be on this conjuncture, that being arbiter of your tyme, and divertissements, you seeme by this to resolve to employ your howres so nobly; not that you have not at all tymes spent them to the reproach of many Thousands which may have are masters of as fayre opportunities; but that now you will set about it with the greatest advantages, which certainely you shall effect, if in stead of that desultory and inconstant studye, you take that ordrderly course, which in a few well employed yeares, will render you as conspicuous for your knowledg and judgment, as you already are for your virtuous and noble minde. Believe it, Brother, it is then onely you will enjoy the delices of life, and 3 Sir William Davenant (1606–68; ODNB) 4 Mezentius, the scorner of the gods and evil king of Caere in Etruria is killed in Aeneid 10. 5 i.e., French and Spanish wine 1 Evelyn had done extensive work on the gardens at Wotton in 1643 and 1652. See Diary II.81 and III.60–1, and Evelyn’s drawings of the house and grounds (Colour Plates 1 and 2), and Harris, “‘My most cherished place on earth’: John Evelyn and Wotton,” in Batey, A Celebration of John Evelyn, 53–73.

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the advantage of being a man; that you will emancipate your Soule, and crowne it with the top of felicities; it is the culture of that particle, by a gracious and sanctified knowledg, though which we attaine to one of the greatest restitutions of our losse in Paradyse, and an instrument gratefull, both to our selves and others: I rejoyce, therefore, and exsult at your designe, and I would to God that all Gentleman would pursue your Example, and emulate your resolution, insteade of bringing into reputation those fruitlesse, vitious, and empty conversations, to the prejudice of virtue, and that incomparable fruition of a mans Selfe. But Sir, I pursue this speculation too farr, if withall, I do not shew you how it may be attained, and made practical. And truely I wish I were capable, and I should essay, were it not so don to my hand, that as the case stands with you and I, ambo tam pro vecti ætate,2 You cannot follow a better guide then what the famous Grotius has given to the Illustrius Maurerius, sometyme the French Embassador, who being then well advanced in Yeares, did, upon such a resolution, and his advice, emerge one of the most knowing, and learnedst men of his tyme;3 and therefore, since, the way is there so fairely chalked out to you, I shall reccommend you rather to his 18th Epistle ad Gallos printed by Elzevir:4 in the yeare 1650, then offer to give you worse directions; onely I doe here inclosed send you the frame or Idea of my Adversaria,5 which after many tryals and reformations, I find to be most advantagious. There are, who do not oblige themselves to so much Method and orderly reduction; but transcribe their observations farraginously, and as they come to hand; but for my owne part (who experiment the benefit of it, reading a page or two every day till I have finished, and frequenting this lecture) I am satisfied with the designe. However you may do either with advantage, For what is else the meaning of Cicero? Orat: Pro: Roscio Comoedo.6 Quid est quòd negligenter scribamus Adversaria? quid est 2 “both of us so carried by age” 3 Hugo Grotius, Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650; in the 1687 library catalogue), Letter XVI to Benjamin Aubéry du Maurier (12 May 1615), 39–46. Translated in Reeves, “Grotius on the Training of an Ambassador.” 4 Grotius, Epistolæ ad Gallos, Letter XVIII to Benjamin Aubéry du Maurier (5 June 1615), 51–5. 5 Two of Evelyn’s commonplace books (Add 78332–3) are titled “Adversaria.” But he is probably referring here (in view of the date of this letter) to his “Loci communes” (Add 78328–31). See Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy and the BL online catalogue, particularly the description of Add 78330 and its organization into books and chapters for “the frame or Idea of my Adversaria.” Evelyn’s commonplace books had been begun with the assistance of Richard Hoare, when he had decided in June 1649 on his return to France that he would “have now tyme to reduce my studyes into a method” (Add 78221: f 45 [14.6.1649]). The earliest, a very small notebook in Hoare’s hand entitled ­“Vademecum” (Add 78327) contains a note by Evelyn that “This Compendium is taken chiefly out of ­Alsted & P: Du Moulin, &c” (i.e., Johann Heinrich Alsted, Encyclopaedia; Eve.c.6). See also Houghton Ms 992.7, “Vade mecum,” in Evelyn’s hand and dated 1650, containing Εφιμερίδες and divided into sections: Sententiae; Otium sive lusus; Auditiones quotidianae; Oeconomique; Myscellanea; Verba honestatis; Exotica perigrina. The three “Loci communes” volumes (Add 78328–30) were also begun by Hoare, and were initially organized by subject (see 78330) and later by source and keyword, and indexed by keyword and name in Add 78331. A list of authors and books, both completed and projected, is at the beginning of Add 78328. The two “Adversaria” volumes seem to have been compiled later, possibly after 1680 (see BL online catalogue). 6 “What is the reason that we write our notes carelessly but make up our ledgers carefully? What is the reason? It is because day-books last for a month, ledgers forever; day-books are immediately destroyed; ledgers are religiously preserved; day-books embrace the memory of a moment, ledgers attest the good

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quòd diligenter conficiamus Tabulas? quâ de Caussâ? quia hæc sunt menstrua, illæ sunt aeternæ; hæc delentur statim, Illæ servantur sanctè; hæc parvi temporis memoriam, Illæ perpetua existimationis, fidem et religionem amplectuntur; hæc sunt dejecta, illæ in ordinem confectæ etc.: so that you see, you are left to your Liberty, and there be very few but varie in this particular. Dearest Brother I have now no more to add, but that you will please to accept of this smale specimen of my ambition to serve you, and to pardon the presumptions of my expression of it. I shall ende, with the closure of that greate person upon the like occasion, Deus te, mi Frater Charisse, incolumen diu servet; et ut generoso proposito tuo prosperi adsint suæssus, duo tibi præstet; bonæ mentis auxilia, firmam valetudinem, et constantem fortunam.7 Farewell Your Says Court: XV October MDCLVIII

Peter Pett Letter 144 [141] October 16, 1658 ff 88v–9

Epistle CXLI To Mr. Peter Pett.

Sir, This slow returne of my many accknowledgments for your noble Elogie,1 and the Suffrages of that other Gentleman unknowne to me, otherwise then by his Skill, and his Civility is totaly to be imputed to my long absence, my owne indisposition, and the hospitality of my Friends, which detained me from that commerce which otherwise I would so[o]ner have payed you. Sir, I am exceedingly obliged to you both; and however upon

faith and conscientiousness which ensure a man’s reputation for all time; day-books are ill-arranged, ledgers are put together in order.” Cicero, Pro Quinto Roscio Comoedo 2.7 (Freese, trans). Modern editions typically adopt Adrien Turnèbe’s reading of “disiecta” in lieu of Evelyn’s “dejecta.” Evelyn quotes this passage at the end of his note “De forma Locorum Communium” at the beginning of his commonplace books (Add 78328: f 2v; and also Add 78329: f 1v). See the discussion of note-taking in Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, 62–116. 7 “May God, my dearest brother, preserve you unharmed for a long time to come, and may He give you the two aids of a good mind, sound health, and unvarying good fortune, so that your noble endeavor may meet with splendid success.” Based on Grotius, Epistolæ ad Gallos, Letter XVI to Aubéry du Maurier (12 May 1615), 46. See Reeves, “Grotius on the Training of an Ambassador,” 625. 1 Evelyn refers to a letter of condolences, sent by Pett shortly after the death of his son, which encouraged him to return to work on his translation of Naudé (Add 78316: f 153v [29.3.1658]).

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second thoughts, and lesse precipitation I succeede with that Piece,2 I shall be sure gratefully to resente your favours; and to paying respects to your commands as well as I am able a Specimen whereoff I shall desire you to accept in this, which, through your hands and mediation I present to Mr. Barlow.3 I confesse it had become my respects to have sent it under a better cover, and more fairely written; but I consider’d how long it was a debt, and how easily friends do commute for smale errours; and therefore I rather adventured to transmitt it to him as it came crudely from the fountaine, at such tymes as I could snatch from the sweete conversations of my Friends, and the temptations of the country, then make him stay for a politer transcript of that, which, it maybe, he will judge doth as little merite it, as his acceptanc. My smale knowledg in Bookes, may, I hope excuse the defects; if I have any where mistaken the names of divers Authors mentioned by Naudæus; especialy, considering how vilely the French do generaly mutilate and maime them; as when they write Thou for Thuanus; Saumaise, for Salmasius; Du Puits, for Puteanus etc. In his Recension of Hereticks, I have bin bold to qualifie the asperity a little. For the rest, I hope it will speake an intelligible and faithfull Translation, the sole product of Mr. Barlows injunctions by you, to receive or his pardon, or his acceptation of Sir Your etc. Says-Court: October 16: 1658

Sir, I present you with this other trifle, my reflections upon St. Chrysostome;4 by it you will judg what a wound I received, where the Arrow sticks, and how little my Thoughts have bin at rest to thinke of any divertissant studys: You may live to excuse my fondnesse (though I wish in some gentler Instanc) as I beseech you to pardon my boldnesse.

2 This is the first draught of Evelyn’s translation of Gabriel Naudé’s Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (Paris: 1627, 1644). The dedicatory epistle to Barlow is dated 5 October 1658 (The Queen’s College, Ms 231: ff 2–3). Evelyn’s translation was not published until 1661 (see Keynes, Bibliography, 104–7). Barlow explains in a letter of 10 June 1661 (Diary [1887] III.132–3) that the printer to whom he had entrusted the manuscript had misplaced it. 3 Thomas Barlow 4 The golden book of St. John Chrysostom concerning the Education of Children (London, 1649) was written in the months following the deaths of his eldest son Richard and his youngest son who died as an infant. It was published on 16 September 1658 (Diary III.220).

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Edward Thurland Letter 145 [142] November 8, 1658 ff 89–90

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Epistle CXLII To Edward Thurland Esquire

Sir I understand that my Lord of Northumberland1 has some thoughts of sending his Sonn, my Lord Percy,2 abroad to travail; and withall to allow him an appoyntment so noble, and considerable, as dos become his greatenesse, and the accomplishment of his education to the best improvement.3 My many yeares conversation abroad, and Relations there to persons of merite, and qualitye, having afforded me severall opportunities to consider of effects of this nature, by the Successes, when Gentlemen of quality have bin sent beyond the seas, resign’d, and concredited to the conduct of such as they call Governours being for the greatest ingredient a Pedantique sort of Schollars, infinitely uninstructed for such an employment; my ambition to serve you, by contributing to the designes of a person so illustrious and worthy of the honour, which I find you allwayes beare towards his Lordship hath created in me the boldenesse confidenc to request your advice and returne upon these particulars. Whither my Lord persist still in his resolution? what equipage and honorarium my Lord dos allow? and whither he has not yet pitched upon any man, to accompanye my Young Lord etc.? because, I would, through your mediation, recommend to his Lordship a person of honour, addresse in Court, rare erudition, Languages and credite; who, I thinke, would (upon my reppresenting of the proposition) be ready to serve my Lord, in an affaire of this importanc. I shall add no more of the Person, quum habeat in se, quæ quum tibi nota fuerint συσ[τ]ατικώτερα πάσης ἐπιστολη˜ς esse judicaberis;4 and because (in truth) all that I can say will be infinitely inferiour to his merite; being a person of integrity, greate experienc and discretion, in a word without reproach, and such as becomes my Lord to seeke out, that he may render his sonne those honourable and decent advantages of the most refined conversations; things not to be encountred in a Pension with a Pedant; The education of most of our Nobility abroad, which makes them returne (I pronounce it with a blush) insolent and ignorant; debauched, and without the least tincture of those advantages to be hoped for, through the prudent conduct of some brave man of Parts; sober, active and of universall addresse: In fine, such, as the Person I 1 Algernon Percy, 10th earl of Northumberland (1602–68; ODNB, P) 2 Jocelyn Percy, 11th earl of Northumberland (1644–70; P) 3 Evelyn may have been aware of “Advice to His Son,” the work written by Algernon Percy’s father, Henry, for him, about education and travel. Although it was still in manuscript at the time, it seems to have been widely known. 4 “Since he has in him qualities which, since they are known to you, you will judge to be a better introduction than any letter.” Joseph Scaliger, Letter LVII to Isaac Casaubon, in Epistolæ omnes (Leiden, 1627; Eve.a.41), 185. Evelyn later recycled the compliment in a 1659 Latin letter to his frequent correspondent Dr Bernard Martin Berenclow (Letter I.39).

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would reccommend and the greatest Princ in Europe might æmulate upon the like occasion; and therefore such a one, as I cannot presume would descend to my proposition for any Person of our Nation, excepting my Lord of Northumberland alone, whose education of his sonns, I heare, has bin of another streine, and alloy, then those that we have mentioned; and such as will give countenanc, and honour to a Person of his merite, Character and abillities. But, Sir, I defere no more to my owne judgment, I can produce sufficient suffrages; effects are lowdest, and my Lord, would in a short tyme perceive it. For it is not enough that Persons of my Lord Percys qualitie be taught to daunc, and to ride, to speake Languages and weare his cloathes with a good grace (which are the shells of Travail) but, besides all these; that he know men customes, courts and disciplines, and whatsoever superiour excellencys the Places afford; befitting a Person of birth and noble impressions. This is Sir, the fruite of Travail; for those it was that Ptolomys young-noble-men went abroad. Thus our incomparable Sidny was bred;5 and this, tanquam Minerva Phidiae6 setts the crowne upon his perfections, when a Gallant man shall returne with religion and knowledg courag, knowledg and modestie, without pedantry, without affectation; materiall and serious, to the immense contentment of his Relations, the glory of his family, the star and ornament of his age. This is truely to give a Citizen to his Country. Youth is the seede tyme, in which the foundation of all noble things is to be layd; but it is rendrd made the field of repentanc: For what can become more glorious, then to be ignorant of nothing, but of vice, which indeede has no sollid existency, and therefore is nothing; and unlesse we thus cultivate our youth, and noblemen make wiser provisions for their educations abroad, above the vanity of talke, feather, and ribbon,7 the ordinary commerce and import of their wild pererrations; I despayre of ever living to see a man truely noble indeede; They may be called my Lord. Titles are sounds and inferiour trifles; but when virtue and blood are coincidents, they both add lusture and mutual excellencys. This is what my Lord takes care to secure to his sonne: what I foresee and augure of my noble Lord Percy, and of whom (though to me no otherwise knowne then by fame) may this be the least portion of his Panygerick, whilst it concernes me onely, to testifie (without designe) my Zeale for one whom I know you so much highly vallue; Quanto enim mihi carior est amicitia tua, tanto antiquior mihi esse debet cura, illam omnibus officiis testandi,8 which Sir, is the sole product of this impertinecy, and sole ambition of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 8: November 1658.

5 Sir Philip Sidney, who travelled on the continent 1572–5 6 “as the Minerva of Phidias.” See Pliny Historia Naturalis 36.18–19, and Junius, The Literature of Classical Art, II, 299–305. 7 This phrase, used also in his earlier letter to Maddox (Letter 129: 10 January 1658) is another example of Evelyn’s “recycling” his letters. 8 “For to the degree that your friendship is dearer to me, there ought to be for me a proportionally more venerable concern for bearing witness to it by every kind of service.” Scaliger, Letter CXLV to Marcus Valserus in Epistolæ omnes, 358.

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George Tuke Letter 146 [143] January 13, 1659 f 90r–v

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Epistle CXLIII To my Cousen George N.

The civilities which I found at Chressing Temple1 call for more ample accknowledgments, then you can expect from so weake an instrument, as that which blotts this paper, and dos but very imperfectly convey the greate sense of my many obligations; which though I have as little hopes of repairing, as I have of meriting them; yet shall I wish assiduously for an acceptable opportunity to doe it, as well as to expresse it. Cousin, I leave the relation of our returne, and the incidents by the way to the Bearer hereoff,2 whom I have commanded to be indulgent to your horses, and to superadd a thousand thankes for the accomodation. And with this I should now draw this trouble to a period, were it not that I have a desire to render you a more cleare account of the particulars which you were pleased to require of me at parting, and which the tyme did not then permitt me to unfould, as I would have don; and withall to signifie, what my reflections are, and how (in your case) I should governe them. Your Brother my Cousen,3 I looke upon, as undoubtedly the most accomplish’d person that in all my life I have ever encountred; how much therefore it afflicts me, that so greate and rare a perfection should signifie no more in an undiscerning and ungratefull age, is not easy to expresse. For my owne part, whatever prejudices some may conceive upon his other changes,4 I have long since bin taught to abstract, and to love that which is amiable, and that is, in my Cousen, Piety and morality, with such a conjugation and tincture of other excellencyes and improvements, as renders him to me, both highly estimable and worthy of affection. I have already acquainted you, that his inclynations to you in particular (as he assures me) has drawne him over hither,5 and that if nothing in the meane tyme be worthy to establish him, we are like to lose a Gentleman, a Brother and a kindsman, that may possibly have many emulators, few, or no equalls: and therefore, how greately were it to be desired, that we might fix, and retaine him. In the interim, however his resolutions determine, I shall hope, that your reasons and your discourses may so far prevaile, as to obtaine a promise, that he shall never so dispose of his liberty, as to render himselfe uncapable of obliging either his country, or his Relations: For the rest, we must comitt it to providence, the successe of Tymes, and mitigation of Proselyticall fervours; having for my owne particular, a very greate Charity for all, who sincerely adore the blessed Jesus, our common and deare Saviour; as being full of 1 Cressing Temple in Essex was George Tuke’s estate. Evelyn records going there for Christmas with his wife on 23 December 1658 (Diary III.225). 2 Evelyn notes that “so as on the 10th I returned home, having ben robbd during my absence of divers things of value, some plate, 20 pounds in mony &c: I also lost a Coach-horse in the journey” (Diary III.226). 3 Samuel Tuke 4 Tuke had converted to Roman Catholicism while in exile. 5 to England from the continent

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hope, that God (however the present Zeale of some, and the Scandals taken by other at the instant afflictions of the Church of England, may transport them) will at last compassionate our infirmities, clarifie our judgments, and make abatement for our ignorances, superstructures, passions and errours of corrupt tymes and interests of which the Romishperswasion can no way acquitt her Selfe whatever the present prosperity, and secular polity may pretend: But God will make all things manifest in his owne tyme; onely let us possesse ourselves in patienc and Charity. This will cover a multitude of imperfections, and Cousen, within that comprehension the defects also of my expressions, which are no way capable to render you a Character becomming your worthy Brother or indeede, to make you any compitent return for the many favours by which you continue to oblige Sir, Your etc. Says-Court.13 January 1658/9

Samuel Tuke1 Letter 147 [144] January 13, 1659 f 90v

Epistle CXLIV To Collonel Samuel Tuke.

If my Wife have left me anything to add after she has told you how greate a sense we have for the trouble we expos’d you to, when you conducted us to Cressing Temple, it is, that she has not sufficiently excused my particular impertinencys: This advantage onely you may have derived from it, that you have learned how little there is to be gained by my Conversation, and how, for the future, to improve your tyme to better advantages. Cousen, I shall yet beg of you the favour to say something which I would have expressed to my Cousens your Brother and sister in accknowledgment of our noble reception: something I have written to them; but Cousen, as I remember you determin’d it, That this kind of intercourse could not arive to many reciprocations, at least from a Person so ignorant and unskillfull of formes as I am; so that when I have assured you, and them, that I received all your favours with a gratefull heart, and a high ambition of better meriting them then (as yet) it has bin my good fortune to doe. it were to be wished, that words might be interpreted by effects; since there is no more to be sayd, but our L[ove] – Sir etc. Your humble Servant Says-Court: 13 January 1658/9

1 Evelyn notes Tuke’s return from France on 3 November 1658 (Diary III.223).

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Elizabeth Puckering Letter 148 [145] January 14, 1659 f 90v

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Epistle CXLV To my Lady Newton.

Madame, When your Ladyship did indulge my former presumptions, I had never any intent to make it a præcedent, or clayme it as a præscription: so that the noble Present which I received was a pure emanation of your friendship, which like the sun gilds the most distant vallies, that repay nothing in returne but reflected, uselesse and borrowed lights; yet such, as declare from whenc they receiv’d them, and under that similitude I pay my accknowledgments for all your favours, and am most hapy, that your Ladyship dos give me leave to preserve that decency towards you.1 But, as one may be oppressed with benefits, when they are heaped upon a gratefull nature, that wants else has yet no other faculties to retort them, but by insignificant desires; so certainely it hapens to me in this Instanc, and would worke the same effects, were I not assured, how little you neede my Services; and that if there were not such humble Recipients the noblest virtues of friendship, and benignity, would remaine uselesse and unactive, and it can be onely out of that consideration, that you still extend them to, Madame, Your etc. Says-Court: 14 January 1658/9

George Evelyn Letter 149 [146] February 1, 1659 f 91

Epistle CXLVI To my Brother George Evelyn:

Deare Brother I was sorry to find my letter produce a reply from you; because I hoped my addresses as to that concernement, were so tender, as carried not in them the least umbrage of repining; or want of those respects which you shall never faile of from me, and which nature has invested you with, even a right of commanding. If I did refine upon a wise Sentenc, it was pardonable as a railliary, and how little the sting did import you, was interpreted with a greate truth, which I shall ever accknowledg; because my obligations are indelible. You did then perfectly manifest your affection to me, when you shew’d me how I might best obey you: Let us therefore no more reciprocate this trifle betweene us: I thinke no more 1 Evelyn visited Elizabeth Puckering in London on 11 March (Diary III.227).

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of it; and if you pardon the presumption, shall onely beg that you will still permitt me to pay all those respects reguards to you, and my noblest Lady,1 which both your favours have, and shall eternally merite, of Deare Brother your

Says Court: 1: February 1658/9

Edward Hales Letter 150 [147] February 18, 1659 f 91

Epistle CXLVII To Sir Edward Hales:

Sir, It is not that I thinke my Horse lesse worth, that I did fix you no price at the foote of my Letter but because I thought it the civillest way to transact my desires of serving you, by offering him to you upon your owne tearmes, though, to another, I should esteeme it no advantage: But if you were not pleased to understand it so; because happly you may repente your offer, I will then give you no more this importunity; otherwise I shall send him up to you on Moneday, to let you see, that as I am not govern’d by my Man; so I shall esteeme it no robbery to be in a capacity to serve you, by abating so smale a matter, as the difference is betweene us; because I vallue more the preserving my selfe, Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 18: February 1658/9

Richard Evelyn Letter 151 [148] February 18, 1659 f 91

Epistle CXLVIII To my Brother Richard Evelyn

Deare Brother I dispatch you here th’effect of your late Commands; and if my Cousen have glaunced upon the Conjecture of the Quærents curiosity, it has bin (I assure you) from no indication that I could furnish him: But as it were impossible to delineate such a Character, without an Augure of his felicity that were to possesse such an accumulation of accomplishments; 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn

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so you se my Cousen may have stumbled upon that which was most concealed, though, indêede, most obvious. I dare say, he has written as to his Confessor; and that if he have any where transgressed in the least excesse, it is in what he has signified to her disadvantage; for upon all enquiries that I have bin able to make from others that know the Lady,1 I finde the Suffrages universall, and her Virtues celebrated. Deare Brother I thanke you for your last kind Visite, repeate it as often as you can, and permitt not our affections to grow indifferent; we are quickly to goe hence, and I desire nothing more then (whilst we do live) frequenter occasions of cultivating the unfained esteeme and endearements, which I have for you, and which I continually expresse in my assiduous prayers for your prosperitie, who am: Your etc. Says-Court 18: February: 1658/9

Herbert Morley Letter 152 [149] February 19, 1659 f 91v

Epistle CXLIX To Collonel Herbert Morley.

Sir, Being greately sollicited by many of our poore Neighbours, Inhabitants of the Parish of Deptford, to procure some eminent Person, to reccommend their humble Petition to the House;1 and emboldned by your so noble offer, when I had lately the honour to kisse your hands: They now make it their earnest suite that it will please you to presente, and promote this Affaire; being of so common concernement to poore men, that have so well deserved [words deleted]; and as their Reasons subjoyn’d, give testimony to the justice of of their desires. This, Sir, if you undertake; as we shall not doubt of a happy successe; so neither shall we be wanting in all due expressions of our sense for so signall an obligation: And though there are severall other [words deleted], who have promised us their suffrages, when it shall be moved; yet they soly relie upon your noble favour, and conduct, both to presente, and accomplish the Supplications of honourable Sir Your etc. Deptford: 19th February 1658/9

1 This may be about the marriage in 1659 of Sir Edward Evelyn (1626–92), a first cousin once removed, to Mary Balaam. 1 This was one of a series of petitions to the House of Commons about the charge on the parishioners of Deptford because of the excessive number of out-of-work seamen and their dependents. This was an ongoing concern for the parish (see Letters 469 and 470 from 1684).

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Robert Heath Letter 153 [150] February 26, 1659 ff 91v–2

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Epistle CL To Mr. Robert Heath.1

Sir, I have by your favour, perus’d this Booke;2 and though I have not as yet, read the Prolegomena; yet am I satisfied, that many of the Doctors exceptions will prove but puntillos, and are not of that consequence which he pretends, against Elias Levita,3 and Ludovicq Capellus;4 since it doth no where appeare to me, that the Spirit of God was departed from the greate Synagogue when neere which tyme these poyntes (for much later, with that Jew, I admitt not) were introduced;5 and it is the deduction of very learned men, that they were ab origine deliver’d by Moses, as to the reading, and interpretation of the Law; though it was not permitted to be so written, ’till after the Captivitie, and when they had indeede cause to feare such other accidents might interupt the tradition, of rightly reading the Consonants. Thus at this day, do Children in Turky, familliarly reade the Arabick without poynts, which yet they are first taught to doe by the helpe of them. Nor have I any assurance, by what I since find, but that the young Buxtorfe6 gives an insufficient and 1 For the larger context of the arguments in Letters 153 and 154, see Feingold, “Oriental Studies,” in Tyacke, Seventeenth-Century Oxford, 449–503 and Muller, “The Debate over the Vowel Points and the Crisis of Orthodox Hermeneutics.” The claims endorsed by many Protestants concerning the antiquity of Hebrew vowel points had been called into question by recent scholarship, including the Prolegomena by Brian Walton to the Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (London, 1655–7), I, 1–102. Walton discusses the issue in Proleg. 3, “De lingua Hebraica,” 14–30. The six-volume Polyglot Bible was the first item listed in Evelyn’s 1687 catalogue. Evelyn’s support for “that greate Work” (Diary III.78) had been sought in November 1652, when Walton’s prospectus soliciting subscribers, “A Brief Description of an Edition of the Bible” (London, 1652), had been circulated. See Miller, “The ‘Antiquarianization’ of Biblical Scholarship.” 2 John Owen (1616–83; ODNB), in Of the Divine Originall, Authority, Self-Evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures (Oxford, 1658–9) attacked the textual principles of Walton’s Prolegomena, and argued that his acceptance of a late date for the introduction of the points undermined Protestant arguments for scriptural authority (see particularly chs 4–6, pp. 208–309). Owen was dean of Christ Church, and had been closely associated with Cromwell. Walton responded in The considerator considered: or, A brief view of certain considerations upon the Biblia polyglotta, the prolegomena and appendix thereof (London, 1659). For Owen, see Worden, “Politics, Piety, and Learning: Cromwellian Oxford,” in God’s Instruments, 91–193. 3 Elijah Levita, ‫ תרוסמה תרוסמ רפס‬: ... ‫ ןיבהל‬... ‫[ תורוסמה ילעב ךרד‬Sefer Masoret ha-masoret] (Venice, 1538), translated in part by Sebastian Münster in Accentum Hebraicorum liber unus (Basle, 1539). Levita argued that the points were added by the Masoretic scholars of the school of Tiberias in the fifth century CE. 4 Louis Cappel, ‫הלגנה דוקינה דוס‬: hoc est Arcanum punctationis revelatum (Leiden, 1624) and Diatriba de veris et antiquis Ebraeorum literis (Amsterdam, 1645). Cappel went further than Levita, arguing that the late date of the vowel points also implied the corruption of the text. 5 Evelyn associates the introduction of vowel points into the written text with the period of the “greate Synagogue,” after the return from Babylonian exile. See also the discussion of Isaac Casaubon and the status of the Masoretic text in Grafton and Weinberg, “I have always loved the Holy Tongue,” 307–28. 6 Johannes Buxtorfius, Tractatus de punctorum vocalium et accentuum in libris Veteris Testamenti hebraicis, origine, antiquitate & authoritate; oppositus Arcano punctationis revelato Ludovici Capelli (Basle, 1648).

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doubtfull suffrage for the antiquitie of the poynts, whatever is pretended. As for the ambiguitie of words without them, instanced in ‫ר ב ד‬7 or the like, whilst the genuine reading was assiduously taught, how, possibly, could they erre? Then, onely, came in the danger, whene their dispersions were frequente, prevented by the poynts; Variety of Copies (I do not meane the latter) taking away all considerable differences which might interveene, either from lesser mistakes, or hereticall depravations; and so Morinus’s8 scruple, in parte, redressed. In the meane tyme, I cannot but wonder at the sapinitie of those greate men, some of whose opinions I shewed you out of my Adversaria,9 long sinc taken notice of as they occurred inter legendum;10 and more, that the Doctor passes them by unsaluted; I meane Vossius, and Joseph Scaliger,11 who, certainely had very good insight into these matters; the former whereoff, in a Treatise ex professo, maintaines the sense of the Prolegomena, and cites H[i]eron: in Jer: 25 That Moses used the Samaritane; that, in Isaiahs tyme the Law and the Prophets were written in the Chaldeän etc. Arte Grammatica: p: 118. The Latter, (above all) in an Epistle to our Countryman Thomson, speakes expressely of the contamination of the Sacred Text ... Peregrinorum commerciis12 after its transmigration out of Assyria. Epist: 243.L.3. The whole discourse is worthy the reading: But to the particular excepted, writing to Joseph Buxtorfe13 himselfe, he is positive. De Apicibus vocalibus Hebræorum (saith he) tam mihi constat rem novam esse, quam eos falli, qui natos una cum linguâ putant: quo nihil stultius dici potuit, aut cogitari;14 and he subjoynes a Reason not inconsiderable; that the points proceeding from Grammaticall præceptions, are then, onely, in Season, non quando vernacula est illa lingua; sed postquam in usu vulgi esse desiit:15 instancing in the recente invention of the punctations used in other orientall languages: But I referre you to the Epistle it selfe, which I do not finde produced any replie from Buxtorfe. I might here add, out of our no lesse learned

7 The Hebrew word, consisting of the letters Dalet, Bet, and Resh, signifies either “a word” or “to talk.” 8 Jean Morin (1596–1659), a Catholic convert, was especially interested in the Samaritan texts of the Bible on which he published Exercitationes ecclesiasticæ in utrumque Samaritanorum Pentateuchum (Paris, 1631). He was also extremely critical of the Masoretic text, particularly in his posthumous Exercitationum Biblicarum, de Hebraei Graecique textus sinceritate libri duo (Paris, 1660). Evelyn’s knowledge of his work was probably through the Paris Biblia Polyglotta (1644–5) to which Morin contributed. 9 Evelyn’s commonplace books (Add 78328-31), particularly Add 78328 10 “among my readings”  11 In Evelyn’s copy of Gerard Vossius’s De arte grammatica (Amsterdam, 1635; Eve.a.120, previously owned by Christopher Wase) the passage about puncta vocalia and their novelty, citing St Jerome on Jeremiah 25, is scored in the margin at I.111. Joseph Scaliger, in a letter to Richard Thomson, claims that the true and uncorrupted Hebrew was first used in Assyria but was contaminated by intercourse with other dialects (Letter CCXLII, Epistolæ omnes [Leiden, 1627; Eve.a.41], 517–20). Scaliger had an extended correspondence with Thomson (Letters 232–42). 12 “by commerce with foreigners”; actually Joseph Scaliger, Epistolæ omnes (1627), Letter CCXLII, 520. 13 Scaliger points out in this letter to Buxtorfius, that vowel points became necessary when what had been the common language ceased to be so. Epistolæ omnes (1627) Letter CCXLIII, 521–4 14 “About the vowel points of the Hebrews, it is understood by me that it is a new development, and that they are deceived, who think that they were born along with the language, than which nothing more foolish could be said or thought.” Scaliger, Letter 243. 15 “not when the language is vernacular, but after it ceases to be in common use.” Scaliger, Letter 243.

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Breerewood Enq: p: 6316 that the Hebrew was not currantly understood after the last captivitie, upon 8: Nehem: 7.8.9. and many more occurring, sinc I had the honour to see you, nisi γλαũκα εις Αθήνας.17 Onely, as concerning the Various Lections, as I esteeme them greate Arguments of the veracitie of Scriptures, about which there is such contention; so, I consider, that, but for some of them, the Socinians might triumph in their errours about that grand Mysterie of the Holy Trinitie, lowder then as yet, they dare. However, I am no way pleas’d with this prodigious farrago, worthily reproved by the Doctor and do heartily believe, that it may be very obnoxious to the dangers he enumerates, when the production of every prurient, and ambitious Witt, shall be adopted into a Various Reading: A thing, which well I remember the Late Primate18 was as much afraide of; as displeas’d at some others, who shewed their indifferencie to the promotion of this Poly[g]lotticall-Worke: I say not, that he pointed at the Doctor but it were easie to conjecture, that some he foresaw, would, shortly, testifie their dislike of it: for I engaged his Lordship on this discourse, upon another occasion, being then to waite on him at the Countesse of Peterbroughs,19 not long before he went to Heaven: But Sir, I beg your pardon for this trouble, and returne you many thankes for your favour. I rejoyce to finde that any are zealous for Gods truth in this Age: I doubt not but it will be accknowledged, or answered in due tyme, to the farther elucidation of the Divine truth, and the glory of God. In the interim, being matters so far transcending (as you know) my Spheare, I leave them to the Theologues, and have taken onely this occasion to assure you that I am, Deare Sir, Your etc. Your Gondomar20 I suspect to be suppositious, however speaking much of that Wiccked Mysterie, and a notable piece. Says-Court: 26: February 1658/9.

16 Edward Brerewood, Enquiries touching the Diuersity of Languages, and Religions through the cheife parts of the world (London, 1614). 17 “unless owls to Athens” 18 James Ussher (1581–1656; ODNB). He received a BA (1598) and an MA (1601) from Trinity College, Dublin. He was bishop of Meath (1621) and archbishop of Armagh (1626). He was author of Annales veteris testamenti (London, 1650; Eve.b.42) and Annalium pars posterior (London, 1654).   Evelyn describes his meeting with Ussher on 21 August 1655 (Diary III.156–7) at Reigate Priory: “he receive’d me exceeding kindly; In discourse with him, he told me how greate the losse of time was to study much the Eastern languages, that excepting Hebrew, there was little fruite to be gatherd of exceeding labour ... That the best Text was the Heb: Bible, That the Septuagint, was finish’d in 70 daies, but full of Errors, about which he was then writing” (156). 19 Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Howard (1603–71), daughter of William, Lord Howard of Effingham, married to John Mordaunt, 1st earl of Peterborough (1599–1643). 20 Diego Sarmiento de Acuña (1561–1626), known as Count Gondomar, was the Spanish ambassador to England in 1613–18 and 1619–22 and became the bogey of English Protestants.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Robert Heath Letter 154 [151] March 3, 1659 ff 92–3

247

Epistle CLI To Mr. Robert Heath,

Sir, In my returne the last night from London, I found your kind letter and do now come to render you an account of the honour you have don me, by not onely bearing with my impertinencys;1 but justifing them in so civill a replye, to that which had no other intente of provoking you, then what it has acquir’d, and in which I exsult; because now a way is open for that excellent Conversation so greately advantagious to me, and by which et melior et doctior και κρέιττων ἐμαυτω˜ fiam:2 although I can by no meanes asserte that præcarious assumption of the Quallities and eminencies which you are pleas’d to ascribe to your servant, whose defects in this intercourse, and all other kinds of Erudition, you have knowne ab ipsis incunabulis;3 nor dare I arrogate ought, who, am at best, but ὀψιμαθής and ἀυτοδίδακτος.4 That set out so late, and had so unskillfull a Pilot, especially in this expedition, which you have pursued up even to the very ὴξις;5 and therefore, I glory in my submissions to those your more potent and nervous argumentations. I have onely this to offer; That my Opinion did not proceede from any mistake of the Doctors meaning:6 I very well know, that what he combates, is, that the points proceeded not from the Talmudists; but were delivered by Moses or Esdras, and his Sanhedrim. To which I so far assente, that though I question I question whither they were Synchronicall with the Originalls (as the Doctor opines) yet, I affirme them of an ancienter date then Elias Levita7 and his Sectators pretend. Viz, neerer to the Jewes returne from the Babylonish Captivity; and my reason is; for that I finde so universall a concurrency amongst all learned men, that they were not coëvous with the Consonants, and that defensible without the least detraction from the dignity of the Text or Infallibility of the Sense: seing the nature of the Orientall Languages is to consist in Consonants onely, and that they had a Method so to instruct them (well understood) as wholy protected it from all perill of its being determin’d to severall senses. But when there grew in them a more earnest inclination to the study of the Law (as after the Captivity there did) then truely, a mor constant and perfect way of reading the Scriptures became necessary; and then also was it, that the Scribes did most of all flourish, who are (on all sides) confess’d to be the most skillfull therein. Besides, it appeares in the Gomara,8

1 2 3 4 5 6

See Heath’s response to Letter 153 (Add 78317: f 78), misdated by Evelyn to 1667. “and I may myself become better and more learned and stronger” “from the very cradle” Heath and Evelyn studied together at the Free School in Lewes. late in learning and self-taught end of the journey John Owen, in Of the Divine Originall, Authority, Self-Evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures. See Letter 153. 7 Elijah Levita had argued for the Masoretic origins of the vowel points. See Letter 153, note 3. 8 i.e., Gemara: the commentary on the Mishnah; the two comprise the Talmud

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that this way of reading, by punctation, was parte of the Orall Law, and therefore had they amongst them licence to teach any uncircumcis’d of the Nations, conversant amongst them to reade the Scriptures for a stipend (as Masters of the Language) but might not instruct them in the points, because it was held a profanation of the Law. Some affirme that the Law was not at all committed to writing ’till the Misnaioth,9 according to the neoterique conceite; and that the points delivered in Sinai import onely the true reading of the Sense of the Law which was to be propagated by Tradition to their posterity, untill the tyme of Rabbi Juda;10 though (for my owne parte) I suppose it more antient, and soone after their returne, for the reasons alledged in my former; albeit, happly not so universally in use as now in this later period, which Capellus11 defends. To that of Scaliger,12 undoubtedly, he intends the points, and not any other accident to the words, as may be deduced from what he writes at large; seing (as I sayd) it is but of late, that any Hebrew Grammars are extant; though you are pleased to thinke it an argument against him. To your other exceptions. I have allways read, that the Jewes did in their long Exile (especially the vulgar sorte) forgett their owne Language, forming at their returne a very barbarous mixture; the old and authentique Hebrew being onely taught in Colledges, a long time after; insomuch, as in our Blessed Saviours tyme, it became a gallimaufry of Hebrew Greeke Latine and Arabique, and therefore, high tyme it was to consider about poynts, and vowells to secure the maine. It is most apodicticall to me, that the People did not understand the Lectures of Moses and the Prophets, till interpreted in their Synagogues by such as were perile and skillfull in the Hebrew; henc ’tis believed, that Jonathan13 and Onkelos14 made the first Paraphrases: And, truely, that from the 8 of Nehemia, seemes to me so evidently convincing, that the people did not understand what was read, as nothing appeares more cleare; for they not onely (as the text speakes) gave the sense, but caused them to understand the reading: ver. 8: which, if poynted, might have bin don without an Interpreter.15 But you enquire what is become of the Chaldean Text? Rabbi Jonathan reviv’d it before our Lords tyme; both Law and Prophets, part whereoff to this day remaines (I say part) for that Onkelos and Rabbi Joseph Caecus16 translated the rest which is suspected. All that can be sayd is, that the Chaldean is somewhat akin to the Hebrew, like English and Dutch: and some portion both of Esdras, and Daniel were also written in that Language, and not in the Character onely; But Sir we will reciprocate this no longer betweene us, To the rest I accord with your just severitie; if it any where appeare that the various Lections have introduced intruded themselves into the body of the Text. Yet you cannot but thinke, that of so many Amanuenses, as have 9 i.e., Mishnah: the collection of precepts embodying the oral law that is the basis of the Talmud 10 Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (‫)אישנה הדוהי‬, Judah the Prince (135–219 AD), the most important redactor and editor of the Mishnah. 11 See Letter 153, note 4. 12 See Letter 153, note 14. 13 Jonathan ben Uzziel (‫)לאיזוע ןב ןתנוי‬, reputed author of the Targum Jonathan, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Prophets 14 Onkelos (‫( )סולקנוא‬c.35-120 CE), reputed author of the Targum Onkelos, the Aramaic paraphrase of the Pentateuch 15 “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and caused them to understand the reading.” Nehemiah 8:8 16 “Rabbi Joseph Caecus,” to whom the targums of the Hagiographa were ascribed

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transcribed those divine Bookes, some sphalmas may have escaped. You indeede enjoy a peculiar felicitie, in that you can–intégros accedere fonteis Atque haurire17 – But I beseech you let some of the Translations escape that tirrible Conflagration, for us onely that are Idiots and have not the skill, which heaven has endow’d you withall. But Sir, I desist, nor durst I have rejoyn’d, to the evictions of that incomparable letter, in which veluti Emblemate vermiculato18 there is such a spirit, and sprinkling of rare and excellent remarkes. I accknowledg quam impar sum pugnæ;19 least of all would I be found tampering by uncertaine conjectures, with those profundities, revering, as I doe, that fountaine of eternall Truth τὰς θεόπνευστος γραφὰς:20 By this pardonable velitation onely, I have gained a friendly accesse unto you, and may, for the future flatter my selfe, with the fruites of your conversation, which hithertoo I have so long and unhapily neglected, for want of cultivating the many occasions, which I might have apprehended, during our Voisinage,21 and may yet hope to recover, if the indignitie of the place, and my person, do not deprive us of you, which, really, I should esteeme one of the most considerable afflictions, which could befall Sir Your etc. De Agello meo22 3. March: 1658/9

Willem Nieupoort Letter 155 [151] March 23, 1659 f 93

Epistle CLI To my Lord Nieupoort Extraordinarie Embassador of Holland.

My Lord, It were a presumption uncapable of an Apologie to importune your Excellency with this trifle, if your affection to things of this nature, and the fruits of a noble, serene and peacable minde, were not so conspicuous in your newly designed Iland,1 which your Excellency was lately pleas’d to entertaine me with: My Lord, this comes not to instruct your Lordship but to shew how fortunate I should esteeme my selfe, if it lay in my powre to

17 18 19 20 21 22

“I love to approach virgin springs and there to drink.” Lucretius, De rerum natura, 1.927-8 (Rouse, trans) “as if a stone in a mosaic.” See Cicero, Brutus 79.274. “how unequal I am to the battle” the Holy Scriptures being neighbours from my little field, i.e., from Sayes Court

1 Nieupoort’s residence was near the river on the site of what is now New Scotland Yard. Evelyn records dining with him on the 22 March (Diary III.228). He is here also presenting Nieupoort with his translation of Nicholas de Bonnefons’s Le Jardinier François, a book also recently published in Holland.

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contribute, in the least to your diversions, when, amongst other delights, you are pleasd to remitt of your more weighty employments; This were to derive a very greate honour upon me, who am, my Lord, for many obligations Your Excellencys etc. Says-Court: 23 March 1658/9

Jacques Le Franc Letter 156 [152] July 6, 1659 f 93v

Epistle CLII To Monsieur Le Franc.

Sir, When you have surveied the inclosed Paper,1 you will have discover’d the Effects of my retirements and secesse: For, having bin so vaine, in my Traduction of the Jardinier François2 to discover an inclination of publishing something, that I thought might concerne the Ornamentall part of Gardens; upon this hint, so irresistable have bin the importunities of divers my friends, that I would dispatch, and perfect what was then truely but an Ideä, that finding no other expedient to pacifie them, I am, at last, tempted (by destinating some howres of refreshment) to obey so many noble friends; and, not a little to gratifie my owne Genius in a speculation so innocent, and so suitable to it. In order to this, I have blotted many sheetes of paper upon the particulars mentiond; which before I transcribe for the Printer both for the dignitie of the subject, and my owne reputation, I should be glad might be adorned, with such aides and subsidiaries, as either my friends, or other worthy persons (conversant in Gardens) will contribute to it, and therefor, hearing of one Mr. Lovering3 of Norwich to be a person of greate experience in the culture of Flowers, I beg, that through your mediation, I may receive some instructions about the ordering of the choycest plants, and of whatsoever is rare in the Coronarie garden.4 There is

1 Possibly this is the proposal for Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum,” and Evelyn was writing to Le Franc (now living in Norwich) in conjunction with his desire to send it to Sir Thomas Browne, which he did on 28 January 1660 (see Letter 165 and Browne, Works, IV, 273–9). If so, this is the first reference in the letterbooks to the work. See O’Malley and Wolschke-Bulmahn, John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening. 2 Evelyn’s translation of Nicolas de Bonnefons’s Le Jardinier François (Paris, 1651) was published as The French Gardiner, Instructing How to Cultivate all sorts of Fruit Trees and Herbs for the Garden (London, 1659) in January 1659 (Diary III.225). 3 Francis Blomefield, The History of the County of Norfolk (London, 1806) records the admission to the Free School in 1636 as schoolmaster of “Mr. Thomas Lovering, A.M.” (IV.62). He is recorded as matriculating at Cambridge in 1612, and proceeding to his MA in 1619. 4 the flower garden

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Doctor Browne; better knowne to me by his incomparable elucubrations,5 then countenance, who is a magazine of all eruditon; There is no subject wherein he is not accomplish’t, and I have not the forehead to importune him with my trifles; because, I know that a person of his worth, wants nothing of the most shining parts of humanitie; if upon view of this inclosed, he be pleas’d to put in his Symbole, there lives not a man that more delights to signalize his gratitude then my selfe. In the meane tyme, I have no designe to nauseate the world, with repetitions of those trite and vulgar observations which hithertoo have composed the greater part of bookes extant on this subject; but to prevent all apprehensions, shall professedly declare against them, having undertaken it onely to dissabuse the world, and discover their imposture; yet so, as not to prostitute, more then dos become me to reveale, if any worthy person shall thinke fit to credite me with their science. If there now remaine anything yet desiderate in the ichnography, it is the accomplishment, which, through your intercession, I supplicate of your friends; and that I may not either for want of humilitie, or industrie to learne of all, betray that which may be usefull to so many; if by their civilities, I have at last the honour to acquitt my selfe, as becomes their and your Sir Your etc. Says-Court 6: July: 1659

Samuel Hartlib1 Letter 157 [153] August 8, 1659 f 94

Epistle CLIII To Samuell Hartlib Esquire

Sir I have not yet finished with your Proteus; but transmitt you the sheetes which it pleas’d you to consigne to me, and find the particulars of them to concerne my designe so deepely, that I wish any interesse in the Gentleman might procure me the hopes of perusing his learned 5 Evelyn seems to be thinking of Browne as the author of the immensely learned Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received tenents and commonly presumed truths (London, 1646, with many reprints; Evelyn’s copy of the 1650 edition now Eve.b.12), and perhaps more immediately (in both date and theme) of the recently published Hydriotaphia, Urne-buriall, or, a Discourse of the sepulchrall urnes lately found in Norfolk. Together with The Garden of Cyrus, or the Quincunciall, lozenge, or network plantations of the ancients, artificially, naturally, mystically considered (London, 1658; Eve.a.166). See Keynes, A Bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne. 1 Samuel Hartlib (c.1600–62; ODNB, R). A frequent correspondent with Evelyn in the early 1660s about scientific matters (and especially Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum”), Hartlib was born at Elbing in East Prussia, but was at Cambridge in 1625–6, and in London by 1628. Instrumental in laying the groundwork for the Royal Society by instituting the “Office of Address,” he also introduced Evelyn and John Beale as correspondents.

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papers, which through your mediation, I am not to despaire of, who have already received so greate encouragements by the favours which I accknowledg to have obtain’d:2 And I beg of you, that if they come to hand, you will be pleas’d to make me part of them; in the meane tyme that to give you a tast of some particulars relating to his designe, I am bold to add this farther account of my owne3 as they seeme to hold some proportion with the thoughts of Mr. Beale:4 so that I hope that with his worthy labours on this subject (to which myne desires the honour onely of being a handmayd) the History of Gardens may approch at least, if not perfectly attaine a consummate accomplishment: Sir, I remaine Your etc. Says-Court: 8 Sept August 1659.

Robert Boyle Letter 158 [154] August 8, 1659 f 94r–v

Epistle CLIV To Robert Boyle Esquire1

Sir I am perfectly ashamed at the remissenesse of this recognition for your late favours from Oxford; where, though, had you still resided, it should have interrupted you before this tyme: 2 Although the reference to “your Proteus” is unclear, the rest of the letter probably alludes to a text by Hartlib’s Protean correspondent, John Beale, possibly the text of a letter by Beale dated 30 September addressed to Henry Oldenburg (Royal Society Ms B 1, no. 14; printed as No. 162 in Oldenburg, Correspondence, I, 314–21); the notes that he mentions in Add 15948: f 82 (4.11.1659); or Beale’s plans for “a physique garden” and “a garden of pleasure” (Hartlib Papers 25/6/1a–4b; printed in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 226–31). For Beale and Hartlib’s correspondence, see Poole, “Two Early Readers of Milton: John Beale and Abraham Hill,” 85–8. 3 Possibly the first proposal for “Elysium Britannicum” which John Beale mentions in a letter to Hartlib of early September (scribal copy in Chetham’s Library Ms A 2.5: f 1), and which is also noted in a circular letter containing extracts from Oldenburgs’s letters to Hartlib, and including a discussion of Evelyn’s plan for “Elysium Britannicum” in a letter from Paris dated 13 September (Add 15948: f 71 [13.9.1659]; printed as No. 158bis in Oldenburg, Correspondence, XIII, 385–6). 4 John Beale (1608–83; ODNB). A friend of Boyle and Hartlib, and a protégé of Sir Henry Wotton, Beale had scholarly interests that ranged over a number of fields, but particularly agriculture and horticulture. Hartlib published his Herefordshire Orchards, a Pattern to all England in 1657. Beale was active in encouraging the Royal Society to promote cider orchards and his “Aphorisms Concerning Cider” was published in Evelyn’s Pomona in 1664. He also contributed material for Sylva, and published a number of papers in the Philosophical Transactions. He corresponded extensively with Evelyn (Add 78312–13, with additional material in Add 78343 [“Elysium Britannicum”], Add 15948, and Add 78683). See Stubbs, “John Beale, Philosophical Gardener of Herefordshire”; Leslie, “The Spiritual Husbandry of John Beale,” in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 151–72; and von Maltzahn, “The First Reception of Paradise Lost (1667).” 1 The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 362–3 derives from Boyle, Works (London, 1744), V, 397. It is dated 9 August.

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It was by our common good friend Mr. Hartlib,2 that I come now to understand you are retired thence, but not from the Muses, and the pursuite of your worthy designes, the results whereoff we breath after with all impatience; and how fortunate should I esteeme my selfe, it were in my power to contribute in the least to that, which I cannot but augure of so greate and universall a benefit: But, so it is, that my late inactivitie has made so smale a progresse, that in the History of Trades3 I have not advanced, finding (to my regrett) my greate many imperfections for the attempt, and the infinite subjections which I cannot supporte, of conversing with Mechanicall persons, and severall other discouragements: so that giving over a designe of that Magnitude, I am ready to accknowledg my temeritie, if from any expressions of mine, there was cause to hope for such a production, farther, then by a private collection of some heads and materialls, and joyn’d with a continuall propensitie of endeavoring in a few particulars, to encourage so noble a worke, as far as I was able, a Specimen whereoff, I here transmitt you, as from whom I hope to receive my best and most considerable furniture, which favour, I do againe and againe most humbly supplicate. Sir, I thanke you for your Receipts: there is no danger I should prostitute them, having encountred in Bookes, what will sufficiently, I hope, gratifie the curiosity of most, for I desire nothing more then to preserve the reputation and dignitie of science, and by emulating your perfections, to approve my selv Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 8 August 1659.

Robert Boyle Letter 159 [155] September 3, 1659 ff 94v–6

Epistle CLV To Robert Boyle Esquire1

Sir, Together with these testimonies of my cherefull obedience to your Commands, and a faithfull promisse of transmitting to you the rest (if yet there remaine any thing worthy 2 Samuel Hartlib 3 See Letter 114. Although Evelyn continued to be interested in the history of trades throughout his lifetime, and to incorporate some of his early material in subsequent publications, the scale of the project and his ambivalences about making this information public caused him to abandon it and to focus instead on “Elysium Britannicum.” See Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 75–84. 1 another text in Add 4293: ff 69–70. The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 365–9 derives from that version. Evelyn records on 1 September: “Came Mr. Rob: Boyle (son to the Earle of Corke) to visite me: I communicated to him my proposal to Errect a [Philosophic] Mathematical College” (Diary III.232). See Parry, “John Evelyn as Hortulan Saint,” in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 130–5, and Webster, The Great Instauration, 96–9.

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your acceptance amongst my impolish’t and Scattered Collections): I do here make bold to trouble you with a more minute discovery of the designe which I casualy mention’d to you, concerning my greate inclination to redeeme the remainder of my tyme, considering, quam parum mihi supersit ad metas;2 so as may best improve it to the glory of God Almighty, and the benefit of others. And since it has proved impossible for me to attaine to it hitherto (though in this my private and humble station) by reason of that fond morigeration3 to the mistaken costomes of the age, which not onely robbs men of their tyme, but extreamely of their virtue and best advantages; I have established with my selfe, that it is not to be hoped for, without some resolutions of quitting these incumb’rances, and instituting such a manner of life, for the future, as may best conduce to a designe so much breath’d-after; and, I thinke, so advantagious, and perfective of felicity. In order to this, I propound, that, since we are not to hope for a Mathematical Coledge, much lesse a Salomans-house,4 hardly a friend in this sad Catalysis, and, inter hos armorum strepitus,5 a period so uncharitable and perverse: Why might not some Gentlemen whose Genius’s are greately suitable, and, who desire nothing more then to give a good example, preserve Science, and cultivate themselves, joyne in Society together, and resolve upon some orders and Oeconomie, to be mutualy observed; such, as without shall best become the end of their union, if, I cannot say, without a kind of singularity, because the thing is new, yet, such a one at least, as shall be free from Pedantrie and all affectation. The possibility, Sir, of this is so obvious, that I do protest, were I not an aggregate Person, and so obliged, as well by my owne nature, as the Laws of decency, and their merites, to provide for my dependants, I would cherefully devote my small little fortune (be it what it will) to a designe, by which I might hope to assemble some smale number together, who would resigne themselves to live profitably, and sweetely together: But since that is not altogether in my power, I propose, That if any worthy Person, and queis meliore luto6 – so qualified as Mr. Boyle, will joyne in the designe (for not with everyone rich and learned, there are very few dispos’d, and it is the greatest difficulty to encounter the man) we would not doubt, in a short tyme (by the assistance of God) to be possess’t of the most blessed and agreable life, that virtuous Persons could wish, or aspire to, in this miserable and uncertaine pilgrimage; whither considerd as to the present revolutions, or, what may happen for the future, in all humane probabillitie. Now, Sir, in what instances, and how far this is practicable, permitt me to declare to you, by the calculations which I have made for our little foundation.7

2 “how little remains for me until the end.” Scaliger, Epistolæ omnes (Leiden, 1627; Eve.a.41), Letter CXXXIV to Isaac Casaubon, 339. 3 obedience or compliance. This instance is cited in the OED. 4 a college of natural philosophy proposed by Bacon in his New Atlantis (1627) 5 “amongst this clamouring of arms,” i.e., the disorders in the wake of Richard Cromwell’s assuming the government. Evelyn also uses the phrase in Letter 165 (28 January 1660) to Sir Thomas Browne. 6 “of a finer clay.” Juvenal, 14.34–5 (Ramsay, trans) 7 Evelyn’s proposal to Boyle for this “little foundation” was one of many attempts in the period surrounding the formation of the Royal Society to envisage a community or college dedicated to the natural sciences. See Hunter, “A ‘College’ for the Royal Society.”

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I suppose the purchasing of 30, or 40 Akers of Land in some healthy place, not above 25 miles from London, of which, a good part should be tall wood, and the rest uplandpastures or Downes, sweetely irrigated. We would erect upon the most convenient site of this, neere the wood, our Building; viz. one handsome Pavillion, containing a Refectory, Library, withdrawing roome, and a Closset in the first storie (destinating the kitchin, and offices halfe within ground) in the 2d, a faire lodging chamber, a pallet roome, Gallery, and a Closset; all which should be well and nobly honorably furnished for any worthy person that might desire to stay any tyme, and for the reputation of the Society: Above this, a halfe story for Servants, Wardrobes, and the like conveniences. To the entrie or fronte of this, a Court; and at the other back front a plot wall’d in of a competent Square, for a common Serraglio8 disposd into a Garden; or it might be onely carpet,9 curiously kept, and, to serve for bowling, walking, or other recreation etc. if the company thinke fit. Opposite to the house, towards the wood, should be errected a pretty smale Chappell, and, at equal distances (even with the flanking walles of this square) six Apartments or Cells, for the members of the Society, not contiguous to the Pavillion, each whereoff should containe a smale Bed-chamber, an Ante-chamber, a an outward Closset and a private Garden, somewhat after the manner of the Carthusians:10 There should likewise be an Elaboratory, with a Repository for rarities and things of nature, an Aviarie, Dove-house, Physicall-Garden, Olitory Garden and a Plantation of Orchard fruits etc.11 all of them uniforme buildings, but of single stories, or, a little elevated. At convenient distance, towards the Kitchin-Garden should be a stable for 2, or 3 horses and a lodging for a Servant or two; lastly a Garden-house and conservatory for tender plants. The estimate, what all this will amount to, take thus: The Pavillion £400, Chappell £150, Cells, wales and out-housing £600, the Purchase of the Fee for 30 Akers, at 15s, per Acre, 18 yeares purchase £400, the Totall £1550, Sixteene-hundred will be the utmost. Three of the Cells or Appartements, that is, the moitie with the appurtenances of this Colledg shall be at the disposall of one of the Founders, and, the other halfe at the others. If I, and my Wife take up two Apartements (for we are to be decently asunder, however I stipulate, and with her, and her inclination will greately suite with it, that shall be no impediment to the Society, but a considerable ayde to the Oeconomique part) a third shall be for some worthy person; and to facilitate the rest; I offer to furnish the whole Pavillion compleately, to the value of £500 in goods and moveables if neede be for 7 yeares ’till there be a publique stock etc. There shall be maintain’d at the common charge onely, a Chaplaine well qualified, an Artist that can be usefull in the Elaboratory, and turne his hand to any ingenious worke: an Antient woman to dresse the meate, wash and do all such offices; A Servant to buy provisions, keepe the Garden, horses etc. A Boy to assist him, and serve within. At one Meale a day of two dishes onely (unlesse some little extraordinary upon particular Days, or occasions, never exceeding three) of playne and wholesome meate; a smale 8 enclosure 9 lawn 10 a strictly silent monastic order in which each monk had his own cell 11 This proposed garden is very much like what Evelyn was putting in place at Sayes Court.

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refection at night: Wine, Beere, Suggar, Spice, Candle, Soape, Bread, Fish, Fowle, Oates, hay, fuell etc. at £4 per weeke £200 per Annum[,] Wages £35, keeping the Gardens £20, the Chaplaine £20 per Annum etc. layd up in the Treasury yearely £125 to be employ’d for bookes, instruments, druggs, tryalls etc. Totall, £400. I comprehend also in this the keeping of two horses two horses for a Coach or Charriot, and two kine; so that £200 per Annum will be the utmost that the founders shall be at, to maintaine the whole Society, consisting of 10 persons, the Servants included: But if any, who hath no relation to the Society; a single man, and qualified, shall be admitted to an empty apartement, paying for their proportion, and their aboade be considerable, it will yet much deminish the expense, and of such there will neede no invitation. If either of the Founders thinke fit to alter his Condition, or that anything do humanitus contingere,12 he may resigne to another, or Sell to his Collegue, and dispose of it as he pleases; yet so as it still continue the Institution, and according to the compact which shall be made in this particular. Orders, In summer at 6 in the morning Chappell; To studdy ’till halfe an howre after 11, Dinner in the Refectory ’till one, Retire ’til fowre: Then call’d to Conversation if faire, abroad, else, in the Refectory: this never omitted save in case of indisposition. at 5 Prayers at 7, To bed at 9. In the Winter, the same with some abatements for howers; because the nights are tedious, and the Evening Conversation more agreable; this, in the Refectory etc. All play interdicted, save bowling, chesse etc. Every person to Cultivate his owne Garden: One moneth in the Spring a Course in the Elaboratory on Vegetables etc. In Winter a moneth upon other Experiments: Every man to have a key of the Elaboratory Pavillion, Library, Repository, etc. Weekely Fast: Communion once every fortnight, or moneth at least: No stranger easily admitted to visite any of the Society but upon certaine days Weekely; and that onely after Dinner. Any of the Society may have his Commons to his Apartment if he please not to meete in the Refectory, so it be not above twise a Weeke: Every Thursday shall be a Musique meeting at Conversation hower: Every member of the Society shall render some publique account of his studdies weekely, if thought fit, and especialy, shall be recommended the promotion of Experimentall Knowledge as the Principle of the Institution. There shall be a decent habite and Uniforme, used in the Colledge: One Moneth in the yeare may be spent in London, or Oxford, or in a perambulation for the publique benefit etc. with what other orders shall be thought convenient. Thus, Sir, I have in hast (but to your losse, not in a Laconic stile) presum’d to communicate to you (and truely, in my life never to any save your selfe) that project, which for some tyme hath traversed my thoughts; and therefore, far from being the Effect either of an impertinent or trifling spirite, but the results of mature and frequent reasoning: And Sir, is not this the same that many noble personages did, at the confusion of the Empire by the barbarous Goths, when St. Hierome, Eustochius13 and others retired from the impertinencies of the World to the sweete recesses and Societies of the East, ’till it came to 12 “happen after the manner of men” 13 St Jerome (c.345–420); St Eustathius (c.300–77), chief founder of Eastern monasticism

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be burth’ned with the vowes and superstition which can give no scandal to our designe that provides against all such snares? If the modell be smale, it appeares the more practicable, and you know what comes è parvis principiis,14 rightly conducted, it will be facile to enlarge. But to assure you how pure and immixt the designe is from any other then the publique interest, by me propounded, and to redeeme the time to the noblest advantages purposes; I am thankfully to accknowledge, that, as to the common formes of living in the World, I have little reason to be displeas’d at my present condition, in which, I blesse God, I want nothing conducing either to health, or innocent diversion, extreamely beyond my merites, and therefore, would I be somewhat choyce and scrupulous in my Colleague; because he is to be the most deare person to me in the World: But, oh, how I should thinke it design’d from heaven, and tanquam numen διοπετὲς,15 did such a Person as Mr. Boyle, who is alone a Society of all that were desirable to a consummate felicity, esteeme it a designe worthy his embracing; upon such an occasion how would I prostitute all my other Interests, how should I exulte, and as I am, continue, upon infinite accumulations and reguards Sir, his etc: If you stay in London, and that I have the honour to kisse your hands before you returne to Oxford, I will bring the plot of this fabrique and designe, as I have heretofore scrabbled it out in Perspective, and the Ichnography, the better to fix the Ideä.16

Says-Court 3d September 1659.17

Cyparissa Letter 160 [156] September 14, 1659 ff 96–7

Epistle CLVI To Cyparissa.1

Madame, Is it to make experiment of my weake Talent, to trie how I can prævaricate, or in augurie of future effects, and that you give us hopes you may be shortly changing 14 15 16 17

“from small beginnings” “like a divine thing from God” reproduced in Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 85–6. The version sent to Boyle (Add 4293) ends: “If my health permitt me the honour to pay my respects to you, before you leave the Towne, I will bring you a rude plot of the Building, which will better fix the Idea, & shew what Symmetrie it holds with this description” (Boyle, Correspondence, I, 369).

1 Written over “My[ra?],” possibly Frances Willoughby (d. 1680) whom Evelyn records meeting in 1658 (Diary III.218), and who in 1659 married William Brereton (1631–80), 3rd Baron Brereton of Leighton, an original member of the council of the Royal Society. The couple visited Sayes Court on 15 September (Diary III.232 and n. 3). Cyparissa was also Waller’s poetic name for Mary Bracey, his second wife.

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your condition, that you are pleas’d to command my resolution: Of What Calling, or Employment I would advise you to choose a Husband? Be it either, or be it all, it is an honour you defer to me; and if I shall acquitt my selfe, without being thought partiall to my owne inclynation, you will pronounce me just, though you pursue not my Counsell; But if the mistakes of this impertinent age, suffer you to discerne of men and merite without prejudice, you must goe as far for the solution of your question, as the infancy of the World; and, if you have read how they lived under Saturne, and our Grandmothers enjoyd themselves in the Go[l]den-Age, you shall find, that of all other professions the Gardiners was in most request, and that Eve herselfe was but a Gardiners Wife, though God himselfe made the Match and married them too; sufficient, I presume, to give it the superioritie above all the rest, and to verifie the esteeme I professe to have for an Employment to which I pretend; if in magnifying it to this excesse, I doe not so much recommend the choyce to your passion and the fitnesse of your name, as to your reason. But if you Suspect a single Instance, because the successe was not permanent, you will remember whose the fault was, and repaire it; And then want not examples to your advantage; for when the son of the greate Sesostris2 had lost his sight, after ten years invoking the Oracle, the Oracle told him, that having first adoard the Gods of Heliopolis, and found out a Woman that had ben loyall to her husband, he should recover of his darknesse; beginning with his owne Lady wife, and examining all the Ladys, of his dominions, he found none perfectly honnest, save a certaine honest Gardiners Wife, whom upon recoverye of his sight he married in gratitude. And therefore Kings, and Consulls, Generalls, and Philosophers, thought it a calling so worthy, that they sometymes changed their Crownes for Garlands, and preferrd the spade to the Scepter and the purple for the blue apron.3 It were long to exemplifie, I report me to Reason. Dos that not tell you, that he who cultivates his ground best, is best capable to cultivate his Wife? A good Gardiner is never idle, he is ever a dressing and trimming, a courting and enjoying his Mistress, and when it gratefully presents him with flowers or fruite, he does reverence to the parterre, and admires the beauty, and is ravisht with the tast; and being vanquish’t with the charmes of the production of his calling, he redubbles his industrie, and is fed with new varieties, and a thousand delices, and being now above the solicitudes of the rest of the World, becomes the best natur’d of men, and by observing how his Garden holds proportion to his Wife, the best of Husbands; and she produces him fruite, and returnes his affection, and they unite their dilligence, and enjoy naturally and innocently. For it is a perpetuall Spring there with them; The beds are strew’d with roses, and the sheetes are of the whitest lilys; the Fountaines charme them to repose, and the Bees feede them with Ambrosia; they are waked with the warblings of the birds, and Aurora attends their comming forth; and when the Gardiner beholds the glory of his In its argument of the gardener as ideal husband, this letter is an exercise in Renaissance paradoxa (see Colie, Paradoxia Epidemica, and Chambers, “‘Wild Pastoral Encounter,’” in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 173–94). 2 Herodotus identifies this son as “Pheros,” thought by modern editors just to be a transliteration of “pharaoh.” The story recounted here is in Histories 2.3. 3 the royal purple for the gardener’s blue apron

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e­ namaild bedds, he thinks all the beauty but borrowd of his Mistrisse, and that all the odor they spire are but the incense of her breath: In summ, tis, with the Poet

_______a most serene and harmlesse life, Enrich’t with severall blessings, free from strife, Coole Grotts, darke shady groves, and fountaines cleere Refresh the Senses, and their lives indeare; How’ere the times succeede, Gardners can live By labour, and smale wealth: Honour they give Unto their Gods and Parents. Justice tooke Her last step there, when she the Earth forsooke4

For when King Gyges enquir’d of the Oracle, who was the happiest man in the World, the replie was Agelaus, which upon dilligent search was found to be a Gardiner, that lived neately and frugaly in his pretty Villa:5 Of such they heretofore made their Captains in Warr, and their Arbiters of affaires in peace; as if none were more fit to præside in a State, then he who could governe his Garden well; and for this was Abdoliminus6 elected King of Sydon, and Corvinus 3 tymes Dictator.7 Plato confess’t it the most sober employment, and the most innocent, and made severe laws against such as should violat an Ortchard.8 I should never have don, should I goe through what the Poets and the Philosophers have said to their advantage, Orpheus, Musæus, Mago and Archelaus, Osyris and Isis, Janus and Ogiges;9 the Severe Cato,10 the Victorius Cyrus,11 the profound Epicurus,12 and the holy Eremites; Gods and Heroes, Saints and Emperours have don homage to the profession. But Cyparissa, I will not here tyre you with stories, who have promis’d you a Volume on the subject;13 and when that is finish’t, the Married Ladys may find their mistakes too late, when the feather and the ribbon, and the fine thing their husbands look appeare like the dublett carried upon a stick in my Garden, Scarr-Crows, and and Puppets, 4 Virgil, Georgics 2.467–4 (Thomas May, trans) 5 Pliny, Historia Naturalis 7.46.151 reports the response of the Delphic oracle to Gyges. 6 Abdalonymus, found cultivating his garden, was appointed king of Sidon by Hephaestion. See Quintus Curtius, Historiae Alexandri Magni 4.1.19–26. 7 M. Valerius Corvus (c.370 BC–270 BC), six times consul and twice dictator. See Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 7.26. 8 Plato, Laws VIII 9 Gyges was king of Lydia (c.680–645 BC). Like Musaeus, a mythical singer of Elusis in Thrace, Orpheus charmed nature by song. Mago was a Carthaginian writer on agriculture whose (lost) work is cited by Columella and Pliny. The last three are more associated with religion and philosophy: Archelous, the fifth-century-BC philosopher who speculated on the origins of creation; Isis and Osiris, the Egyptian gods associated with death and resurrection, and Janus and Ogiges, gods associated with beginnings.   10 Marcus Porcius Cato (the Elder), author of De Agricultura.   11 In The Garden of Cyrus (1658), Sir Thomas Browne had referred to the Persian emperor as “Not only a Lord of Gardens, but a manuall planter thereof: disposing his trees like his armies in regular ordination.” Works, ed. Keynes, I, 181.   12 Epicurus’s school was known as “The Garden” (Cicero, De Finibus, 5.1.3).    13 “Elysium Britannicum”

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compar’d to Persons of our Calling and dignitie, which if your Servant have magnified with arguments and instances incompatible to all other professions, it is because there is none more worthy becoming your name, and worthy your choyce then A Gardiner From my Villa in the Garden: 14 September 1659.

Robert Boyle Letter 161 [157] October 1, 16591 ff 97–8v

Epistle CLVII To Robert Boyle Esquire:

Sir, I send you this inclos’d, the Product of your Commands, but the least instance of my ambition to serve you; and when I shall add, that if an oblation of what ever else I possesse, can verifie the expression of my greater esteeme, it is but the tribute which I owe you for the Present [RM: his booke of Seraphic Love]2 you lately made me of your incomparable Booke; which as indited with a pen snatch’t from the wing of a Seraphin, exhalts your divine Incentives to that height, that being sometymes ravish’t with your description of that the An transcendent state of angelicall Amours: I was almost to the passion of Cleombrotus,3 who threw himself into the water upon the reading of Plato; and as despairing to enjoy it here, ready to crie out with St. Paule cupio dissolvi, and to be in the Embraces of this Seraphic love, which you have describ’d to that perfection, as if in the company of the some Celestiall harbinger you had taken flight, and bin ravish’t into the third Heaven, where you have heard words unutterable, and from whence you bring us such affections and divine inclinations, as are onely competent to Angels and to your Selfe; for so powerfull is your eloquence, so metaphysicall your discourses, and sublime your Subject. And though by all this, and your rare example, you civilly declaime against the mistakes we married persons usualy make; yet I cannot think it a paralogisme or insidious which you reasoning, which you mannege with so much ingenuity, and pursue with so greate a judgment and. But certainely it was an extraordinary grace, that at so 1 The version of this letter published in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 371–6 is dated 29 September. It derives from the text printed in Boyle, Works (London, 1744), VI, 291–4. 2 Boyle, Some Motives and Incentives to the Love of God (London, 1659; Evelyn Library, no 233), later known as Seraphic Love. See the discussion of the significance of the concept of seraphic love for Evelyn in Harris, Transformations of Love, 80–1 and passim. 3 In City of God 1.22, Augustine relates the story that Cleombrotus the philosopher, having read Plato, killed himself to exchange his life for a better. Cupio dissolvi from “desiderium habens dissolvi” (Philippians 1:23): “having a desire to depart.”

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early yeares, and amidst the ardors of Youth, you should be able to discerne so maturely, and Determine so happily, avoyde the Siren and escape the tempest: But thus when the curiositie of Psyche, had lighted the Lamp taper, and was resolv’d to see what so ardently embrac’t her; she discover’d an impertinent Child, the weaknesse and folly of the Passion.4 You, Sir, found its imperfections betymes; and that men then ceased to be wise when they began to be in love, unlesse with you they could turne nature into grace, and at once place their affections on the right object. But Sir, though you seeme tender of the consequence, all this while, the conclusion will speake as well as your example; that though you have sayd nothing of marriage which is the consequence resulte of love, yet you suppose that it were hard to be a Servant, without folly, and that there are ten thousand inquietudes espoused with a Mistris: That the fruits of Children are teares and weakenesse, whilst the productions of the Spirit put their Parents neither to charge nor trouble: That all those Heros of whom we reade, esteemed most preciously of the Cælibate: Alexander had no child, and Hercules left no heire: Palace was borne of the braine of Jupiter, and the Venus-Urania of the Platonists,5 made love onely to the soule which she united to the Essence of God, according to their divinity Theology, and had no lower commerce then what you so worthily celebrate in your booke, and cultivate in your life: But, though these were all true, and all that you have added, Since I finde the passion of Lindamor,6 rather to be pittied, then criminall; because Hermiones was not reciprocall, though she were cruell, the Sex is tender, and amiable, pious and usefull, and will never want champions to assert defend their vertues, and asserte their dues, and that is, our love and our Services. For if it be virtuous, it is neerest to the Seraphick, and what ever can be objected against it, proceedes from the vices of the Persons, deffect, or extreames of the Passion: But you instance in the jealosies, disseases, follys and inconstancys of love; the sensuall truely is obnoxious to them all; But who have bin the Martyrs, where the designe was not plainely brutish, indiferent to the education, or blinded with avarice? And if you have examples of their hatred, and perfidie, I can produce a thousand of their affection and integrity: What thinke you Sir of Alceste7 that ran into the funerall pile of her Husband? the goodnesse of Æmilia, the Chastitie of Lucretia, the faith of Furia, Portia and infinite others, who knew nothing that the Christian institution has superadded? and the Scriptures are full of worthy examples, since it was from the effects of conjugall Love, that the Saviour of the World, and that greate object of Seraphic Love deriv’d his incarnation: Take away this love, and the whole Earth is but a desert and though there were nothing more worthy elogies then Virginitie, it is yet but the effect result of Love; 4 In the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche, having been told not to look at her lover who came to her by night, brought a light to look at him while asleep and so wakened and lost him. See Apuleius, Metamorphoses 4.28–6.24. 5 In fact both Alexander and Hercules had children. Pallas Athene was born from the brain of Zeus. Venus Urania, described by Plato in Symposium 181c–d as heavenly or spiritual love, was a commonplace of Neoplatonist thought. See Marsilio Ficino, De amore, and Nelson, Renaissance Theory of Love. 6 Lindamor is the name of Boyle’s addressee in Seraphic Love. His beloved is called “Hermione,” in classical mythology the daughter of Helen and Menelaus who first married Neoptolemus and then Orestes. 7 Such catalogues of exemplary women of antiquity are to be found in Boccaccio and in Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women. See Benson, The Invention of the Renaissance Woman. Evelyn parodies the topos in his mock panegyric to Margaret Cavendish (Letter 368).

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Since those that shall people Paradise, and fill heaven with saints are such as have bin subject to this passion, and were the product of it. In summ It is by that, the Church has consecrated to God both Virgins, Martyrs, and Confessors these 5000 1600 yeares; and he that says it was not good for man to be alone, placed the Cælibate amongst the inferiour states of perfection (whatever some affirme) seing that of the Apostle St. Paule is not generall, and he confesses he had no command from the Lord:8 It was the best counsell in a tyme of Persecution, the present distresse, and for an Itinerant Apostle; and it is what I so reccommend to all of the Function, that, for many reguards, I could wish them all Seraphins, who do neither marrie nor are given in Marriage. But I cannot consent, that such a Person as Mr. Boyle be so indifferent, decline a virtuos love, or imagine that the best Ideas are reppresented to us onely in Romances, where love beginns, proceeds, and expires in the pretty tale; but leaves us no worthy impressions of its effects; we have realler examples. And the wives of Philosophers, pious and studious persons shall furnish our instances: For such was Pudentilla that held the Lamp to her husbands elucubrations; such a Companion had the learned Budæus and the late adventure of Madame Grotius, celebrated by her Hugo who has not heard of!9 The Comitte Chambers, and the Parliament Lobby are sad, but evident testimonies of the Patience, and the Addresse, the Love and the constancy of these gentle Creatures.10 In fine, They beare us out of love, and they give us suck; they divert us when we are well, and ’tend us when we are sick; they grieve over us when we dye, and I have knowne some that would not be comforted and survive. But, Sir, I am not run on twelve motives of Jacobus de Voragine Ludovicus Vives has written a volume on this Subject,11 and taken all the histories from the loves of Christian Women, Jacobus de Voragine12 gives us twelve motives to accknowledg the good we receive by them, and I could add a thousand more if that of Pliny were not instar omnium,   8 1 Corinthians 7:25   9 Pudentilla was the wife of Apuleius. Guillaume Budé’s wife, Roberte Le Lieur, is claimed to have assisted her husband in his scholarly work. After his death, she moved to Geneva and eventually became a Protestant (Contemporaries of Erasmus, II, 318–19). Maria de Reigersbergen, the wife of the Dutch statesman and scholar, Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), rescued him from prison by hiding him in a trunk. 10 Evelyn is probably thinking of such women as Ann Fanshawe and Elizabeth Mordaunt, active Royalists and loyal advocates for their husbands.  11 Juan Luis Vives (1492–1540), De Institutione foeminæ Christianæ (Antwerp, 1524); English translation: The Instruction of a Christian Woman (London, 1529?) 12 Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, III, 266–7, citing Jacobus de Voragine (c.1230–98): “But what doe I trouble my selfe, to finde arguments to perswade to, or commende marriage? behold a briefe abstract of all that which I have said, & much more, succinctly, pithily, pathetically, perspicuously, and elegantly delivered in twelve motives, to mittigate the miseries of marriage, by Jacobus de Voragine ... Hast thou meanes? thou hast one to keep and increase it. 2. Hast none? thou hast one to helpe to get it. – 3. Art in prosperity? thine happinesse is doubled. – 4. Art in adversity? shee’le comfort, assist, beare a part of thy burden to make it more tolerable. – 5. Art at home? shee’le drive away melancholy. – 6. Art abroade? shee looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thine absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return. – 7. There’s nothing delightsome without society, no society so sweet as Matrimony. – 8. The bande of Conjugall love is adamantine. – 9. The sweet company of kinsmen increaseth, the number of parents is dobled, of brothers, sisters, nephews. – 10. Thou art made a father by a faire and happy issue. – 11. Moses Crseth the barrenness of Matrimony, how much more a single life? – 12. If Nature escape not punishment, surely thy Will shall not avoide it” (III.ii.5.5).

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[RM: Epist: L: 4: Ep. 19] who writing to his Mother in Law Hispulas who that brought his Lady up, gives here this Character Encomium Summum est acumen, summa frugalitas: amat me, quod castitatis indicium est. Accedit his studium literarum quod ex mei charitate concepit. Meos libellos habet, lectitat, ediscit etiam. Qua illa Solicitudine quum videor acturus, quanto quum egi gaudio afficitur? and afterwards, Versus quidem meos cantat, formatque cithara, non artifice aliquo docente, sed amore, qui magister est optimus. Whenc he well concludes foretells perpetuam nobis maioremque in dies futuram esse concordiam. discoursing in that which follows, of the noblenesse and puritie of her affection, with this elegant, and civil accknowledgement. Certatim ergo tibi gratias agimus: Ego, quod illam mihi: Illa, quod me sibi dederis, quasi invicem delegeris.13 And what if Mr. Boyle himselfe did love such a Lady, would it hinder him from the Seraphic, or the pursuite of his worthy enquiries? There is no danger that he should be taught Philosophy as Socrates was, who already commands his passions, and has divinitie sufficient to render even Zantippe a Sainte; and whose arguments for the Seraphicall Love would make all men to envy his condition, and suspect their owne, if it could once be admitted, that those who are given to be Auxillia Commoda,14 should hinder them in the Love of God, whereoff Marriage is a Type: for so the Apostle makes the Parallel, when he speakes of the Church 5 Ephesians15 and devotion is so generaly conspicuous in the Femal Sex, that they furnish the greater part of many the Letanys, and whom if we may not pray to, we ought certainely praise God for; not so much, because they were Virgins, as that they were the Mothers and the Daughters of the greatest Saints and lights of the Church, who propagated the Seraphic Love with their Examples, and seal’d it with their blood. But, deare Sir, mistake me not all this while; for I make not all this recitall as finding the least period in your most excellent discourse prejudiciall to the conjugall state; or that I have the vanity to imagine my forces capable to render you a Proselyte to Hymen,16 who have already made the worthiest choyce; much lesse to magnifie my owne condition, and lay little snares for those obvious replies which returne with compliments, and odious flatteries: I have never encountred anything extraordinary, or dare lay claime to the least of the vertues I have celebrated: But if I have found the Conversation capable of exhalting and improving our Affections, even to the highest objects, and to contribute very much to humane felicity: I cannot pronounce the love of the Sex to be at all missapplied, or to the prejudice of the most Seraphic. And if to have the fruition and the knowledge of our

13 In Epistulae 4.19, Pliny writes to Calpurnia Hispulla about her niece: “She is highly intelligent and a careful housewife, and her devotion to me is a sure indication of her virtue. In addition, this love has given her an interest in literature: she keeps copies of my works to read again and again and even learn by heart. She is so anxious when she knows that I am going to plead in court, and so happy when all is over! ... She has even set my verses to music and sings them, to the accompaniment of her lyre, with no musician to teach her but the best of masters, love ... our mutual happiness will last forever and go on increasing day by day ... And so we don’t know which of us should thank you more for having given her to me and me to her as if chosen for each other” (Radice, trans). 14 useful assistants 15 the parallel of husbands and wives to Christ and the church in Ephesians 5:28–32 16 a convert to marriage

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Friends in Heaven, will be so considerable an augmentation of our felicity, how greate is that of the Married like to be prove; since there is not on Earth a friendship comparable to it? Or if Paradise and the Arke be the most adæquate ressemblances of those happy Mansions; You may remember, there were none but Cupples there, and that every Creature was in love: But why do I torment your Eyes with these impertinencies? Which would never have end, did I not consider I am but writing a Letter, and how much better you are wont to place your precious howers. But, Sir, I have now but a Word to add, and it is to tell you; That, if after all this, we accknowledge your Victory, and finde all our Arguments to[o] weake to contest with your Seraphicall Object; pronounce you wise, and infinitely happy; Yet, as if env[y]ing that any else should be so; you have too long conceal’d the discourses which should have gaind you Disciples, and are yet not afraid to make Apologies for employing that talent, which you cannot justifie the wrapping up all this while in a napkin. We therefore that are intangled in our mistakes, and accknowledge our imperfections, must needes declare against it, as the least effects of a Seraphic lover, which is to render all men like him selfe; And, since there is now no other remedy, make the best use we can of what St. Paule advises, Ut qui habeant Uxores, sint tanquam non habentes17 etc. and for the rest, to Serve and to Love God as well as we may in the condition we are plung’d assigned, which, if it may not approach to the perfection of Seraphins, and that of Mr. Boyle, let it be as neere as it may can, and we shall not be amongst the most unhappy for having made some virtuous addresses to that Sex the faire Sex. Dearest Sir, permitt me to tell you, that I extreamely lov’d you before; but my heart is infinitely knitt to you now: For what are we not to expect from so timely a Consecration of your excellent abillities? The Primitiæ18 sanctified the whole harvest; and you have at once, by this incomparable piece taken off the reproachs which lay upon Piety, and the Inquirie into Nature, That the one was too early for young persons, and the other the product ready way to Atheisme; then which, as nothing has bin more maliciously and impiously spoaken; so, nor has anything bin more fully refuted: But Sir, I have finish’t, pardon this greate excesse, it is love that constraines me, and the Effects of your discourses, from which I have learn’d so many excellent things, that they are not to be numbred, and merited with lesse then I have sayd, and then I professe, which is to continue all my life. Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 1: October 1659.

17 “they that have wives be as though they had none” 1 Corinthians 7:29. 18 the first fruits (as offerings to a deity)

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Robert Boyle Letter 162 [158] December 1, 1659 f 99

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Epistle CLVIII To Robert Boyle Esquire

Sir, There was nothing lesse in my designe, then (when it became me to returne you thankes for your noble Present) to engage you in a velitation, or provoke an Antagonist, so much Superiour to my forces; But when I have the Liberty to tell you how I came to be entertain’d an Advocate for the Sex, you will Smile at the adventure and forgive me;1 though, I know not whither you will deserve so much mercy from me, who could thinke I was in earnest, or that I can admire anything, which you do not cherish and cultivate by your example. I am not therefore displeas’d, when you tell me my Letter is full of fine things, indeede, more gaudy, then at all solid; but, such, yet, as became the Subject, which was a aery and frivolous, save where it did justice to your merites, and was the worthyest Panegyric to your excellent Booke, that I could then thinke of and which. And though I could not so easily throw it by (as anothers I might haply have don) without a greate contradiction to that perfect esteeme which I professe to beare you; Though Yet, when I perceiv’d, to how greate a trouble my trifling had brought reduc’d you, I was vex’t at my Scribbling, and, could have wish’d Ladys, and Marriage in Utopia; or that my pen had bin as much out of frame, as my little witt was which us’d it. I will not therefore any longer abuse your Patience by telling you what a number of Examples more I could produce, fit to justifie men’s being enamour’d on them; nor, that their new, and perpetuall successions do still enrich the Lotteries, and render them inexhaustible, with a thousand fine things besides. But, if you shall command it, converte my stile, and make you amends for this pleasant mistake, by saying such things of men, and of such as Mr. Boyle is, as shall make the Ladys despaire of all their charmes, and the Married Persons deplore the folly of their præcipitancy, like the silly Fishes in your Instance; so you will allow me the benefit of a religious Pœnitent, which is that of your Pardon and Indulgence for what is already past: But Sir, it is full tyme to give you breath, and to seeke how I may now commute for these greate impertinencys. I have now in my hands for you the Lapis Illuminabilis of Boulognia,2 and, which I had transmitted with this Letter did I not hope to have the honour of presenting it to you in Person, at the long’d for approch which Mr. Pet,3 and your owne promise, has given me expectations of. Nor has the enjoyment of that bin the least inducement to me of changing my Tabernacle4 this Winter; though, the continuall 1 See his argument in the previous letter for the married life. Boyle’s response to Letter 161 does not survive. The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 394–6 is based on this source. 2 Bologna stone or naturally occurring barium sulphide 3 Peter Pett 4 Evelyn had moved for the winter to the Three Feathers Inn in Russell St, Covent Garden where his son was “sick of an Ague” (Diary III.233).

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Indisposition of my Languishing Child,5 has also bin some occasion of it. Sir, I beseech you presente my humble services to Mr. Barlow,6 to Mr. Wren,7 and to all my worthy Friends in Oxford. My Wife kisses your hands, and I beg allways the honour of this Cognizance by which I am knowne to be Sir, Your etc. Covent-Garden 1 December 1659.

Herbert Morley Letter 163 [159] January 12, 1660 ff 99v–100

Epistle CLIX To Collonel Morley Lieutenant of the Towre.

[LM: when I transacted with him for delivery of the Tower of London and to declare for the King, a little before General Monke and which had he don; he had receiv’d the honors that greate men deserved and obtained soone after]1 Sir, For many obligations, but especially for the last testimonies of your confidence in my Friendship, begun so long since, and conserved so inviolably through so many changes,

5 John Evelyn Jr (1655–99; Diary, ODNB). Evelyn’s longest-surviving son, John was nonetheless sickly and predeceased his father. Having been taught by Milton’s nephew, Edward Phillips, and Ralph Bohun, John went to Oxford in 1667, with Bohun, and subsequently to the Middle Temple. In 1680 he married Martha Spencer (c.1661–1726). In 1688 he was employed by the Treasury, and from 1692 to 1696 he was one of the commissioners of the revenue in Ireland. He left Dublin under a cloud and was unsuccessful in getting a commission in the customs in England (Add 78301: f 78 [2.4.1697]). He died at the age of 44 on 24 April 1699. Nearly thirty years of his correspondence with his father and mother are contained in Add 78301 and Add 78432. 6 Thomas Barlow 7 Christopher Wren (1632–1723; ODNB, R). Evelyn first met “that miracle of a Youth, Mr. Christopher Wren” (Diary III.106) in Oxford in 1654, where he saw the transparent beehives Wren designed for Wilkins’s garden at Wadham. In 1657 Wren had been appointed to the chair in astronomy at Gresham College. See Jardine, On a Grander Scale, 106–8. 1 See the accounts of Evelyn’s transactions with Morley in Add 78393, ff 1–4 and ff 5–9: the former is an account prepared by Sir Thomas Clarges in 1664, the latter a narrative by Evelyn. The first was intended to be inserted in Edward Phillips’s continuation of Sir Richard Baker’s Chronicle. See also Add 78317: f 46 (8.12.1664) from Clarges and Add 78684: f 128 [10.12.1664], a letter from Edward Phillips with a draft response by Evelyn on the verso pertaining to these negotiations. See de Beer, “Evelyn and Col. Herbert Morley,” and Nethercot, “John Evelyn and Colonel Herbert Morley in 1659–60,” and the annotated copy of Baker’s Chronicle in the Huntington Library (RB 53556).

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and in so universall a catalysis decadence of honour, and all that is Sacred amongst men; I come with this profound accknowledgement of the favours you have don me, and had a greate desire to have made this a personall recognition, and to congratulate your returne, and the Dignities which your merites have acquired, and for which, none dos more sincerely rejoice;2 could I promise my selfe the hapynesse of finding you in your station at any season wherein the publique, and more weighty concer[n]ments did afford you the leasure of receiving a Visite, from a Person so inconsiderable as my selfe. But, since I may not hope for that good fortune, and such an opportunity of conveying my respects, and the greate affections which I owe you; I did presume to transmitt this Expresse; and, by it, to present you with the worthiest indications of my Zeale to continue in the possession of your good graces, by assuring you of my great est desires to Serve you in whatsoever may best conduce to your honour, and to a stability of it, beyond all that any future contingencies of things can promise; because I am confident, that you have a nobler prospect upon the successe of your designes, then to prostitute your vertues and your conduct, to sub serve the passions or avarice of any particular persons whatsoever; being (as you are) free, and incontaminate, well borne, and abhorring to disonour or enrich your selfe with the spoyles which by others have bin taken of ravish’t from our miserable, yet dearest Country; and which renders them so zealous to pursue the ruines of it, by labouring to involve men of the best natures, and reputation, into their owne inextricable Laborynths, and to gratifie that which will pay them with so much infamy in the event of things, and with so inevitable a perdition of their precious Soules, when all these uncertaineties (how specious so ever at present) shall vanish and come to nothing. There is now Sir, an opportunity put into your hands, by improving whereof, you may securely act for the good of your Country, and the redemption of it from the insupportable Tyrannies, Injustice, and Impieties under which it has now groan’d for so many yeares, through the trechery of so many wiccked, and the mistakes of some few good men: For by this, Sir, you shall best do honour to God, and merite of your Country; by this you shall secure your selfe, and make your name greate to the succeeding Ages; by this you shall crowne your selfe with reall and lasting dignities; In summ, by this, you shall oblige even those whom you may mistake to be your greatest Enemies, to embrace and cherish you as a person becomming the honour of a brave and worthy Patriot, and to be rewarded with the noblest expressions of it; when, by the best interpretation of your Charity, and Obedience to the dictates of a Christian, you shall thus heape coales of fire upon their head; and, which at once, will give both light and warmeth to this afflicted Nation, Church and people, not to be extinguished by any more of those Impostors, whom God has so signally blowne off the stage, to place such 2 Evelyn had gone to school with Morley in Lewes. They had maintained contact in spite of his prominence as a parliamentarian and a military leader, and he was the unnamed addressee of An Apologie for the Royal Party (London, 1659). He had facilitated Mary Evelyn’s arrival in England in 1652 (Diary III.65–6), and had purchased a property from Evelyn in 1655 (Diary III.151). By December 1659, Morley had been nominated to the Council of State, and appointed lieutenant of the Tower on 6 January 1660. Evelyn followed up this letter with a visit to Morley on 22 January (Diary III.240).

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in their stead, as have opportunities given them of restoring us to our antient knowne Lawes, native, and most happy Liberties: It is this, Sir, which I am oblig’d to wish, to encourage you in, and to pronounce as the worthyest testimonie of my congratulations for your Returne; and, which you may assure your selfe, has the Suffrages of the sollidest, and best ingredient of this whole Nation. And having sayd thus much, I am sure you will not looke upon this Letter as a servile Addresse; but, if you still retaine that Favour and Goodnesse for the Person who presents it, that I have reason to promise my selfe, from the integritie which I have hitherto observed in all your professions; I conjure you to believe, that you have made a perfect acquisition of my Service; and, that (however events succeede) I am still the same person, greedy of an opportunity to reccommend my the sincerity of my affection, by doing you whatsoever Service lyes in my power; and I hope you shall not finde me without some capacities of expressing it in effects, as well as in the words of honourable Sir Your etc. Covent Garden 12th January 1659/60

Morley was at this time Lieutennant of the Toure of London; Was abso[l]ute Master of the Citty, there being very few of the Rebell Army any where neere it, save at Sumerset house a trifling Garrison, which was marching out to reinforce Lambert, who was marching upon the Newes of Monks3 coming out of Scotland, He was Lieutenant of all the Confederat Countys of Sussex, Surrey etc. Hampshire etc.[,] his Brother in Law governor of Port[s]mouth and Hampton,4 His owne Brother William Morly,5 Governor of Arundel Castle; in summ had all the Advantages he could have desird, to have rais’d the well affected of the Citty and Countrie universaly breathing after a deliverer (uncertaine as yet what Monke intended) and so had absolutely prevented any Person or Power, whatever (in all appearance) from having the honour of bringing in the King; before those who were in motion, could have snatch’d it out of his hand and power, which was on this Occasion to have raisd all the As[s]ociat Country about the Citty, without Control: Of all this, I made him so sensible, (when I was with him at the Toure) that nothing but his fatal diffidence of Monks having no designe to bring in his Majestie (because to have discovered it w[h]ile matters were yet in the dark, but the designe, certainly resolv’d on) kept him Wavering and so Irresolute (though he saw the Game so fairely in his hands) as to sit still and put it off; til Lambert6 being, and his forces

3 George Monck, 1st duke of Albemarle (1608–70; ODNB) 4 Sir John Fagg, 1st baronet (1627–1701; ODNB) married Morley’s sister. Although he was never governor of Portsmouth, he was involved with Morley in securing it for the Rump in late 1659. 5 Captain William Morley had been governor of Arundel Castle from 1645 to 1652 when “the walls and works” of the castle were made indefensible, and it was returned to the Howard family. 6 General John Lambert (1619–83) fell out with Cromwell and withdrew from an active role in government in 1657 to live at Wimbledon House.

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being scatte[r]d and taken. Monk march’d into the Citty triumphant with his wearied Armey, possessd the Gates, and with no greate cunning and little difficulty, finding how the people and Magistrats were dispos’d (whatever his seacret intentions were or at first seemd to be) boldly and fortunately brought to passe that noble Revolution follo[wi]ng it, to his eternal Honour, by Restoring a Banished Prince, and the Peoples freedome: This poore Morly saw, and in a maner sneaked to me, I­ mploring my Interest by which meanes he might secure himselfe, and obtaine his Pardon: This is in short a true account of that remarkable Affaire:7

Elizabeth Puckering Letter 164 [160] January 12, 1660 f 100v

Epistle CLX. To my Lady Puckering:

Madame, I have never esteem’d it worthy of wishing my selfe greate in this World, for any designe so much, as that I might be in a capacity of revenging obligations;1 But when you see me (upon three years Tryall) so unable to returne, methinks you should leave off, and desist to oppress me with your benefits: Madam, we did receive your noble present, and we render you a thousand accknowledgements for it: But, I should thinke that a happy instance, which might intitle me to some opportunity wherein I might serve you in this station, and with that greate affection which your Ladyships merites have acquir’d from me, and mine, by characters which are indelible, and the most worthy of Friendships, not to be obliterated by so greate an Intervall, or the indignity of the Beneficiary. If in prosecution of the designe which I here make bold to enclose, I may hope to contribute to your wonted passion for the Hortulane entertainements, and those innocent diversions,2 I shall have arived to the height of myne Ambition; and, ’till that be accomplished, I must despaire of making you the least returne, becomming my obligation, and the desire of expressing how greately perfectly I am Madame Your etc. Covent Garden 12: January 1659/60

7 This note is inserted at the bottom of f 100 after the valediction. The handwriting suggests that it was added at a later date. 1 She and her husband continued to provide Evelyn with deer from their estate. 2 probably the initial proposal of “Elysium Britannicum,” first circulated in 1659. See Letter 165.

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Thomas Browne1 Letter 165 [161] January 28, 1660 f 101r–v

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Epistle CLXI To Dr. Browne of Norwich:2

[RM: Author of Religio Medici, and Vulgar Errours] Sir, By the mediation of that noble person Mr. Paston,3 and an extraordinary humanity of your owne, I find I have made acquisition of such a Subsidiary, as nothing but his greate favour to me, and your communicable nature could have procured me. It is now therefore that I dare promise my selfe Successe in my Attempt; and, it is certaine that I will very justly owne your favours, with all due accknowledgements, as the most obliging of all my Correspondents. I perceive you have cast your eye upon the Proplasma and delineation of my designe,4 which to avoyde the infinite coppying, for some of my Curious Friends, I was constrained to print:5 But, it cannot be imagin’d, that I should have travelld over so large a Province (though but a Garden) as yet, who set forth so few moneths since, and can make it but a diversion at best, who have so many other impediments beseiging me, publique, and personall, whereof the tedious indisposition of my Unicus, my onely son,6 now 5 moneths afflicted with a dubble Quartan, and but 5 yeares old, is not one of the most inconsiderable to me: So that there is no danger your additionalls, and favours to your Servant, should be prevented by the perfection of my worke; or if it were finished, that I should be so injurious to my owne fame, or your Civillity, as not to begin all anew, that I might take in such Auxilliaries, as you send me, and which I must esteeme as my best and most sollid forces. Sir, I returne you a thousand accknowledgements for the papers which you transmitted me; and I will, according to your desires, render you this accoumpt of my present enterprise. The truth is, that which imported me to discourse on this Subject after this sort, was the many defects which I encountered in Bookes and in Gardens, 1 Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82; ODNB), author and physician. A correspondent with Evelyn about the material in Sylva, Browne sent Evelyn an account of the kinds and sizes of trees in Norfolk (Add 78317: f 35 [14.10.1663]). See also Add 78683: f 96 (n.d.). See de Beer, “The Correspondence between Sir Thomas Browne and John Evelyn.” 2 The original version of the letter, upon which Keynes bases his text (Browne, Works, IV, 273–9) is in the Bodleian Library (MS Rawl. D 391: ff 36–7). 3 Sir Robert Paston 4 the proposal for “Elysium Britannicum.” See Chambers, “‘Wild Pastoral Encounter,’” in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 173–94, and “‘Elysium Britannicum not printed neere ready &c,’” in O’Malley and Wolschke-Bulmahn, John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, 107–30. 5 See Add 15950: f 143, a copy of the printed outline. This was Evelyn’s second prospectus for the project, which included revisions suggested by Henry Oldenburg in his letter of 13 September 1659 (Add 15948 f: 71 [13.9.1659]). See Harris, “The Manuscripts of John Evelyn’s ‘Elysium Britannicum.’” 6 John Evelyn Jr; see Letter 162.

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wherein, neither words, nor cost had bin wanting; but judgement very much; and though I cannot boast of my Science in this Kinde; as both unbecomming my yeares, and my smale experience; yet I esteem’d it pardonable at least, if in doing my endeavor to rectifie some mistakes, and advancing so usefull, and innocent a divertisement, I made some essay, and cast in my Symbole with the rest: To this Designe, if forraine observation may conduce, I might likewise hope to refine upon some particulars; especially concerning the Ornamentall part of Gardens, which I shall should endeavor so to handle, as that they may become usefull and practicable, as well as magnificent; and that persons of all conditions and faculties, which delight in Gardens, may therein find something for their advantage. The Modell, Sir, which I propose, and which I perceive you have seene, will aboundantly testifie my abhorrency of those painted and formall projections of our Cockney Gardens and little plotts, which appeare like Gardens of Past-board and March-pane, and which smell more of paynt, then of these flowers, and Verdure: Our drift is a noble, princely and universall Elysium, capable of all the amenities, that can naturally be introduced into Gardens of Pleasure, and such as may stand in competition with all the august designes and stories of this nature either of antient or modern tymes; Yet so, as to become usefull, and significant to the least pretences and faculties: We do endeavor to shew, how the aire and genious of Gardens worke upon humane spirits towards virtue and Sanctitie, I meane, in a remoate præparatory and instrumentall working: How Caves, Grotts, Mounts and other like irregular ornaments of Gardens do contribute to contemplative and Philosophical Enthusiasms: How Elysium, Antrum, Nemus, Paradisus, Hortus, Lucus etc. signifie all of them Rem sacram et divinam;7 For these expedients do influence the Soule and Spirits of man, and prepare them for converse with good Angells, besides what they contribute to the lesse abstracted pleasures of Naturall experiments, Longævitie etc; and I would have not onely the Elogies and Effigies of the antient and famous lovers of Garden but Heros; but a Society of the Paradisi Cultores,8 persons of antient simplicity, Paradisian, & Hortulan Saints to be a Society of learned and ingenuous men, such as Dr. Browne by whom we might hope to redeeme the tyme that has bin lost in pursute of vulgar Errours,9 and in continually propagating them, as so many impudent persons yet presume to do, were it once to be hoped, inter hos Armorum strepitus,10 and in so general a Catalysis of integrity, interruption of peace and propriety, the Hortulane pleasures, these innocent and pure diversions, might enjoy the least encouragement; whilst brutish, and ambitious men seeke themselves with the ruines of our miserable, yet dearest Country. Quis talia fando temporet?11 But Sir, I will not importune you with these matters; nor shall they be of force to make me desist from my designe, so long as you reanimate my Languishings, and indulge my imperfections. I greately thanke you for your discourses, and the Acrostic Diagrams12 etc. 7 8 9 10

“a thing sacred and divine” “cultivators of paradise” i.e., pseudodoxia epidemica “amongst this clamouring of arms.” The phrase is also used in Letter 159 (3 September 1659) to Robert Boyle, in the context of Evelyn’s proposal for the creation of a “foundation.” 11 “who, telling such [a story].” Virgil, Aeneid 2.6 12 Browne’s design for the quincunx in The Garden of Cyrus, ch. 1. See Browne, Works, I, 178.

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I shall be a faithful reporter of your favours to me. In my Philosophico Medicall Garden, you can impart to me extraordinary assistances; as likewise in my Coronarie Chapter, and that of Transmutations C.1. L.313 Norwich is a place, I understand, which is very much addicted to the flowry part:14 And what indeede may I not promise my selfe from your ingenuity, Science and Candor? Concerning And now, concerning the History of Gardens which you are pleasd to mention, If you permitt me to transcribe you an imperfect summ of the heads, it is to let you see, how farr we correspond (as by your excellent paper I collect) and to engage your assistance in supplying my omissions: You will pardon the defects in the Synchronisms; because they are not yet exactly marshalled. For these I have already described according to their dignitie and merite: More of this I would add, but the paper, and my reverence to your greate patience mind me of a Conclusion, I am Sir Your etc. London Covent Garden 28: January 1659/60

John Beale Letter 166 [162] February 1, 1660 f 102

Epistle CLXII To Mr. Beale:

[RM: A most learned person of Hereford-shire.] Sir, Since the last favours received from our publique spirited Friend Mr. Hartlib,1 I have bin considering, by what expedient, I might make the noblest advantage of your Instructions,

13 Elysium Britannicum, Book II, ch. 16–17, (335–402, 403–10). In the version of the letter sent to Browne, Evelyn expands on his description of the progress of “Elysium Britannicum,” stating “though I have drawne it in loose sheetes, almost every chap: rudely, yet I cannot say to have finished any thing tollerably, farther than chap: XI. lib. 2, and those which are so compleated are yet so written that I can at pleasure inserte whatsoever shall come to hand to obelize, correct, improve, and adorne it.” Browne, Works, IV, 276. In January, Evelyn also received a letter from “Doctors & Heads of House & others Oxon” expressing desire “to see the whole made publique.” See Appendix XI, “To Encourage the Finishing of Elysium Britannicum,” Elysium Britannicum, 460–1. 14 See Letter 156 to Jacques Le Franc. 1 Samuel Hartlib. This letter responds to Beale’s acknowledgment of the prospectus for “Elysium Britannicum” in his letter to Hartlib of 18 January (Add 15948: f 84 [14.1.1660]), and takes up issues raised in collections of extracts from Henry Oldenburg’s correspondence with Hartlib, which the latter sent to Evelyn. See extracts dated 13 September, 20 September, 11 October, 25 October, 19 November, and 25 [sic] October in Add 15948: ff 71–6, printed as Nos. 158bis, 158ter, 162bis, 165, 167bis, and 171bis in Oldenburg, Correspondence, XIII, 385–93.

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as they concerne the present subject:2 And I have thought (if the trouble affright you not, nor my immodesty render me unworthy) that I could effect it no better way, and with lesse confusion, then to transmitt my Coppie, with full power given you to correct, obelize, reforme or illustrate at pleasure, with your nasute, and incomparable observations; that so I may not blush to expose them to the publique; because of the infinite defects, which it must needes contract from my greate imperfections, and the want of so qualified a friend to supervise them: This is, Sir, a favour which I cannot promise my selfe from lesse then an extraordinary humanitie; but it is that which you will not refuse, when you shall know the gratefull recognitions it will produce, and with how much humility I am prepard both to avowe and receive the obligation. If I charge this packett with one or two sheetes before I have your permission signed; yet I will presume upon your pardon, ’till you forbid it by an expresse; and it will then be time to deplore my temerity, or my misfortune, who am by infinite reguards Sir, Your etc. Covent Garden: 1: February 1659/60

Samuel Hartlib Letter 167 [163] February 4, 1660 ff 102–3v

Epistle CLXIII To Samuel Hartlib: Esquire1

Sir, I accknowledge with greate alacrity the favor, you have don me, in the Transcripts which I found at my late returne out of the Country, where I was detained upon a lugubrous occasion, the burying of a faithfull, and usefull Servant.2 I have heard something of Monsieur Polemans booke;3 but am not perfectly instructed concerning the Subject; 2 Evelyn’s forthcoming book, The Manner of Ordering Fruit-Trees (London, 1660), a translation of Robert Arnauld d’Andilly, Manière de cultiver les arbres fruitiers (Paris, 1653; in the 1687 library catalogue; Evelyn’s copy is BL General Reference Collection 1506/640). Oldenburg refers to it in No. 165, Correspondence, XIII, 389–90. 1 Like Letter 159 to Robert Boyle (3 September 1659), to which it alludes, this letter to Hartlib engages with discussions over the founding of the Royal Society. 2 probably Richard Hoare 3 Joachimus Polemann, Novum lumen medicum was published in German in Amsterdam in 1659, in Latin in 1661, and in English in London in 1662. It is referred to in a letter dated only 1660 from Hartlib to Evelyn that replies to this letter (Add 78684: f 33; Diary [1887], III.131–2). It is also discussed in a letter Evelyn received from Hartlib containing extracts from Oldenburg’s letters from Paris. See Add 15948: f 76 (31.1.1660]) printed as No. 188bis in Oldenburg, Correspondence, XIII, 392–3. Letter 167 takes up several of the issues addressed by Oldenburg.

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nor am I now in a Capacity of informing that Gentleman (your learned correspondent at Paris) in more particularities touching the Date Trees;4 but by a Friend of mine (whose addresse to that Merchand I may procure) possibly something may farther be detected. Monsieur Crusius who has published his journey into Persia, in one of the letters affixed to the discourse, and written by Mundesloe5 relates something of the intoxicating du Tröa,6 and the pleasant effects of it, when the Portuguese Ladyes, will cicurate and charme their Husbands, to gratifie their Gallants. The storie, when I read it, put me in minde of an ingenious Villaine, that I saw executed at Rome, for robbing certaine Pilgrims whom before he had stupefied, by inviting them to drinke out of his Gourd, a kind of opiate Wine, which he gave them upon the way. Doubtlesse many knaveries of this kinde, would be practis’d, if the Receipts were generally knowne; and therefore I thinke, they are not to be introduc’t even amongst the Curious, but with caution; and that modest persons are onely to be intrusted with these Seacrets; of which nature are (besides the cursed mixtures of Poysons) Temporary Inkes, to elude obligations, and cheate the Simple Creditor. You cannot imagine how greately I rejoice, to find that some learned persons are promoting so usefull a worke, and so obliging to posterity, as is that of Childrens Education:7 There is nothing but that which can afford us the least prospect of comfort to the future Age, in so prodigious a declension of Virtue in the present: I wonder that any man should pronounce it smalle, and contemptible; and extenuate that which is the very Pillar, and fundamentall of all Religion and Morality. For my part, I have ever imputed our late Rebellions and incharities to the defects of that alone; and esteeme it one of the greatest subtilties of the old Serpent, that it is hitherto arived to no farther perfection. Secure that well, and his Dominion is at a period: But whilst the prosperous successes of Wiccked and vile men give countenance and reputation to their actions, how deformed soever; what are we to imagine of the succeeding generation, who are likely to be lead more by example then by precept? God Almighty excite, and prosper the attempts of those excellent persons; who are preparing to obviate, and redresse those barbarous inundations, which the dissolutenesse of this fatall conjunction

4 Date trees are also discussed in the extract from Oldenburg of 31 January 1660. 5 Adam Olearius, The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors ... to ... the King of Persia first published in 1606 in German and in 1662 in English, contained “The Travels from Persia into the East Indies” by J.A. von Mandelslo. Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue records Relation du Voyage de Moscovie, Tartarie, et de Perse, (Paris, 1656; Eve.a.153, which is extensively annotated), and Evelyn Library no 1098 and 1099 are the 1662 and 1669 English-language editions. The material about datura reappears in Elysium Britannicum, ch. 18 (417–18). 6 datura, the seeds of which are hallucinogenic. Oldenburg notes that it is said “to have so stupifying a vertue, that ye Indian & Portugisian women use it for a potion to their husbands, planting ym hornes to their very faces, when they have taken it” (Oldenburg, Correspondence, XIII, 393). 7 This is a reference to the publication of Orbis Sensualium Pictus (London, 1659; in the 1687 library catalogue), by Johann Amos Comenius (Komensky), a Czech educator whom Hartlib had encouraged to come to England. See the discussion of Comenius in Sculptura (London, 1662), 139–40. Evelyn had published a work on childhood education, a translation of Chrysostom’s Golden Book, in 1659, which is also mentioned in the letter of 31 January (see note 3).

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universally menaces. I know so perfectly the capacity of Children to suck in and comprehend the most materiall instructions, that I have bin astonish’t at the Experiment, and amaz’d at the greate remissenesse of Parents; who, because of some rare accidents, have an opinion that it is ominous; and that to initiate our Children early, is to prepare them for the Winding-sheete. I have suffered somewhat in the event of this from the vulgar errour mistake; but not from my owne judgement; because they are instituted without the least constraint of what these suggest, and are taught things in playing, and to receive them with greedynesse and extraordinary delight. Charron8 says, The Child that can number his mothers chickens in the coupe, may as easily learne the names of the 12 Cæsars: and I have now an Infant,9 that can do wonders of this kind, though the weakenesse of a tedious sicknesse, hath much impeaded his Carriere. Sir, I am wholy a stranger to the Moravian Society, but I have, not long since, seene a discourse of Glotticall Colledges, to teach all Languages in their pure and native perfection. The Project was ingenious; the Author one Petit a French-man.10 He would have (for Instance) some Families of the most civiliz’d and learned Arabs invited over, who should be shut up and mainetain’d for 20 yeares at the publique Charges of this greate Citty, to instruct Apprentises in that Tongue, so usefull and universall for the benefit of the Levantine Trade etc. and præscribes expedients answerable to all objections, concerning their Succession, the Security and propogation of Religion, though the first were Mahometans. The whole designe Proplasma for the other learned tongues and exercises is worthy perusall; but I could not then procure a Coppy, and the Person is since returned (I heare) into his own Country. I would have all such Modells surveied by judicious men; and should expect more fruite of them, then from all the Harringtonian11 trifles, Chimæra’s of state Government, and results of the Caffé House. And why should not Monasticall Societies, decently qualified, revive amongst us in other places of the Nation; and not be confined onely to the Universities;12 where, it is impossible to redeeme them from Pedantry, for want of that addresse and refinement of a more generous Conversation? I speake it not to derogate in the least from those glorious Luminaries:13 They are now the sole remaining ornaments of our Nation; But to imparte

8 Pierre Charron, De la Sagesse (Paris, 1601; 1640 ed. in the 1687 library cataogue), Book 3, chapter 14. 9 John Evelyn Jr was five years old. See Letter 165. 10 probably Samuel Petit (1594–1643), professor of Oriental languages at Nîmes (and uncle of Samuel de Sorbière). In his reply to this letter Hartlib says “I have never seene the Discourse of Glottical Colledges of Petit the Frenchman,” and goes on to recall the homonymous Sir William Petty’s earlier plans for language instruction: “Dr. Petty, when hee was in his flourishing condition in Ireland had a maine design to erect a Glottical Colledge. The contrivance would have been more accurate I am persuaded, than any that hitherto hath beene extant, But now I feare hee hath other fish to frye” (Add 78684: f 33 [1660] and Diary [1887] III, 132, which omits the reference to Petit).   11 James Harrington, The Wayes and Meanes, whereby an equal & lasting Commonwealth may be suddenly introduced and perfectly founded with the free consent and actual confirmation of the whole People of England (London, 1659) and other schemers. 12 Compare this to Evelyn’s proposal to Boyle in Letter 159 (3 September 1659). 13 particularly the group at Oxford that gathered around Seth Ward, the Savilian professor of astronomy, and John Wilkins

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to you my thoughts, what would infinitely conduce to the worke of Education, and to the utmost perfection of it. Nor would I have all these destin’d to Contemplation onely; but to the more active and fruitfull intuitions; universall, and Gymnasticall also. But, of this I have imparted some farther Touches upon another occasion, in a Letter to our worthy Friend Mr. Boyle,14 which were to large to inserte in this Paper. I am highly obliged to that Learned Person, for his Character of me, and, I wish I had Talents that might signifie to his service, and verifie the Elogies, which he says, he hath learn’d of me: Certainely, if I may calculate from the style of his owne Letters and excellent expressions, there were no man more fitt to put those usefull Moralls of Plutarch into better harmonie, and to Charme us with the most agreable resentiments. To a Person so instructed, I would also recommend some Select Epistles of St. Hieroms, and especially, those to the holy, noble and devoute Women of his tyme: They breath nothing but Piety; have a force and passion in them indicible; highly incentive of Virtue, and such as would greately contribute to the institution of young Ladys. I did once designe to make them English, and to have publish’t them for the benefit of that devoute Sex; but it is reserved for a better hand, and it will extreamely become it. There is yet another grand desiderate which may not improperly be consider’d with that of Education, either as it wonderfully deferrs to it; or as it is one of the chiefe ends of it. I have never yet seene any discourse of Oeconomie antient, or moderne, which did produce any thing full, materiall, and becomming the Dignitie of it. It were a noble subject; and would be undertaken by some practicall, discreete, and learned person. This, I pronounce would be as beneficiall a Piece, and as perfective of the universall felicitie of Mankind, as anything which could be advanced towards it. I was once likewise adventuring upon it; but the transcendencys enumerated to qualifie the Instrument, and justifie the pretence, made me quickly desist, and to cultivate a subject more compatible with my forces; which is the Worke15 I am now ingage’d in, and to which your greate Civilities have so fairely contributed, and as indeede they perpetually do, to Sir Your etc. Covent Garden London 4th February 1659/60

14 Robert Boyle 15 another variety of education, the transformation of the material world, and a “noble subject” which Evelyn had pursued in the “History of Trades” project (Add 78339 and the prospectus in Royal Society: RS Cl.P/3i/1), but now acknowledges he has abandoned in favour of the “Elysium Britannicum” (see also Letter 158). Some of the material from the earlier project would be used in presentations to the Royal Society and in projects such as the Memoires for My Grand-Son.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Charles II Letter 168 [164] February 16, 1660 f 103v1

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Epistle CLXIV To his Majesty

[RM: to be disciphred by Dr Q:] Sir, I was in hope that the effects of my negotiation with 120, 70, 1282 would e’re this have discover’d them selves; but the time is not yet come; nor, I feare, will God permitt that they should see their best Interest and prævent their destruction. 41 did, he assures me, give your Majestie a perfect account how far I adventured, and upon that conjuncture, and the inclosed is a coppie of what I writt, and may be some instance of the sedulity which I still use in your Majesties Service, the fruites wherof I assure my selfe you will receive, either in conciliating such an Enimie, or making some other advantages though he should prove so unhappy as to neglect this overture and the advantage and place you extend to him. I did speake to 63, 17, 2. 18 to supplicate your Majesty that I might have a dormant 43. 3. 16. 09 60 19 transmitted to me. There might be extraordinary advantage made by them if your Majesty durst trust them in the hands of either the 122, or 123, 67. But the one is a vitious person, and the other, to my knowledge, no friend to your Majesties Interest: But however, this ought not to increase your Majesties affliction, for your Obligation will be the lesse; and I see the day dawning (if I greately mistake not) when God will dissipate this thicke clowde, and strike upon your Majestie with a splendor and a reccompence worthy your Magnanimity and Patience: In the meane tyme, I am still ready to receive your Majesties Commands, and do allways pray that my duty may be as acceptable, as it is sincere, and that God will abbreviate the dayes of your Majesties visitation, who am Sir Your Majesties most obedient Servant, and Subject Covent Garden London 16 February 1659/60

1 The whole of this letter is crossed out. Possibly it is the letter referred to in Letter 169. 2 We have been unable to decode this letter, which appears not to make use of the cipher which Evelyn had used in his correspondence with Sir Richard Browne (see Add 15857: f 150, “Cyfer wth Sir Richard Browne during his Residence for his Majesty in France”). It seems likely, though, that the letter is about his discussions with Herbert Morley, with whom Evelyn was continuing to negotiate. See Letter 163.

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Richard Browne Letter 169 [165] February 18, 1660 f 104

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CLXV To Sir Richard Browne.

Sir, The period dos now approach that his Majestie will find me a true prophet; for the Councell of State, do not carry their Caballs so seacretly, nor General Monke his yet enigmaticall transactions; but that their intentions are sufficiently pervious, and may be discerned at so neere a distance: What has hithertoo passed, the stupendious and wonderfull change, if not rather the effects of an irresistable necessitie, rather then of his owne conduct, or Conscience (whatever others imagine) Common fame has e’re this filled your eares with: The truth is, we are all amaz’d, and it is evidently the finger of God alone et mirabile in oculis nostris.1 I did in my last, inclose you the Propositions which my Intelligence informes me will be tendred to his Majestie and I desired you to shew them to my Lord of St. Albans,2 and to dispatch them to Mr. Secretarie,3 if you conceivd it expedient: It is the sense of the most penetrating persons here, that his Majestie should conclude, nor refuse any thing, but referr all to the succeeding Parliament: It may indeede appeare hazardous to such as are not upon this Theater; but, believe it, the ardour of his Subjects will qualifie it so for his advantage, that he has no cause to apprehend the least inconveniency by it: And, besides, it will infinitely gaine upon them, and, at once, answer all objections: I am told, there will Commissioners4 be sent, which you may be sure will be of different mixtures and pretences: His Majestie who understands how much the first impressions take, will, by his owne example, instruct the rest that are about him, how to deport themselves; that there be no debauches, no animosities, or any action which may give them the least umbrage; for this will be of infinite concernement: I know his Majestie is perfectly instructed, how to deale with the Citizens, a smale dexteritie (God knowes) will subdue this monster, when once he shall come to enter the lists; and who would not use those innocent artifices for so greate an advantage? The Presbyterians have bin much alarm’d by the indiscreete and most untimely expressions of some Sanguine Divines in some divers of their late Sermons; and those who dread the happy change which is comming, derive no smale advantage by it; and it may be of evil consequence, if his Majestie do not take some speedy course to stop their mouthes, and allay their asperitie: And to this purpose, I have sent an expresse to his Majestie with Major Scott,5 1 “and marvellous in our eyes” Psalm 118:13, echoed in Matthew 21:42 and Mark 12:11 2 Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans (1605–84; ODNB), appointed ambassador to France in 1661 and Lord Chamberlain in 1672 3 Sir Edward Nicholas (1593–1669; ODNB), secretary of state to Charles II until 1662 4 These are cited in Abraham van Wicquefort, A relation in form of journal, of the voiage and residence which ... Charles II King of Great Britain, &c. hath made in Holland, from the 25 of May, to the 2 of June, 1660 (The Hague: 1660). 5 Evelyn notes that he was invited to accompany Lord Berkeley on the commission sent to invite Charles II to return to England. He declined for reasons of health, “yet received a gracious message from his

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by which meanes I hope, the danger it will be prevented for the future: I conjure you Sir to make your applications effectualy where you find it will most concerne you; and especialy since it pleases God, the Secretary and Sir William Coventrie are your friends: Here are strange projects in foote, every man is carving for himselfe and dividing the prey, and are already greate in their imagination: You, will doe that which becomes an honnest man, and after reasonable providence on your part, committ the Successe to God, to whose holy protection I committ you, ’till the happy and most desir’d intervieue: Sir, I am Your etc. Covent Garden London 18: February 1660

William Coventry1 Letter 170 [166] July 23, 1660 f 104v

Epistle CLXVI. To William Coventrie Esquire Secretarie to his Highnesse, the Duke of Yorke.2

Sir, Had you signified your Commands in any thing, which had dwelt within my circle, I should have reccommended my ambition to serve you, with greater assiduitie, and better effects, then I feare, I shall be now capable able to doe, finding so few in this station, that are either capable, or willing to inlighten me in the Particulars you require: I have used my best diligence these fower daies to instruct my selfe; But upon the whole matter, I find, there is hardly a man in the List, but such as derives his title, from those Surreptitious Powers who so lately usurped upon us; so that they are all obnoxious; and in so nice an affaire, his Highnesse will act very prudently, to place honnest, and able persons in Charges of so greate importance, as are the Officers belonging to such a Bullwarke of the nation;3 the defection whereoff, has allways proved so fatal and pernicious. I might within a day or two hope for some fuller intelligence; but this is hitherto my utmost progresse: What concernes the Character of the men, I did not take a single information, for feare of prejudice; but where I found the concurrance of Suffrages, there I have extenuated, or accused, by the markes before each name, bestowing an (h) on the honest men, that is, comparatively so, or not malitious, and of natures rebellious and dissafected; but such as their necessities, more then their ill principles had perverted: Sir, I am heartily sorry, that Majestie, by Major Scot & Colonel Tuke” (Diary III.244–5). Evelyn states that he spent the period from 17 February to 5 April “detained in Bed, with a kind of double Tertian” (Diary III.243). 1 Sir William Coventry (1627–86; ODNB, H). Secretary to the duke of York (1660–7), MP for Great Yarmouth (1661–79) and commissioner of the navy (1662–7) 2 The original version of this letter is Add 15857: f 190 (23.7.1660). 3 the navy

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the Service I have bin able to do you herein, is so trifling; because my obligations to you already swell, and that this is the first tyme that you have pleasd to honour me with your Commands, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 23, July 1660

Edward Nicholas Letter 171 [167] August 1, 1660 f 105r–v

Epistle CLXVII To Mr. Sir Edward Nicholas Principal Secretary of state.1

Sir, The present French Embassadors2 behaviour (if so he may be styl’d, who negotiates with a Rebell) has bin so scandalous, and so dissobliging to his Majestie that there is hardly a person to be found of any quality, and that has practis’d him, but have brought away their observations: Mr. Waler3 who has bin a prodigious flaterer of him, might handsomly reccommend himselfe to his Majestie and better commute for his other weakenesses, then by Panegyricks and Rhymes, in discovering what particularities he knows of this Lewde De Bourdeaux: I would be unwilling to calumniate; But, if common fame be not extreamely false, he dos rarely dine, without some remarkes præjudicial to the reputation, either of the Person, or just prætentions of the King our Souraigne; But, in all he dos, or sayes, promotes the Interest of Cromwell, and the confusion of this Nation; which whither agreable to his instructions or no, is not mine to enquire; at least, he might spare personal reflections upon the distressed: But, I have heard, he has a particular pique against the Queene, of which my Cousen Collonel Tuke4 can render your Honor an account. He is shrewdely suspected for betraying his Majesties affaires, and some Plotts 1 This letter reflects the emergence in this period of modern theories of extraterritoriality and diplomatic immunity in the work of Alberico Gentili (De Legationibus Libri Tres [London, 1585]) and Hugo Grotius (De Jure Belli ac Pacis [Paris, 1625]), among others. Evelyn’s discussion is particularly indebted to Jean Hotman, L’ambassadeur (Paris, 1603) and The Ambassador (London, 1603; in the 1687 library catalogue). 2 Antoine de Bordeaux-Neufville was effectively French ambassador to England from 1652 to 1660 (though not so called officially until 1654 because of French reluctance to officially recognize Cromwell’s government). He had been sent by Mazarin to negotiate a treaty with England. He appears frequently in CSP Dom 1659–60. See also Bordeaux-Neufville’s account of his mission in Revolutions d’Angleterre depuis la mort du protecteur Olivier jusque au retablissement du roi (Paris, 1670). See Firth, Notes on the Diplomatic Relations of England and France, 40–1. 3 Edmund Waller 4 Samuel Tuke

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ready to have taken effect, and which, ’tis sayd, have bin communicated to him: so that none of his Majesties Party durst at any tyme apply themselves to him: And it cannot be imagined that his Majestie the King of France; so neerely alyed to his Majestie had sent him hither to do him mischiefe, and alienate the affections of his people: but rather, to take advantage, and all opportunities to facilitate, and promote his reestablishment, and, then which, no expedient had bin more safe and effectuall; But his Perfidie was afterwards sufficiently detected: I know not how he may have discharg’d himselfe of his duty to his Master, but (besides what is aledged) his maine affaire heere seem’d to be the depraving of the Women,5 and the French Embassadors house is growne so infamous, that a Lady of qualitie will not come neere it; but it is not yet more notorious for his Paliardize and Adulteries, then for that barbarous Murther committed on his poore Cooke, as ’tis reported, by his connivance, and buried in his garden:6 Your honour may remember how greately the Queene Christina lately suffered in her reputation for perpetrating a lesse barbarous action upon one of her domestiques in France.7 The Learned Hotoman8 is of opinion, that an Embassador cannot with just impunitie, offer violence upon any particular Person in the Dominions of another Prince; and that it went very hard with a neighbour King, who (flying for refuge into France) had punished one too severely that came into his house, as story informes: I know the case is different; because this was Bourdeaux’s domestick; and so was that of The Swedish Queenes at Fontaine Beleaue; and yet it was her qualitie onely which protected her from the notice of Justice, not from the severest censure of all that heard of it: But however this dos not warrant a Murther, or extenuate the enormities of that prodigious nature; nor can the dignities of his employment authorise extravagances, which are against the Laws of the State in which men live, if the instances be considerable, and cary the markes of Sovrainety; no, not to a mans owne Familie, where, even the Constitutions of all Nations submitt offenders to the Lawes of the Countrie wherein the delict is committed: The Authoritie of the Prince his Majestie ceasing in the Dominions of another: And, Punishment by Death is the Supreame marke of Sovraintie; and dos proceede from the greater to the lesse; nor hath the Minister more right, then he who sends him: It was otherwise with an Embassador of the King of Denmark who demanded justice of Queen Elizabeth, for a Murther perpetrated in

5 A billet-doux from Neufville-Bordeaux to an English woman had been intercepted and publicized at the beginning of 1656. See Lutard, Des révolutions d’Angleterre à la Révolution française, 100. See also Gatien Courtilz de Sandras, The French spy, or, The memoirs of John Baptist de la Fontaine ... containing many secret transactions relating both to England and France (London, 1700) for other (probably fictional) scandalous episodes involving the ambassador. 6 Courtilz de Sandras’s narrator describes how “a sudden Accident ... prov’d to my advantage. For one Crible, who was come out of France with Monsieur de Bordeaux, in the Quality of Secretary, stabb’d his Butler with a Knife, and was forc’d to fly the Country to avoid punishment. Monsieur de Bordeaux ... had obtain’d the Place of Secretary of the Embassy for this Crible. His Excellency, after having given Advice to the French Court of what had happen’d with Crible, obtain’d the Place for me, of which accordingly I took possession” (The French Spy, 11). 7 Evelyn recalls the story of her ordering the death of Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi, her master of the horse, at Fontainebleau in 1657 for revealing her intrigue with the Pope (Diary IV.221). 8 See Jean Hotman, The Ambassador (London, 1603), 11–13.

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his house, though by one of his owne Servants;9 for he knew well, that old Maxime, Nulla manus ferrum tractat; nisi quæ Sceptram.10 But, if Bourdeax can smother this vile horrid fact, upon the priveledge of an Embassador; yet the Laws ordaine, That he which abuses his Priviledge, renders himselfe unworthy of it: As Mendoza11 did in England not long since, by practising, abetting and conspiring with some of her Majesties ill subjects. The Consequence was, that it being imputed to his Master, it was demanded if he encourag’d him in it: But, though for this, the Queene layed no hand upon him herselfe; Yet she gave him congee to depart out of her Relme: The Romans did often put this in Practise, if they found their demeanour dissalowed, and sometimes required justice to be don upon them, as there should upon Mendoza, if the King, his Master, had not cunningly shuffled off the buisinesse. It is the opinion of some, who have discoursed on this poynt, that in so foule a Cause, even an Embassador may be imprisoned, that, I say no more. For, Ubi quis deliquit iurisdictionem, ejus Subijsse intelligitur, cujus inditione deliquit:12 It is a rule in Common Law, and not exclusive as to Embassadors, no, though they produce their Masters Commissions for it. I know it will be objected, that Du Bourdeaux was not sent to the King; but, however it beares a greate præsumption of the good will of those who employ him, and who for the Service he has don them by weakning his Majesties Interest in a conjuncture of that importance, will likely enough furnish him with new Credentials, to continue his Character when the Sceane shall be changed; Especialy the Cardinal Mazarine13 whose propertie he soley is: But his Majestie may have juster exceptions

9 Hotman states, “The King of Denmarkes Ambassador vsed altogether an other course in England: for he demaunded Iustice of the Queene, for a Murder committed in his house, by one of his owne seruants vppon an other of them. She of fauour would not meddle therewith, but permitted him to carry him backe into Denmarke to haue him there ordered by Iustice” (I2v–3). 10 “No hand wields the sword, except that which [wields] the sceptre.” Hotman continues: “That auncient rule therefore ought to take place, Nulla manus ferrum tractat, nisi quae sceptram, vnlesse that both the Princes had so agreede betweene themseluesas the same might & ought to be done in Estates that are far one from the other. For otherwise the punishment of a crime shoulde oftentimes be deferred, and consequently be neglected, through such a distance of place. No otherwise than as Captains vpon the Sea, haue ordinarily authori|tie from their Soueraines to punish the crimes that are committed abord their shippes, as other commaunders of the field, have authoritie to punish offen|ders in their Armies, although they be in the dominions of other Soueraines” (I3r–v). 11 Bernardino de Mendoza (c.1540–1604). Spanish ambassador to England from 1578 to 1584, expelled from the country when his involvement in the Francis Throckmorton conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth I was revealed. Evelyn follows the details of Hotman’s account. 12 “When someone does wrong, he is understood to be under the jurisdiction of the one in whose authority he did wrong.” 13 Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602–61). Born Giulio Raimondo Mazarini; Chief Minister of France from 1642 until his death.

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against him, then the Easterne Princes had against Brugman14 the Late Embassador of the Duke of Holsteine, who for his several enormities, and ill behaviour, was frequently denied Audience, return’d i­ mprosperous, and had the reward of a Traytor for his insolent carriage.15 For my part, if halfe that be true which I have heard of Burdeaux, I thinke him so unworthy the dignitie of an Embassadour, that he is not to be esteemed as an honourable Spie. In Summ, his deportment was so vile and extreamely unworthy, that Le Pere Anglois, who govern’d his Conscience, tooke leave, and withdrew himselfe into France; because the disorders of his life were so black, that even a Jesuite it seemes could durst not absolve them.16 I am, Your Honors etc. Says-Court: 1st August 1660

Richard Spencer1 Letter 172 [168] August 25, 1660 f 106

Epistle CLXVII To Colonel Richard Spencer.

Sir, I am exceedingly obliged to you, for the Comission2 you have reserved for me; and more, for your good opinion of me; For there is certainely nothing in which I so much glorie, then as that you thinke me worthy a Command, upon the account of my fidelitie to his Majestie. But sir, you may have so often observed the tenor of my life, as of all men living the least qualified for a man of Warr; my skill in the Tacticks, reaching no further than the Disciplining of a few the Flowers in my Garden, and ranging the bookes in my 14 Otto Brüggeman (1600-42) was a merchant and advisor to Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp, and one of the designated ambassadors in the expedition to Moscow and Persia (1633–9). His behaviour was scandalous. The preface to the English translation refers to “the insolent, rash, and extravagant carriage of the Ambassador Brugman, his treacherous designs, and unfortunate end” (A3v). Adam Olearius, The Voyages and Travels of the Ambassadors sent by Frederick Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia (London, 1662). See also Letter 167, note 5. 15 Brüggeman was tried in the supreme court of Schleswig for a variety of offences, and executed. 16 more likely the result of English hostility to Catholic services in embassy chapels; see Loomie, “Oliver Cromwell’s Policy toward the English Catholics,” for the larger context of Catholic chaplains during the Interregnum. 1 Richard Spencer (c.1593–1661; Diary, H), son of Robert Spencer, 1st Baron Spencer of Wormleighton, and MP for Northampton (1624–9) and Rye (1661). 2 On 25 August 1660 Evelyn records that Spencer had “intreated that I would take Commission for a Troope of Horse” (Diary III.254). Spencer’s letter is Add 78317: f 5 (25.8.1660).

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studye: However, I do not refuse your the honour which you have don me; but beg of you to make a more worthy choice amongst the many more young and martial Spirites which would better become such a charge; and that you will permit me the Libertie of Serving his Majestie in some other Employment, which is more Suitable to my Genious, and of which I have leav a prospect; because I hope it may fortune to be in something by which wherby I may revenge this kindesse of yours; for which I shall ever accknowledge my selfe, Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 25. August 1660

John Mordaunt Letter 173 [169] August 28, 1660 f 106

Epistle ClXIX To my Lord Viscount Mordant Constable of Windsor Castle etc.

My Lord, Though, the improsperousnesse of my late attempts might sufficiently excuse my future diffidence of rendring my selfe happy by performing you any acceptable Service; yet animated by fresh Commands, and by my native propensity to obedience, I have at last found you out a person, whom, upone my owne reputation, I dare reccommend to your Lordship. And, because you shall see, that to an extraordinarie Person, I can offer nothing which is ordinary, These are among the Qualifications of my Friend. He is a young Divine1 and in Orders, he writes an Elegant hand, he is Musical, he is a good Paynter, he understands the Law, is a Comely person, and that which gilds all these perfections, he is a religious, an honest, sober, well natur’d and discreete Person. My Lord, if you conceive it fit to entertaine him, he is willing to serve you in Quality of a Secretary, Chaplaine, Sollicitour; either, or all of these. For the appoyntement, your honour may consult the advantages of having so excellent and universal a Servant: or, if you please, to signifie any thing more particular concerning it, I will endeavor to adjust the accord betweene you; or, if you thinke better, he shall himselfe waite upon you: But, however it succeede betweene you, I have made my proposition, and Secur’d my duty, which was to enquire your Lordship out a Secretary: And I should be glad this Gentleman might be the Person; because

1 Evelyn refers to having recommended Charles Spelman (1616–c.1706) to Mordaunt “for his Secretary” on 18 December 1660 (Diary III.263). As Spelman was forty-four, he could scarcely be thought of as “young” and the more likely candidate here is William Rowland, who appears in Letter 174.

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he will be so great an Ornament to your noble Familie, and the best interpreter of my Zeale to expresse my selfe, My Lord, Your etc. Says-Court 28 August 1660

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 174 [170] September 1, 1660 f 106v

Epistle CLXX To my Lady Vicountesse Mordant:

Madame, I shall best reccommend my diligence in serving you, by presenting it by the hands of this bearer Mr. Rowland,1 who is himselfe come to verifie the Character which I have given him, and from this moment to receive my Lords Commands. Madame, I was willing to facilitate the accord betweene you (as you desired) but I found it very difficult to draw him to any resolution, which should looke like a Bargaine, after he had heard of the generositie, and justice of your Nature: If his Salarie amount to £50 per annum it is not the Summe, but the honour of serving my Lord which renders him so indiferent: But, though his modestie suppresse the price of his owne merites, I am sure it will make them the more valuable with you; and I doubt not but my Lord will find such a Servant of him, as shall not onely reccomend him to this; but to all other the markes of his special favour in due tyme, in such a manner, as shall best become his noblenesse. Madame, I am heartily sorry to heare of my Lords indisposition; but I no sooner heard it; but I was as soone consolated with the hopes which your Ladyship gives me, that the danger is now over; and I will pray, that it may not returne. Madame, my Wife, and I accknowledge your noble and free invitation, and it with much regrett that we are detained from waiting upon you, and enjoying the the felicity or so many desirable things together: We will hope to kisse your hands, when the troubles of your Settlement are diminished, and, when we may contemplate your happinesse without importunitie or alloy. In the meane tyme, we will waite for the rest of your honors Commands, and remaine Madam Your etc. Says-Court 1 September 1660.

1 William Rowland (Diary, V). First mentioned by Evelyn as preaching at Deptford on 12 August 1660 (Diary III.253), Rowland appears as chaplain to Lord Mordaunt in 1661 but by then “sick to death” (Diary III.276). He is possibly the William Rowland from Surrey who was admitted to Queens’ College, Cambridge, in 1627, migrated to Pembroke, and graduated BA 1630–1 and MA 1639.

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Philip Warwick1 Letter 175 [171] September 2, 1660 ff 106v–7

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CLXXI To Sir Philip Warwick Knight Clearke of the Signett to his Majestie and Secretary to my Lord high Treasurer of England.

Sir, I did on Friday last make an Essay to kisse your hands, at your house, not onely to signifie my respects to you and my Lady; but to returne you my thankes for your kind, and most civill reguards to me, and your expressions of it to Sir Richard Browne, upon information of the condition of my poore affaires.2 The truth is, I did for the conservation of my Father in Laws Interest, and, that thereby he might be the better enabled to serve his Majestie, depart from a very considerable portion of my fortune, for the Place where I now dwell,3 encouraged by his Majestie and by my hopes, established on the sinceritie of his Promises; That my Father in Law receiving the Effects of his Majesties gracious assignement, my Purchase being involved in the graunt, I might enjoy that Securitie which I might reasonably expect, when it should please God to restore him: Nor do I at all diffide of the real performance of all this, from so just, and worthy a Prince: But, since delayes have an evill Epithite, and that in the interim, I very much suffer by the Contumacy of my Tennants; and, which is yet more intollerable, whilst I passe for an Imposter, where I demand my Rent, I am in some disorder, and not a little sollicitous for my Arrieres, which they scruple to satisfie, without producing my Title. Sir, You may well conceive how insupportable this is to me, who would not, to have purchased the whole World at the rate I pay’d for this Trifle, have settled my selfe in here, without his Majesties consent and approbation (as appeares by the Papers, signed, and sealed by his Majesties owne hand at St. Germaines in France, and now in your custody) Because, despite the iniquitie of it and without thinking thereby to do him Service by enabling another in it, in that though to my no smale disadvantage, who was then master of a cleare and competent subsistence, and such as did very well comport with my humble inclynations. But, Sir, I understand, that ’til the conjuncture be more favorable, I must yet be content to lie under these inconveniencies, and if there be no remedy, I must comply with it: But if by the expedient you are pleased to propose, I find them aleviated, I shall with the more courage suport it, and derive the benefit of it from your excellent friendship: Be pleased therefore, Sir, to persist in your advise to Sir Richard B., who has promis’d me to waite on you, thereby to endeavor the 1 Sir Philip Warwick (1609–83; ODNB). Clerk of the signet and secretary to the Treasury. Evelyn records going to visit him on 31 July 1660 (Diary III.253) at Chislehurst and dined with him frequently in the early 1660s. 2 Evelyn’s first petition for redress for his financial losses suffered during the Interregnum. Subsequent letters, particularly to Thomas Clifford and Sidney Godolphin, reiterated these pleas until the matter was finally settled in 1687. 3 Sayes Court

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putting me into a capacity of receiving my Arreares and Rents, ’till my Title be perfect. And I will hope, by your assistance, to facilitate and secure that also in good tyme; not because I have in the least merited so greate a favour from you; but because I have already experience of your obliging and worthy nature; and that I am sure you will thereby acquire a new Beneficiary who shall always accknowledge your favours. And, Sir, though hithertoo my silent and morose kind of life may have seemed very insignificant (for indeede I have no cause to boast, save of my imperfections) yet has it not passed altogether without doing my part, within the narrow sphære of its activity. I did allwayes pray for his Majesties happy restauration, and for the recovery of our miserable Church; and to endeavour it, I did often both contribute, and hazard what was most precious to me; nor was it ever my designe to render the effects of its best successes instrumental to my ease, farther then might consist with my duty. I accknowledge, to have discovered infinite felicitie in a private and even life, which of all other I would desire to cultivate and embrace; but if there were an opportunitie proposed by which that same Res angusta Domi4 (which would create some anxietie even in the most Philosophic and resign’ed genious, who, as my selfe were an aggregate person) might be a little improved without taking up too much tyme from the nobler parts of life I would not refuse to do my selfe that advantage, though I did contribute what where [sic] decent to attaine it. This, Sir, I mention not, because I ambitiously affect anything; no, I seeke nothing extraordinary. If I did; He (you know) beggs sufficiently, that (in virtuous and happy tymes) dos his duty, and holds his peace: But, because you should not præjudge the employment of my Tyme and Talent; if whilst I thus pleade for my unactive life I seeme to You (whose censure I so much revere) to extenuate a fault, live unconcern’d and unprofitably; and, so much the more, because my Letter is so long and impertinent; But, since it requires not your replie, but your indulgence, which I shall not often provoke, I had have the more boldly adventur’d to let you know in what Capacities I desire to recommend my selfe to be Sir, Your etc. Sayes Court 2: September 1660.

Samuel Tuke Letter 176 [172] February 3, 1661* ff 107v–8

Epistle CLXXII To my Cousen Samuel Tuke etc.

Sir, It was not [until] after your departure on Friday, that I had the first occasion presented me, of thinking, and speaking greate things of your Virtue, and generosity; because ever

4 “difficult circumstances”: Juvenal 3.165

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since I had the honour to know you, I have celebrated them with envy; but an envy without malice, and such as renders you the more valuable to me: But it was then that I receiv’d new confirmations of particular kindnesses, breathing of a respect and care so tender, as I should conclude were onely to be found in Ideäs and when Friendship is defin’d in the Discourses of such as write Essaies;1 did I not at the same instant know from what Sourse they proceeded: But deare Cousen can you believe there is anything equally afflictive of a minde capable of worthy resentiments, to the incompetency of making some returnes? You do easily judge, there is nothing betweene me and the supreamest felicity which I aspire to but the want of this capacity, which your affection dos supplie, and which, if I should not cultivate by an oblation of all that I have or am for your Service, I were of all men the most ingratefull, and worthy of reproch: It is true, (and I find you connive at the infirmity) that some accidents (new, and on this period unexpected) have their little Paroxysmes upon me; which to a Spirit unaccostom’d, immerg’d in the world, and giving hostages to fortune, passe not without their effects, whose resistance requires more then a speculative virtue:2 But I am not without hope of surmounting them; nor should at all be concern’d for them, were it not that some misfortunes in my affaires, may possibly render me lesse worthy of that Conversation which I have allways so sincerely cherish’d, and shall esteeme the most desirable to me in the world. Juro sanctè, I protest unfainedly to you, Cousin, that I am touch’d for nothing more then this consideration onely; and that when by the justice of his Majestie and Gods mercy to me, I were in that competent repose I have ever in my life ’til now enjoy’d, I should not still deplore my condition, and extreame infelicity, if you did not make a part of it, by your Presence, Counsell, generous and most agreable society: It is in order to this, and this onely Deare Cousen that I from hence forwards devote and resigne my selfe to your conduct, and that I will with industry, and fidelity pursue your instruction, if that noble Person,3 through your Perspective, thinke me worthy to have a share in the __ __ __ I will preferr the honour of so illustrious a Dependency, before any in England, and to the uttmost of my talent, and by your assistance give such proofe of my care, as may in time, I hope, produce something shining in the Court, and to posterity; besides the Name, and the gay Things which make the noyse: For the rest, I referr it intirely to you: My Wife is the bearer of this, and will be able to explaine where you Desire it; onely, consult your affaires with your ordinary prudence, and find wherein I may any way contribute to your service and satisfaction. etc. Says-Court 3: February 1660/1

1 an allusion to some of the best-known works on friendship in the essayistic tradition such as Seneca’s Epistulae 1.9, and Montaigne’s “De l’amitié” 2 presumably a reference to Evelyn’s problems with the tenancy of Sayes Court; see Letter 175. 3 Possibly Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk (1628–84; ODNB), who was Tuke’s patron, was offering some support, although Evelyn does not note his return from France until 20 February 1663 (Diary III.352). The only work by Evelyn dedicated to the Howards is his translation of Roland Fréart’s An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (London, 1668)

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John Wilkins Letter 177 [173] January 29, 1661* f 108r–v

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Epistle CLXXIII To Dr. Wilkins Præsident of our Society at Gressham College:

[RM: Deane of Rippon:] Sir, Though I suppose it might be a mistake that there was a Meeting appoynted tomorrow (being a Day of Publique Sollemnity and Devotion)1 yet because I am uncertaine, and would not dissobey your Commands: I here send you my trifling observations concerning the Anatomy of Trees, and their vegetative motion.2 It is certaine, as Dr. Goddard has shewed,3 that a Section of any tree made Parallel to the Horizon, will by the closenesse of the Circles, point to the North, and so consequently, if a Perpendicular be drawne through them for the Meridian, the rest of the Cardinals etc. found out; but this is not so universall; but that where strong reflections are made, as from Wales,4 the warme fumes of dung hills, and especially, if the Southern side be shaded etc. those Ellipticall and Hyperbolicall circles are sometymes very irregular; and I doubt not, but might by some art be made to have their Circles as orderly, as those which we find in Brasile, Ebene5 etc. which within a very little concenter, by reason of the uniforme course of the Sun about them; which is doubtlesse the cause of their greater dilatation on the opposite south part onely with us, when the pores are more open, and lesse constipated: The consideration whereof (though no where mention’d that I know) made the Poet, giving advice concerning transplantations to caution thus 1 i.e., 30 January, the first official commemoration of the death of Charles I (see Diary III.269) 2 The original of this letter is “A Letter to Dr. Wilkins concerning the Anatomy of Trees” (Royal Society EL/E/1–2; dated 29 January 1661), noted as “read February 6, 1660/61.” It contains material for his “Discourse concerning Forest-trees” (later incorporated in Sylva). See Add 78344. The original letter concludes with an explanation that Evelyn had not published the second part of Sculptura, “The Construction of the Rowling Press,” because he had been informed of the imminent publication of William Faithorne, The art of graveing. and etching, wherein is exprest the true way of graueing in copper. allso [sic] the manner & method of that famous Callot, & Mr: Bosse. in their seuerall ways of etching (London, 1662). 3 Jonathan Goddard (1617–75; ODNB, R). He received a bachelor’s degree in physic from Cambridge (1637) and his MD (1643), and became a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1646. He was an active member of the London group that began meeting in 1645 to enquire into natural philosophy, and was a founder of the Royal Society. See Jonathan Goddard, “Some Observations Concerning the Texture and Similar part of the body of a tree, which may hold also in Shrubs and other woody Plants,” Royal Society Cl.P/10i/1, and Lynch, Solomon’s Child, 37. 4 walls 5 brazil wood: hard brownish wood, originally Caesalpina Sappan, but by the seventeenth century C. echinata; ebene: ebony

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn Quin etiam Cæli regionem in cortice signant Ut quo quæque modo steterit, qua parte calores Austrinos tulerit, quæ terga obverterit axi Restituant: Adeò in teneris consuescere multum est.6

And though Pliny neglected it as an unnecessary curiosity, I can by much experience confirme it, that not one Tree in 100 would miscarry were it duly observed; for in some I have made triall of it even at midsommer. But what I would add, is touching the graine of many woods, and the reason of it, which I take to be the descent, as well as the ascent of moysture: For what else becomes of that water which is frequently found in the cavities where many branches spread themselves at the topps of greate trees, especially Pollards, unlesse (according to its naturall appetite) it sinks into the very body of the stem through the poores? For Example; In the Wall-nut, you shall find when ’tis old, that the wood is rarely figur’d, and marbled as it were, and therefore much more esteem’d by Joyners etc. then the young, which is whiter, and without any graine: For the raine distilling along the branches, where many of them come out in clusters together from the stemm, sinkes in, and is the cause of these markes; for it is exceedingly full of pores; do but plane a thin chipp off from one of these old Trees, and interpose it ’twixt your eye and the light, and you shall perceive it full of innumerable holes: But above all conspicuous for these workes and damaskings, is the Maple (a finer sort whereof the Germans call Aix,7 and therefore much sought after by the Instrument makers) ’tis notorious, that this tree is full of branches, being often cutt from the very roote to the summite, by reason it beares no considerable fruite: These branches being frequently cutt, the head is the more surcharged with them, which spreading like so many raies from a center, forme that cavity at the top of the stem whence they shoote as containes a good quantity of water every time it raines. This sinking into the pores, as we hinted before, is compelled to diverte its course as it passes through the body of the tree, wherever it finds the knott of any of those branches, which were cutt off from the stemm of the tree; because their rootes not onely deepely penetrate towards the heart; but are likewise of themselves very hard and impervious; and the frequent obliquity of this course of the subsiding waters, by reason of those obstacles, is the cause of those curious and rare undulations, and workes which we find remarkable in this and other woods, whose branches grow thick from the stem: Sir, I know not whither I have well explain’d my conceptions, but such as it is, I offer it, and it was your command I should do so, together with that Treatise or History of Chalcography,8 as part of the Taske you have impos’d; but with this hope and humble request, that knowing up on what an other subject I am was engag’d before I had the honour to 6 “Nay, they print on the bark of the tree the quarter of the sky each faced, so as to restore the position in which they stood, the same side bearing the southern heat and the same back turned to the north pole; so strong is habit in tender years.” Virgil, Georgics 2.269–72 (Fairclough, trans) 7 The German word for “maple” is “Ahorn”; there is no word “Aix” in German. 8 Evelyn’s Sculptura: or The History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper was published in June 1662. It was the only part published in book form of his proposed “History of Arts Illiberal and Mechanical,” the manuscript proposal for which is in the library of the Royal Society (Royal Society Cl.P/3i/1).

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be elected one of this august Society, I may obtaine its indulgence, not to expect many other things from me, ’till it be accomplish’d;9 but rather that you will take all occasions which m[a]y contribute to my designe. It is there, Sir, that I have at large discoursed of the generation vegetation of Plants, and upon that Argument which Sir Kenelm Digby and the rest so long discours’d upon at our last encounter:10 But it shall not be so in this paper, which is now at an end. etc. Your Says-Court 17: February 1660/1

Samuel Tuke Letter 178 [174] April 8, 1661 f 109r–v

Epistle CLXXIV To Collonel Tuke.

[RM: Sent into France to condole the Death of Cardinal Mazarini1 by our King, etc.] Sir, I have found when Speculatists, would become pragmaticall, they stand in neede of all the collateral aydes to support their Title; and that the counsell of a steady Friend and his Example, is instructive above all the Bookes and fine discourses in the World. This Experiment I have made in your absence, and it has cost me more then all those at Gressham Colledge have don; where since your Scruteny and Election, I have very little enjoy’d my selfe, as looking on that Assembly (though otherwise venerable) yet but as an imperfect and dull Society till you returne to it, and, like another Pythagoras, bring us over the fruitefull observations you have made abroad, and encountred on your Travells.2 Ô how I exsult to find you still persist in your affection to Wisedome. Let me repeate those Lines worthy to be written in Gold: For I am more confirm’d then ever I was in my resolutions of Retreate: But, why do you add? And the chiefe Article of the happinesse which I promis’d my selfe in that change of my Life, did depend on the hopes which I had of Enjoying your Husbands and your conversation etc.3 As if Socrates could not have 9 the unfinished “Elysium Britannicum”. 10 Sir Kenelm Digby. Digby’s paper to the Royal Society about “the Vegetation of Plants,” given on 14 August 1660 (Diary III.294), was published in 1661 (A discourse concerning the vegetation of plants [London, 1661]). 1 Jules Mazarin had died in March, and Evelyn records Tuke’s departure on 13 March (Diary III.274). 2 De Beer notes that Tuke delivered a paper at the Paris scientific academy on 12 June 1661. (Diary III.274, n. 4) 3 Evelyn quotes from a letter from Tuke, then at the Palais Royal (Add 78435: f 29 [16.4.1661 N.S.]).

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bin a Philosopher without his Zantippe,4 or that we shall be lesse free when our cloggs are off us: Do you like Epictetus better in his chaynes? If the wise Discourses of such a Master worke not the Effect, let her try the Mistrisse of Fooles, and serve in Court, where those who do Virtuously, are condemn’d to perpetuall oblivion. The Flys and the Insects thrive best in that Aer, which the more noble, and generous creatures cannot breath in. You know where that Country is, and make choyce of my solitude beyond it, which, I assure you is now so sweete, and so silent, that were it blessed with your returne, would not envye the gay furniture of the Presence5 after Supper, when the Circle is inscribed with the Petticoates, and the new nothings else: But, has not the Rallerie of your Letter tempted me too farr, when I consider I am all this while speaking to a Publique Minister, who writes of nothing but his glorious receptions by Kings and Queenes, Monsieurs and Madams. This (if I mistake not) is not the dialect of Philosophers; nor did Diogenes make other Harrangue to Alexander then bid him stand from betweene his Tub and the Sun;6 unlesse he that whisper’d to the feete of the Prince who commanded thirty Legions seeme to be more worthy the imitation: Of these things the Society expect an accoumpt; for you are now theres; and if I am severe in telling you so; remember my profession, and that Marcus the new Censor wrote more sharply to Catullus,7 with the universall applause. But, I will now convert my style; for on the other side of your Paper to the Femal Vehicle, you seeme to recollect your Selfe againe, and to resolve like a hopeful Proselyte: That all this is but the deposition of the old Man; That you will lay aside those servile pressures, Costome, and Opinion, to tast of those pure and immateriall delices which have no commerce with the Sensuall, subject to the Empire of Fortune: Or, if it touch upon the Concrete, it is by vertue of that defeated faculty, to educe things usefull and certaine out of the greate Volume which God has published for his glory, and which those who are truly wise studdy to understand and cultivate. But, would you know what they doe in the inferiour Region of Meteors: The Men buy Offices, the Women Lace; but rich wives are purchas’d onely by the letters of Princes, and private Rescripts. It was a pretty rencountre and and I will tell it you. A Friend of yours (when you were in the lower world) being lately wedded to a most opulent Lady, that has bin shod8 round, repair’d to the Temple of Æsculapius [LM: Dr. Prudian]9 in the old-Baily, to complaine that he could not performe the part of a Husband, as ’twas expected; and that he was (he thought) bewitched: ’twas demanded, at what Age this unlucky defect might surprise him: At 6 or 7 and fifty replies the gentleman: Truly, says the old Oracle, and that may very well be; for, as I remember, I my selfe was bewitched about those yeares. This was what the MiLord (for he was a Titulato) got for his offering; but it cannot be say’d he came away without his Receipe; for 4 The Stoic philosopher, Epictetus (mid 1st–2nd c AD) was born a slave. Xanthippe, Socrates’ wife, was noted for her bad temper. 5 the Presence Chamber after supper at Court 6 See Plutarch, “Life of Alexander the Great,” 14. 7 Marcus Porcius Cato to Catulus Lutatius. See Plutarch, “Life of Cato the Younger,” 16. 8 showed 9 Sir Francis Prujean (1597–1666; ODNB). He received his BA (1614) and MA (1617) from Cambridge and was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1626. He was President of the College from 1650–3. Evelyn visited him on 14 August 1661 (Diary III.294).

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he receiv’d this Answer, and was faine to pay for it. – risum teneatis?10 – There’s no talke now but of the Crownation, the Pageants are almost finish’d, and so is our Panegyrick,11 to be read backwards: Red Ribbon will be a good Commodity from your parts; because the new knights of the Bath are taking all up at London. The Queene a future is provided with, all Officers of both the Sexes, but a Secretary, which she might have had on this side the seas, but for respect to an accquaintance of yours, who, ’tis thought, is to bring over some fine paper out of France, gilded upon the Edges:12 Desire him to be here speedily, if he intends any good to his Friends that want preferrment: You heare that my Lord C. shall be Chamberlaine, and my Lady D. his Mother in Law Groome of the stoale; That my Lady E. would be something too (if you obstetricate):13 F. would be fooling too, for it proceedes much after the Alphabet: But this is as much as I dare say: Fare well. etc. Your London 8 April 1661.

William Fuller1 Letter 179 [175] July 9, 1661 f 110

Epistle CLXXV To Dr [insert: Thomas] Fuller Deane of St. Patricks in Ireland.

[RM: Since Bishop of Lincoln] Sir By what missfortune or folly I know not, as yet I have receiv’d no Accoumpt of either of my Letters to my Cousen Wase;2 and, the necessity of my returne into the Country dos not permitt me to render you those personal accknowledgements which are due to you, for your kindnesse to that excellent Person: I am heartily sorry, that he has so ill consulted 10 “could you refrain from laughing?” Horace, Ars Poetica 5 (Fairclough, trans)   11 A Panegyric to Charles the Second, presented to His Majestie The xxxiii. [sic] of April, being the Day of His Coronation, MDCLXI (London, [1661]; Eve.b.14(1)). This text is not the same as A poem upon his Maiesties Coronation the 23. of April 1661 (London, 1661), with which it has been confused. There is no good evidence for ascribing the poem to Evelyn. See Keynes, Bibliography, 86–9. Evelyn did write an unpublished ode “On his Majesty’s happy Returne after the Late Rebellion, 1660” (Add 78357: f 24v–5). 12 Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon 13 The women are probably, respectively, Lady Anne Denham (d. 1671; daughter of Sir John Denham; married to Sir William Morley), Elizabeth Capel, née Percy, Lady Essex (1636–1718), and Lady Ann Fanshawe, neé Harrison (1625–80; ODNB). 1 William Fuller (1608/9–75; ODNB). He was dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin in 1660 and bishop of Limerick in 1664 before being translated to Lincoln (1667–75). The insertion of Thomas in the headnote is an error. 2 Christopher Wase

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his Advantages; But, I am enclyn’d to believe, that his Wife, being who is very neerely related to Mr. Newcomin3 (who, you know, has a greate name in Essex) is not willing her good man should seeke any preferrment so farr from her Friends: So that, I thinke you are no longer to paine your selfe for the disposall of your Schollars; and, it shall be my part, to let him understand, how infinitely he is obliged to you, and how decent it had bin for him to have taken notice of it. Sir, I make bold, through your favour, to convey this Packett to my worthy friend the Bishop of Downe and Conner,4 to whom, as likewise to my Lord of Armagh,5 I beseech you present my most humble Service; and if it be my crosse fate, not to have the honour of kissing your hands before you take your journey, I beg, that you will be pleas’d to take it for this Scribbled Addresse of Sir Your etc. Says Court: 9th: July 1661.

Jeremy Taylor Letter 180 [176] July 9, 1661 f 110r–v

Epistle CLXXVI To the Bishop of Downe and Conner. and one of his Majesties Privy Counsell in Ireland.

My Lord, Though I had not the happinesse to receive your Blessing, and to congratulate that accession of Dignity which was conferred, and due to your Merites before your departure out of England: Yet, I make bold, by this worthy Person, the Deane of St. Patrics,1 to let you know how long I have mourned for that missfortune, and how greately I thinke my selfe concern’d, in all that God has don for you. Permitt me therefore, I beseech your Lordship, sometimes to repeate my joyfull resent’ments for your prosperity, as I will never cease to beg that it may be permanent and as your owne heart desires it; because it is the Returne of my assiduous, though unworthy, Prayers, and must needes be for a good so universall. My Lord If you aske what I do here? I live upon the stock of your Excellent Writings

3 Matthew Newcomen (1610?–69; ODNB). Best known as one of the authors of Smectymnuus (1641), Newcomen was a clergyman in Colchester. His inability to conform to the re-established Church of En­gland in 1661 led to his becoming minister to the English congregation in Leiden, where he died in 1669 of plague. His wife, Hannah Snelling, was first married to a Prettyman and hence related to Wase’s wife. 4 Jeremy Taylor; see Letter 180. 5 John Bramhall (1594–1663; ODNB) 1 William Fuller

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and Præcepts, very little sollicitous for the other Splended things of the world, and the ­buisinesses which men pursue that will be greate and rich; not because I have no ambitions to serve: but, because I have too many, and would depresse them. I do yet fill up tyme with one thing or other, as obnoxious, it may be, to the Censure of others, who have not the same Charity, which I am assur’d your Lordship reserv’s for me; and which renders me lesse asham’d to acquaint you, that his Majestie was graciously pleas’d to accept of that signification of my joy and duty2 which I presume to enclose in this Packett: That I am still upon my Hortulan designe,3 though by reason of many importunate avocations from home, greately hindred in my progress. That there are one or two smale Trifles,4 which by snatches, et tanquam ἐν παρέργῳ5 my absence has produc’d, which are now going to be made publique: But what do I giving your Lordship this trouble, who have to beg pardon for so much time lost, as is not wholy employ’d upon some of your Commands: My Lord, I implore your Benediction, and remaine My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 9th July: 1661.

Henry Mordaunt1 Letter 181 [177] July 23, 1661 f 110v

Epistle CLXXVII To the Earle of Peterborow.

My Lord, I send you this honest and learn’d Gentleman Dr. Wells,2 whom you will find able to serve you in quality of a Physitian, and of a staid, faithfull Person, such as you ought to receive

2 A Panegyric to Charles the Second; see Letter 178, note 11. Taylor acknowledges it in his response of 21 November (Diary [1887] III, 134–5). 3 “Elysium Britannicum”; in his response Taylor asks “when shall we expect your ‘Terrestrial Paradise’ – your excellent observations and discourses of gardens, of which I had a little posy presented to me by your own hand” (134). 4 Fumifugium, Naudé’s Instructions, and Tyrannus were all published in 1661. 5 “as a bye-work” 1 Henry Mordaunt, 2nd earl of Peterborough (1623–97; ODNB), brother of John Mordaunt 2 Benjamin Wells (1616–78; Diary, F ). The son of John Wells of Deptford, he was a commoner of St Alban’s Hall, Oxford, in 1632 and a probationary fellow of All Souls in 1640. In 1650 he graduated from Oxford and was licensed to practise medicine in the same year. He lived in east Greenwich, wrote A Treatise of the Gout (London, 1657; in the 1687 library catalogue) and conducted the autopsy on Evelyn’s first son, Richard in 1658 (Add 78316: f 147 [27.1.1658]). Evelyn also hoped to employ him with the sick and wounded in 1665 (Add 78431: f 70 [27.7.1665])

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into your Retinue, and for such an Expedition:3 Concerning his Salary, his modesty would not suffer me to take notice of it so soone as he heard of your honourable Name: But your Lordship may please to mention something of it for his encoragement, and to receive him into your more particular spetiall favour, as one who is resolv’d to embarke all his Interest with your Lordship. But my Lord, it is by a particular addresse and personal visite, to take leave of your honour and to wish augure you all prosperity, that I shall discourse to your Lordship concerning those observations which I once hinted: And, I am assur’d your Lordship will permitt no opportunities to slip, when you are at Tanger,4 of communicating with us, what experiments you make attempt in the Country; what Animals, Plants, and Insects, you make collections of, and how nobly you divert your selfe, when the greater affaires of your Government require some relaxation, and that you have leasure to thinke of your my Lord your Lordships etc. Says-Court 23 July 1661.

John Mordaunt Letter 182 [178] August 1, 1661 f 111

Epistle CLXXVIII To my Lord Vicount Mordaunt.

My Lord, It is to congratulate the Blessings which God dos accumulate upon you, that I could no longer deferr this Messenger; and to beg of your Lordship that through your hand, and a soft voyce, it may be convey’d to my Lady;1 with all the circumstances which a joy perfectly touch’d for your mutuall happinesse can expresse. But my Lord, this from my selfe alone. My Wife (who is yet at Tunbridge) will exulte at the tidings, and it is from her that my Lady must receive new acclamations and such as are competent to the Sex onely, for the multiplication of it, and for your Addresse in funishing your noble Family with such a divine children collection. My Lord I augure you all felicity; this

3 Tangier 4 Henry Mordaunt was appointed governor of Tangier in September 1661 and took possession in January 1662, remaining until May 1663. Evelyn reports taking leave of him on 4 December (Diary III.305). Tangier had become an English possession by the terms of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. 1 Elizabeth Mordaunt had given birth to a daughter. See Letter 183.

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is universall and Genuine, make much of that excellent Perfum that is productive of it, and continue to favour My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 1 August 1661.

Mary Evelyn Letter 183 [179] August 1, 1661 f 111

Epistle CLXXIX To my Wife:

[RM: At Tunbridge Wells] My Deare Browne, Though I might justly quarell at your long silence; yet because it is a vertue in your Sex, and that the Weather has not bin so propitious as I wish’d it; I will not exaggerate the Fault nor make my Letter the more unwelcome by breaking that, which you so much affect: However, I should be greately refresh’d to heare something particular concerning your Health, what progresse you make, and when we may hope for your Returne. I presume not to trouble you with Newes; because I know you are at the sourse; yet you may possibly not know that my Lady Mordaunt1 is safely delivered of a Daughter, and that I this day sent to congratulate the accession. Sir Richard2 (who dos now and then consolate me in your absence) much wonders he heares not once from you; but augures your speedier returne; especially, since this bad season raises an ill report of the Waters generally, many being come home sicker then they went. Let all my kindred with you, know how much I am their humble Servant and how passionately I breath after the felicity and mutuall society which they enjoy: You have bin pleas’d to impose the care of your buisie Oeconomie upon me, a very unexperienc’d person, especially in the matter of the Presse,3 and I shall be glad (Deare Browne) to be relievd; because the Burthen is too insupportable without my wonted Companion and Conjugation, for Your etc. My humble Service to Dr. Wedderborne.4 Our mellons not being excellent, I send you none.

1 2 3 4

Says-Court 1 August 1661.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Sir Richard Browne superintendence of laundry Sir John Wedderburn (1599–1679; ODNB). He was physician to Charles I and Charles II, and knighted between 1661 and 1663.

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Jane Needham1 Letter 184 [180] August 12, 1661 f 111v

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Epistle CLXXX To my Lady Needham:

Madame, It would appeare like a very unhandsome excuse to tell your Ladyship that I heard not of Sir Roberts2 being Indispos’d: But I do upon my honour assure you, that ’till within three or fower dayes before God tooke him from you, I did not know of his continuing so ill; and that I was the last Wednesday prevented of giving you a visite, as I was going to take Boate, by a deare friend of ours; Because I was in good earnest both asham’d, and infinitely confounded too, that I had bin so long wanting of my duty, and of which I shall not easily absolve myselfe, without your Ladyships extraordinary Charity; though My long absence at the Wells3 might somewhat extenuate the Errour; a fault I cannot altogether call it; because it was against my will; and that there was not the least portion of disrespect in my not waiting upon you Sir Robert but I know not how, a missfortune, and a fatality; since there was no man I more honour’d, and for whose losse I can be more sensible: Madame, I both heare, and know you are full of griefe, and I still persist in not visiting you, to the increase of your Ladyships suspicion of my ill nature: But Madame, you will forgive it, when I do assure you, that the feare of augmenting your affliction by my ungovernd passion, dos keepe me from waiting on you till the wound which you have received be somewhat asswag’d, and that the imbitterdnesse of your sorrows, have receiv’d some alleviation: This Madame, will be the worke of Tyme and of your Fortitude; especially if you joyne to it the necessity of obeying the divine Arrests; and consider that what has befallen your excellent person, is common to all the World: A Husband is a greate Friend, but God is a better; and will be all that to you, which you can want, in other comforts and more permanent: Repose your selfe therefore in the bousome of that God, and resigne your selfe entirely: Remember your the sweete children which are left you, all of your Husband is not yet gon, so long as they remaine: I conjure your Ladyship therefore to use all moderation upon this accident, and to compose your selfe, so as you may become the more usefull to your Relations; and let me see by the effects of this letter and by harkning to my advise, that you have

1 Jane Needham (1619–66; Diary). The daughter of Sir William Cockayne of Clapham, she was the second wife of Sir Robert Needham who was also her second husband, and lived in Lambeth. She seems also to have been close to Evelyn’s neighbours, the Howards. 2 Robert Needham (d. 1661; Diary, H). He was related to Evelyn through his first marriage to Elizabeth Hartop (d. 1639). He was knighted in 1631 and MP for Haverfordwest c.1645–8. 3 Tunbridge Wells

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perfectly acquitted me from the prejudice which I may possibly lye under, who am most unfeinedly and forever Madame Your etc.

Says Court 12: August 1661.

Samuel Tuke Letter 185 [181] August 12, 1661 f 112

Epistle CLXXI To my Cousen Samuel Tuke:

My dearest Cousen In replye to your kind letter I have this to say, that I will (God permitting) come expressely to give you thankes for it: and then you shall have an enumeration of all the fine experiments we have made at Gresham College1 in your absence; and which would by this time, have cur’d you of your Spleene: By what I write to my Mistrisse2 (for my wife is gon from me) you will understand how it fares at Home; onely I did not tell her, how sedulously I visite your go in pilgrimage to your Chamber in your absence, and wish the Saint were in it. For the Publique affaires, there is so little since the Parliaments Recesse, that I am resolv’d to preserve what there is, to entertaine you when I come to kisse your hands at Tunbridge; where, if your Spleene be still in dissorder, you shall never go againe by my Consent: But, I perceive also, how Philosophy degenerat’s into Cards and Kilepinns,3 which is another prejudice I have against the place: Coz, I hope you do resolve to returne by Saturday next; The Season grows cold and Heers4 (the Hippocrates of the Spas) has not a precept in all his Booke which ought to encourage you after so much Wett is fallen, to continue your water Debauches: Remember how very Intemperate you have bin these three Moneths; Omne nimium vertitur in Vitium, ne quid ergo nimis:5 The rest you shall have by word of mouth and, for this paper is at an – – Yours Says-Court 12th: August 1661.

1 Early meetings of the Royal Society were held between 16 January and 24 March (Diary III.268–75). Evelyn also records his own experiments on 7 and 9 August 1661 (Diary III.292–3). 2 This is probably an allusion to Tuke’s play, The adventures of five hours (2nd ed. London, 1664; 1671 ed. in the 1687 library catalogue) for which Evelyn wrote a commendatory poem (A3v–A4). The play was first performed in January 1662. Tuke was still unmarried at this time. 3 ninepins or skittles 4 Gregorius Horst (the Elder), Dissertatio de natura Thermarum (Giessen, 1618). Under the name “Hearnius,” Evelyn had three of his other works in his 1687 library catalogue. 5 “Every excess is turned into a vice; let, therefore, nothing be excessive.” See Binder, Novus Thesaurus Adagiorum Latinorum, no 2372.

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George Evelyn, nephew Letter 186 [182] August 24, 1661 ff 112v–13

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Epistle CLXXXII To my Nephew George Evelyn.

Dear Nephew, That I have thus long deferr’d to accknowledge your two Civile Letters was not because I could forgett how much you oblig’d me; but because for that I thought you (as yet) Itinerant,1 and hardly in a settled posture. By your last I was acquainted with your arivall at Tours, and there I intended to Correspond frequently with you; extreamely approving of your station, and of my good fortune, that you had lighted upon a Place heretofore so agreable to my Genius,2 and where I passed so much tyme in my Travells for the acquiring that Tongue, and some other Exercises to my greate Satisfaction. But no sooner did I flatter my selfe with the advantage I should receive by this Commerce with you; but I was inform’d of the Death of your incomparable Tutor Mr. Anderson:3 And then I knew the losse to be so greate, as must needes dissorder your so hopefull progresse; so that now I can no way better discover my Love and affection for you, then by advising you to governe your selfe prudently, and that with so much the greater circumspection, as you see your selfe remote from the observation and assistance of your carefull Father:4 This Cousin, I assure my selfe you likewise do, and it becomes you, when you consider the Thought, and Anxiety that is taken for you upon this fatal Accident. You have now an opportunity of cultivating all those good excellent Instructions that have bin given you; and you will infinitely gaine upon your Father, as well as oblige the rest of your Friends, if now they shall understand how discreetely you mannage your Time, and preserve your selfe, ’till there can be a supply of the greate losse which you have lately received. Tours is a Civile, a Quiet, and very Safe place, as well as one of the most pleasant and divertissant in France; so that it will lye in your power to give a faire Accoumpt of your selfe: And when it is determin’d how you shall dispose of your motions, I will then be as good as my promise, convert my style, and entertaine you with other Discourses, and such, as may (if you thinke fitt) contribute to your Improvement during this your Peregrination

1 George Evelyn had been educated with William Cavendish, but the only records of his travels abroad are subsequent to this time (Diary III.354 and Letter 216). 2 See Diary II.144–51 and the correspondence with Benjamin Maddox. 3 unidentified; Evelyn subsequently recommended Walter Pope (1628–1714; ODNB) to tutor George, and to accompany him to France (Diary III.354 and Letter 210). 4 George Evelyn, brother

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abroad, and as I shall perceive you susceptible of them: For there is not a Friend you have alive, that shall more rejoice to see you returne amongst them with the Accomplishments you Travell for, and, as it concernes you to reccompence your Fathers kindnesse for this addition to your Education; because you are to be his Hope, the Crowne and Ornament of our Family; and because thereby you shall also render your selfe the greatest perfection. This is all. I am Deare Nephew Your etc. Says-Court 24. August 1661.

James Thicknesse Letter 187 [183] September 5, 1661 f 113

Epistle CLXXXIII To Mr. Thicknes1

Sir, I am most sensibly touch’d with the newes of your Indisposition, and not a little, that this employment dos not suite with your occasions: because the Person who is Travelling dos not seeke you as a Tutor, but as a Companion; being himselfe sui juris, and well qualified; besides, being related (as I understand to the Archbishop of Canterbery)2 might possibly become introductory of some more agreable station for you hereafter: But you know best to take your owne measures, and Health is to be consider’d before all other things in the World, though I cannot but somewhat wonder, how you should hope to recover it in a Country which has so ill a reputation as Essex, where the Enemye that attaques you, is as it were, Endemicus and Vernacular to the place. Deare Sir, I shall joyfully receive (by your next) some better indications of your Convalescency; and in the interim, and at all times, sedulously waite for some more acceptable opportunity, by which I may confirme it, when I tell you that I am unfeinedly Sir, Your Says-Court 5. September 1661

1 Evelyn is responding to a letter of 2 September, in which Thicknesse announced that he was gravely ill (Add 78311: f 31 [2.9.1661]). 2 unidentified, but a relation of Archbishop William Juxon (1582–1663; ODNB)

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Robert Boyle Letter 188 [184] September 13, 1661 f 113r–v

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Epistle CLXXXIV To Robert Boyle Esquire:1

Sir, I send you the Receipt of the Jappon Vernish, and believe it to be very exact; because it is so particular, and that I receiv’d it from the hand of a curious Person, who having made triall of it himselfe, affirmes it to have succeeded. I send you also another trifle,2 which has a neerer relation to me; and you will easily pardon myne indignation, however you pitty the rest of my Errours, to which there is superadded so greate a presumption: Not that I believe what I have written should produce the desir’d effects; but to indulge my passion, and in hopes of obtaining a partial Reformation; if at least his Majestie pursue the resentiment, which he lately express’d against this Nuisance, since this Pamphlet was prepared. Sir, I am your Creditor for Schotti,3 and shall faithfully render it when ever your Summons calls: My Leasure has not yet permitted me to transcribe a Period or two out of it, which concerns me on another subject: but, if the detaining of it a while longer be no prejudice to you, it is in a Safe-Depositum. Sir, I have not bought two of your Last Bookes,4 and yet (possibly) I could render you some accoumpt of them: My thirst, and Impatience is too greate to shew the least indifferency, when any thing of yours comes to be publique. This dos not absolve you from making him a Present, who (it may be) takes no greater felicity in the World, then to see his Smale Library enrich’d with your illustrious Workes, and they to come Ex dono Authoris. Dearest Sir, pardon this innocent strategemme, and the presumption of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 13. September 1661.5

1 See also Add MS 4293: ff 71–2. The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, I, 460–1 is based on that source. 2 See Birch, The History of the Royal Society, I, 54 and Diary III.304. Evelyn mentions this varnish on “large trunks of Laccar” in 1662 (Diary III.324 n. 2).The recipe itself is in Boyle Papers 26 f 141 in the Royal Society. See also Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 72–4. The “trifle” is Fumifugium, which Evelyn presented to the king on the same day. 3 Gaspar Schott, Magia universalis naturae et artis, sive, Recondita naturalium & artificialium rerum scientia (Würzburg, 1658; Evelyn Library, no 1316 [ex dono Boyle]), a work that deals with optics, acoustics, mathematics, and physics. 4 Among those published in 1661 were Certain Considerations touching the Style of the Scriptures; Certain Physiological Essays; and The Sceptical Chemist. 5 Add 4293 has a note in the margin: “Sir, I must take this opportunity to give you thankes for your greate Civilities to my Cousin Baily, and to supplicate the continuance of your favour to him, as by which, you will infinitely oblige an industrious and deserving Gentleman” (Boyle, Correspondence, I, 461). See also Letter 189.

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William Petty1 Letter 189 [185] September 16, 1661 f 113v

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Epistle CLXXXV To Sir William Petty:

Sir, Though this Gentleman, my Kindsman, Mr. Baily,2 have worth of his owne sufficient to render his Addresses acceptable to you; yet, that his modesty be no prejudice, I do take this boldnesse to reccommend him to your particular favour; and especialy, because it is from that alone by which he can hope to receive the Effects to which the justice of his Majestie and his Services dos intitle him: Sir, He himselfe will best be able to lay before you the particulars: But the obligation will be, if in taking cognisance of them you also assist him with your Counsell and your Interest: It is a greate presumption that upon so little merite of my owne, I should thus interpose for a person who is a stranger to you; but it is what his concernes require, and what your extraordinary humanity dos admitt, which is to oblige all that make their applications to you, and amongst that number Sir Your etc. London 16: September 1661

William Compton1 Letter 190 [186] October 4, 1661 f 114

Epistle CLXXXVI To Sir William Compton Master of the Ordinance etc. And one of the honorable Privy Council:

Sir, According to your desires I transmitt you the paper againe, and with it, my humble thankes, his Majestie having order’d me to make a dispatch of what was collected out of 1 Sir William Petty (1623–87; ODNB, R). Petty was a founding member of the Royal Society. At this point he divided his time between London and Ireland. See Fitzmaurice, The Life of Sir William Petty. 2 See the marginal note in the Add 4293 version of the previous letter to Robert Boyle. Possibly this is Thomas Bales, who is recorded in 1662 as one of the Commissioners of the Streets along with Sir William Petty (Diary III.319, n. 1). There are also letters to Mary Evelyn from her cousin Bagnell Bayly, both from Calne in Wiltshire and Sky-Parke. She was a niece of Susan Hungerford, a sister of Mary Evelyn’s mother (Add 78437: ff 56–67). 1 Sir William Compton (1625–63; ODNB). He joined the Royalist forces in the 1640s and was a member of the “Sealed Knot,” a conspiratorial group attempting to restore Charles II. After the Restoration he was master of ordnance (1660–63) and was an MP for Cambridge in 1661.

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this,2 and several other Relations of the same import, to my Lord Embassador of France,3 whither (after I had read it to his Majestie in his Closset) it was immediately to be sent: I know not certainely; but do conjecture that his Majestie may publish the rest, to prevent some inconveniencies; if so, I shall implore more of your assistance, and in more perfect lights. This Sir, in greate haste all from Sir Your etc. White-hall 4th: October 1661

Henry Bennet1 Letter 191 [187] October 7, 1661 f 114r–v

Epistle CLXXXVII To Sir Henry Bennet, Keeper of the Privy Purse to his Majestie

[RM: now Secretary of state:] Sir, Having according to your instructions qualifi’d all those periods, wherein the least of asperity might seeme to remaine, so as nor his Majesties due honour at home, or Friendship abroad can by it receive the least diminution, I transmitt the Inclosed2 to you by this hand, which I would my Selfe have don by my owne another, if upon Saturdays most diligent enquiry, it had bin my good fortune to kisse your hands meete with you: And now, I know not whither I have don well ill to depart without your leave, or whither I do now worse to send this trouble after you: But being importunately call’d away, I did adventure to cast it all upon your goodnesse, to pardon my Errours, and to accept of the best signification of my Service. And here Sir, I am to accknowledge the greate honour you have don me, that 2 This is a reference to the conflict between the French and Spanish ambassadors at the reception of the Swedish ambassador at the Tower on the 30 September, 1661 (Diary III.297–9). Evelyn notes that he was commissioned by the king to draw up his account (Diary III.297). He was instructed to consult Sir William about this and the latter’s letter with Evelyn’s reply is in Add 15948: f 112 [3.10.1661]; f 113 [5.10.1661]). An autograph fair copy, “A faithfull and impartial Narrative of w[ha]t pass’d at the Landing of the Swedish Ambassador,” is Add 78393: ff 10–11. Evelyn finally presented the report to Charles on 18 February 1663 (Diary III.352). 3 Godefroi d’Estrades 1 Henry Bennet, 1st earl of Arlington (1618–85; ODNB). In August 1661 Bennet had been appointed keeper of the King’s Privy Purse, and would replace Sir Edward Nicholas as secretary of state for the south in October 1662. He was lord chamberlain of the King’s Household from 1674 until his death. 2 This account of the affray between the French and Spanish ambassadors (referred to in Letter 190) led to Evelyn’s first acquaintance with Bennet who was to become a friend.

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through your Addresse, his Majestie was graciously pleas’d to Command my Service, and not to reprove my imperfections. It were a happinesse for me, that there were some other lesse obnoxious occasion, in which I at any time, my Service might be thought agreeable; since by that it is, I would pretend to performe something more becomming my obli your value for me, and my obligations to you: For, it is certaine, I have no greater ambitions to serve, then such as prompt me to gratitude. I have Sir, spent much time amongst Bookes, and other impertinences; and want the Politure, which those who have the honor to converse with you receive, which makes me sometimes emulous of their good fortune, who having stations at Court, can cultivate those shining talents, which wee that are poore Country Gentlemen, may not hope to aspire to. This yet is left to some of us, that we can plainely, and without artifice, expresse the our sense of Benefits, and, as I would now do that of your greate Civilities to me, were they not of a magnitude beyond the common measure of Words: It is therefore in order to this, Sir, that I breath after some worthy occasion that might signifie rather by my Services, then my Letters, how much I am at your devotion: for I have already a tast of your noble, and obliging nature; and I will beg, that you will give me leave to cherish it, by such attributes as are realy due to it from Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 7th: October 1666

I have Sir, to the best of my skill reform’d this Relation, so as may neither give the least offence to either party, and nor diminish of the style in which his Majestie ought to convey things of this nature to the world; and especialy, upon an occasion conjuncture of so reasonable, as is that of vindicating himselfe and his People; as well as for the adornement of his owne History, when such an unusual and publique action will be looked into, how the vulgar reppresented it; if his Majestie (by not preventing) should altogether neglect it. And Sir, If at any time you would have me waite on you; or that, through the Passion I have that you should cherish continue to cherish his Majesties gratious opinion of me upon all occasions, he require my farther Service: be pleas’d to signifie your Commands to Sir Richard Brown, and in the meane time, to looke on your Servant, as one whom you have perfectly acquir’d. William Coventry Letter 192 [189] October 12, 1661 f 115

Epistle ClXXXIX To Mr. Coventry, Secretary to his Highnesse the Duke of Yorke

Sir, Having so much difficulty to get this Copie into my hands, and it being the onely one, which I have to satisfie the importunity of some who are curious to see what I had

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collected; I do most humbly desire, that if you thinke it worthy the transcribing, this blotted paper may be return’d me againe.1 There is nothing in the Relation but what is the naked result of several persons of Credit, Spectators, to some whereoff I was address’d by his Majesties Commands; so that I have no Apologie to make for that part of it, but for the ill putting of their relations together. The Reflections which follow are here much contracted from what they were in that which his Majestie did send to my Lord of St. Albanes.2 They are both ex abundanti, and I may feare, impertinent enough, unlesse those unhandsome reports which touch’d his Majesties Partiality, deserve some indulgence for the liberty which I assum’d, and at which his Majestie (to whom I read it in his Closset alone) was not at all displeas’d: But this is greately softn’d in the Papers I send you here, and therefore lesse solicitous into whose hands they may fall. They are secure in yours; make a favourable construction of all that comes from me; because it is onely to obey your Commands, that I subscribe at this tyme Sir Your etc. Says-Court 12 October 1661

Henry Bennet Letter 193 [190] December 7, 1661 ff 115–16

Epistle CLXXXX To Sir Henry Bennet keeper of the Privy Purse to his Majestie

[RM: deleted note] Sir, If this innocent exercise I presume to put into your hands afford his Majestie the least Diversion, I am to Sacrifice to the Addresse which shall present it:1 Be pleas’d therefore to take some lucky opportunity of reading it to him: if he smile, mention your humble servant; if he frowne, conceale his name, and pardon the presumption: It is with you onely he dares trust his fame: and as he finds the returne in this; so is he resolv’d to publish to the World to whom he is indebted for it. I would not have you thinke I preserve the least fondnesse for this Trifle, farther then as an Essay; call it Rhapsody, or what else you please: There are others to follow, if this succeede, that are lesse morose, and which, it may be, you will not disdaine to cast an eye upon; especialy, when you shall consider, that those 1 Evelyn’s account of the ambassadors’ quarrel; see Letters 190 and 191. 2 Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans (1605–84; ODNB). He was appointed ambassador to France in 1661. 1 This work is most likely his Tyrannus Or the Mode, an attack on false fashion and the vanity of the court, that was recorded as circulating at court on 7 December (Diary III.306), and is cited later in this letter.

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greate Ministers Cardinal de Richlieu, and Mazarine2 did so nobly use to cultivate the productions of a Bookish-Confident or two, who were wont from time to time, to informe them of all that was rare, and new both in the Sciences, and Bookes, on which, though their greate affaires permitted them not to looke so steadily; yet, were they (by this meanes) ignorant of nothing that pass’d in either. But, what of this chagrin and austeere Virtue you will say? honeste servit, qui succumbit tempori?3 To excuse it of Vanity it’s enough that ’tis the Mode. Vitium fuit, nunc mos est assentatio.4 That which was first ill invented, may be worse chang’d and I readily assent to it, Sir; But now that our excellent Prince, and his greate Assembly are dipping into Laws of this nature, and that we may at least reasonably vindicate our selves from the imputation of a diffidence which dos not become us, what if the English did gratifie their owne Invention a little, without going over-sea for the next paire of Breeches; or, consulting the Oracles in France for my Ladys new Petty-Coate? Sir, If you judge this too serious, turne it into Rallery: The Pamphlet which I send you will support it, and like those pictures that are transform’d as the spectator alters his station, would insinuate, that whilst the Author pleads for a constant Fashion in his Cloathes, he meanes nothing lesse in his Writings. Take it therefore as you like the light serves best, I do assure you he had no other designe in it, then to divert you a minute, who is as ready on your Commands to turne the Tables, and to render it a Paradox. Sir, you know whose precept it was, Misce stultitiam Consiliis brevem:5 A little mirth relaxation after your grave Consultations; and, I am in hope these smale sprinklings may not much discompose you. This was the Mode of those Illustrious Names I but now mention’d; and was that produced most of Monsieur Voitures Letters,6 The choice pieces of Balzac, Theophile and our noble Verulams7 Interiora rerum: And it was indeed, a greate, and a noble Example, that whilst their Maecenas’s could not Vacate to the turning over those many larger Volumes, which adorn’d their Libraries, and were daily presented to them; they had yet their Operators, who extracted for them the Elixir, and, by a more compendious Art, stor’d them with all those excellent notices, which, without prejudice to their more sublime affaires, preserv’d their Estimation, of being the most able, and the most worthy of their greate Charges, not onely amongst their Clients, and Beneficiaries; but the Suffrages of all equitable Judges.



2 3 4 5 6

Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, both chief ministers of France “To yield to the need of time is honourable service.” Publilius Syrus (Duff, trans) “Flattery, which was a vice, is now customary.” Publilius Syrus (Duff, trans) Mingle brief folly ... with thy wisdom.” Horace, Odes 4.12.27 (Bennett, trans). Vincent de Voiture, Les oeuvres de Monsieur de Voiture (Paris, 1676; in the 1687 library catalogue). He also owned Jean Louis Guez, Lettres de Monsieur de Balzac, 3 vols (Paris, 1634, 1642, 1647); Theophile de Viau, Nouvelles Oeuvres de feu Mr. Theophile, composées d’excellentes Lettres Françoises & Latines (Paris, 1642); and Francis Bacon, The essayes or counsels, ciuill and morall (London, 1629) and Sermones fideles, ethici politici œconomici: sive Interiora Rerum (Leiden, 1641). In his reference to “their Operators, who extracted for them the Elixir” Evelyn adapts the language of the newly established Royal Society to the activities of professional “readers,” whether in the service of Richelieu or Mazarin, or of Bennet himself, whom Evelyn imagines as his own Maecenas. 7 Francis Bacon

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Sir, I do not by this suggest to you, that I either thinke you neede this Advertisement, or that my selfe were worthy to be honour’d with the least of your Commands; but, because I would extenuate this presumption, if whilst I take notice of your assiduous attendance on your Royall Master, I sometimes (with your permission) offer those poore Talents I have to Serve as a foile at least, under those which are more worthy your acceptation, then the Impertinencies of Sir, Your etc. London 7th December 1661.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 194 [191] January 1, 1662 f 116

Epistle CLXXXI To my Lady Vicountesse Mordaunt:

[RM: Sending her a Copy of Verses made on my Lady Littletons1 going for Jamaica] Madame, If I knew how to convey this Inclos’d to the beautifull Person I addresse it; I should not presume to give you this trouble; but, if your Curiosity incite you to know what my Commerce is, with that faire Lady; Your honour onely may challenge the Priveledge, and open it. ’Tis a New-Years-gift, which (if I may speake without vanity) has pass’d the Suffrages of our Wallers and the Pöets:2 But what is that to me if she who is my Muse, and my Mistris do not likewise approve it? But if there it succeede also, I may one day adventure on a higher flight, and draw the Picture of my Lady Mordaunt; if at least the forces of the Artist had any hope of attaining to the dignity of so sublime a Subject: Madam, I pronounce it from a heart that dares assure you he is Your honours etc. London 1 January 1661/2.

1 Catherine Fairfax (d. 1663). Her father, Sir William Fairfax of Steeton, was a third cousin of General Fairfax. Evelyn records meeting her brother, Thomas Fairfax, in 1677 (Diary IV.120, n. 6). 2 The poem, “On Sir Charles Littleton’s Carrying his Lady to Jamaica: 1662,” is transcribed in Add 78357: f 25.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Digby1 Letter 195 [192] February 3, 1662 f 116r–v

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Epistle CLXXXXII To my Lord the Earle of Bristoll:

My Lord, Just as I was in precinct to waite on your Lordship comes to me one to tell me, that his Majestie designing to saile downe the River this Morning, did intend, in his returne, to call at my poore Cottage, and take a viewe of my little Villa.2 There is nothing lesse then such an Accident, could make me deferr the honor of waiting on you to Wimbledon (the Plot of which Garden I have excogitated, I hope to your liking).3 But, if your Lordship do allow of this excuse (as I am certaine you will) there can nothing interveene which shall dare for the future make me to dissobey your Commands. I thought fit to advertise your honor of this, that your appoyntment, or expectation of me at Lambeth may not put you to farther dissorder. This is all from My Lord Your etc. Westminster: 3d: February 1661/2

James Butler1 Letter 196 [193] May 12, 1662 f 116v

Epistle CLXXXIII To my Lord Duke of Ormond.

My Lord My present indisposition (to which the feares of importuning your Grace dos not a little contribute) will I hope obtaine your pardon; if through your Graces mediation, I beg, that 1 George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol (1612–77; ODNB). 2 The diary does not record a visit from the king. Evelyn does report, however, on a visit from the duke of York on 16 January (Diary III.312–13). Charles finally visited on 30 April 1663 (Diary III.354). 3 Evelyn records going to Wimbledon House on 17 February 1662 “to help contrive the Garden after the moderne,” describing it as “a delicious place for Prospect” (Diary III.315–16). George Digby had bought the estate from Henrietta Maria in 1661. After his death, it was bought by Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby. The garden had first been designed by André Mollet in 1642. See Strong, Renaissance Garden in England, 191–7, and Hunt, Garden and Grove, 107–9. 1 James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond (1610–88; ODNB). Butler had been named lord lieutenant of Ireland in February 1662 and left England in July.

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my pretences be againe reneu’d to his Majestie since nothing lesse then his Majesties owne encouragement, and greate goodnesse, could have extenuated this presumption: For it was his pleasure to assure me (immediately before his journey to Portsmouth) that at her Majesties arrivall he would be mindfull of me, as one who might derive some merite from the instances I presented him:2 Let my hopes perish (if they can) by this addresse through your Graces hand, and I shall humbly acquiesce My Lord Your Graces etc. Hampton-Court 12th: May: 1662

Kenelm Digby Letter 197 [194] May 15, 1662 ff 116v–17

Epistle CLXXXXIV To Sir Kenelme Digby:

Sir, Just as I was considering what Bookes had bin publish’d amongst us during these late Yeares (at least as many of them as had come to my cognizance) I remembred to have seene a Catalogue of the most Vendible in England, containing an Alphabetical Digest of all that have bin lately printed: In which there are sprinkled treatises of all kinds of subjects to the yeare 58;1 and since that one Mr. John Burroughs2 (lately Clearke of the Stationers Hall) living about Amen-Corner, did undertake to compleate this worke; and by a more accurate research, to deduce the Catalogue unto this present Yeare: Whither he still persist in the designe I cannot learne;3 nor am I knowne to the person; but it is certaine, that (by what I have enquird) he will be the most capable to gratifie your Curiosity about

2 This and the previous letters suggest that, in the wake of writing the account of the quarrel between the French and Spanish ambassadors, Evelyn hoped he might be appointed as historiographer royal, a post given to James Howell (1594?–1666; ODNB). Two days later he was appointed to the commission “about reforming the buildings, wayes, streetes & incumbrances” (Diary III.318–19). 1 William London, A catalogue of the most vendible books in England, orderly and alphabetically digested; under the heads of divinity, history, physick, and chyrurgery, law, arithmetick, geometry, astrologie, dialling, measuring land and timber, gageing, navigation, architecture, horsmanship, faulconry, merchandize, limning, military discipline, heraldry, fortification and fire-works, husbandry, gardening, romances, poems, playes, &c. With Hebrew, Greek, and Latin books, for schools and scholars (London, 1658). There was a prior edition the previous year. In 1660, London published A catalogue of new books, by way of supplement to the former. Being such as have been printed from that time, till Easter-Term, 1660 (London, 1660). See Schotte, “‘Books for the Use of the Learned and Studious.’” 2 John Burroughs (I). London bookseller and clerk to the Stationers’ Company in 1652. 3 There is no evidence that Burroughs completed this project.

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this particular. There is likewise one Mr. Leigh,4 who has publish’d a Treatise of Religion and Learning, wherein are enumerated also divers late Authors; the Gentleman is extreamely conversant in Bookes, both English, and other: Sir, this is what in hast occurrs, in obedience to your Commands; and which I conceiv’d would be a meanes to bring you much better acquainted with the moderne Publications, then by the slender rescention of the few in the Catalogue of Sir Your etc. London 15: May: 1662

John Cosin Letter 198 [195] August 1, 1662 f 117r–v

Epistle CLXXXXV To my Lord Bishop of Durham.

My Lord There are now almost fowre yeares, expir’d, since my friend my Lady Gerrard1 your Lordships Daughter, expressing some urgent occasion for monyes, did desire my friend Dr. Needham2 to be bound with her in a Bond for £300: The Doctor, who was then in no capacity to support such an obligation, in case by any accident the debt should happen to fall upon him; did use arguments which might have excus’d him in all reason, as not imagining indeede for what so great a summ should be requir’d, ’til (upon some casual conferrence with me, being then in London) he was apt to believe it might possibly proceede from some pressing necessity of your Lordships: This was it my Lord which encourag’d him (now no longer solicitous of the event) to serve your Daughter with all cherefullnesse: And thus it has continu’d; but not without frequent promises that her Ladyship would take a speedy course to free the Doctor of that obligation, in reguard it has prov’d a very greate impediment, and hazard to him upon several encounters; especialy, now of late, that the Creditor growes clamerous, and threatens to prosecute him for the debt, and to restraine him of his liberty; which your Lordship knows, would (to a person of his profession, of so intire a fame, and in so hopefull a way) prove a most unexpressable injury, and not in the least answer a kindnesse which was don out of so much tendernesse to your Daughter, and respect for your Lordship upon confidence of a punctual releasement, and honorable treatement, now that your Lordships condition was changed

4 Evelyn is probably referring to Edward Leigh, A treatise of religion & learning, and of religious and learned men (London, 1656). 1 Mary Gerard 2 Jasper Needham

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to so happy, and deserving an exaltation; and which was indeede the least returne he could expect. It is that releasement which he onely sues; but has hitherto, forborne to trouble your Lordship with, ’til finding himselfe now no longer able to support the calamity which is like to befall him, he is forced to supplicate your Lordships intercession, and that you will reccommend his case, and, indeede, his merites (considering the tyme when he did it, and the reasons why, with all the other circumstances) to my Lady your Daughter, who can tel your Lordship also upon how many other exigences he has bin civil to her (but for which your Lordship will never be importun’d) that so he may be reliev’d of his feares, and of a debt, which, not his levity, but his kindnesse has engag’d him into beyond any thing he has ever don for the neerest of his owne Relations; and therefore, which, in all justice he ought not to succumb under. My Lord I could not refuse (upon the Doctors and my deare friends request) to give this ingenuous testimony of his readinesse to serve your Daughter, and that (to my certaine knowledge) for the respect and value which he beares to your Lordship, and because I was assur’d that your Lordship, out of your greate piety, love of justice, and affection to your Daughter, would most readily interpose in an occasion of this nature; the Doctor, being one who has the honour to be known and esteem’d by divers reverend and dignifyed Persons of the church, and others, who would be much concern’d, and much greately deplore any disaster of this nature which should befall him, for his signal promptnesse to oblige any Relation of your Lordships, and as indeede he has don, not onely before to, but even beyond his abilities. This testimony, I say, my Lord I owe to the Doctors friendship, and particular merites, as to this concernement: and therefore my Lord not in the least doubting of your Lordships equal, and tender reguards for him, craving your Lordships Blessing, and I remaine my Right Reverend Lord Your etc. Says-Court 1: August 1662:

Mary Cotton Evelyn Letter 199 [196] September 9, 1662 ff 117v–18

Epistle CLXXXXVI. To my Lady Cotton:

Madame, It was by a Visite, which was made us this afternoone, that we heard how it had pleased God to dispose of the little sweete Babe; and, withall, how much the losse of it dos yet afflict you.1 Whatsoever concernes you in this kind, is, Madame, a common ­diminution to 1 Evelyn notes on 1 September that “I went after dinner to visite my Bro: of Woodcot, my sister having ben delivered of a sonn, a little before, but had now ben two daies dead to their greate sorrow” (Diary III.334).

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the Familie, and touches every particular of it; but so, as our resentiments hold proportion to the Cause, and that the losse of One, doe not take away the comfort, and the contentment, which we ought to have in those who are left; since we must pretend to nothing here, but upon the conditions of Mortalitie, and ten thousand other Accidents; and that we may learne to place our felicities in our obedience to the Will of God, which is allways the best; and, to sacrifice our affections upon that Altar, which can consecrate our very losses, and turne them to our greatest advantage. Madame, I have with infinite satisfaction heard how graciously God had restor’d you your health: Why should you now impaire it againe by an excesse of Griefe, which can recalle nothing that God has taken to himselfe in exchange, without a kind of ingratitude? There be some may, happly, suoth2 your Ladyship in this sensible part (which was the destruction of my deare Mother)3 but your Ladyships discretion ought to fortifie you against it, before it become habitual, and dangerous. Remember that you have an Husband who loves you intirely; that you have other Children who will neede your conduct; that you have many Friends, and a prosperous Family; Pluck up your Spirits then, and, at once vanquish these hurtfull tendernesses. It is the Vote of all that honor, and love you; it is what God requires of you, and, what I conjure you to resolve upon; and I beseech your Ladyship let this Expresse bring us some fairer confidences of it, then the common report dos represent it, to the greife of Madame, Your etc. Sayes-Court 9: September 1662.

Johan van der Does1 Letter 200 [197] September 13, 1662 f 118

Epistle ClXXXXVII. To Mr. Vander Douse:

[RM: Grandson to the Greate Janus Dousa:] Sir, I have to the best of my skill translated your Relation of China;2 if you find the Argument omitted, it is for that I thought it superfluous, being almost as large as the Text: but I have yet 2 soothe 3 Eleanor Stansfield Evelyn, of whom Evelyn said “the visible cause of her indisposition proceeded from griefe, upon the losse of her daughter” (Diary II.13). 1 Johan van der Does (1621–1704; Diary). At Charles II’s behest he came to England and was given an allowance of £400 p.a. to be in charge of the education of the Princess Royal. He was grandson of Janus Dousa (1545–1609), politician, and scholar, who was the first curator of the University of Leiden. 2 Van der Does was a poet, but there is no evidence either that he ever published a “Relation of China” or of Evelyn’s translation of it.

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left a sufficient space where you may (if you thinke good) insert it: In the meane time, it would be consider’d, whither this whole piece will be to the purpose, there having bin of late so many accurate Descriptions of those Countries in particular, as (besides what we have of Topographicall in the Sina reserata) what Father Semedo,3 has publishd in the Italian; La Blanc in French;4 and Mandislaus in high Dutch;5 not omitting the adventures and Travels of Pinto in Spanish;6 all of them now speaking the English Language: At least I conceive, that you might not do amisse to peruse their workes, and upon comparing of them with this piece of yours, to observe what there is of more accurate and particular Instructive; least you otherwise seeme Actum agere, as the word is: But this, Sir, I remitt to your better judgement, who am Sir your etc. Sayes-Court 13: September 1662.

Samuel Tuke Letter 201 [198] January 29, 1663 f 118v

Epistle CLXXXXVIII To Collonel Tuke:

Sir, I send you my weake suffrages: Infinite more could I have added to your Encomiums (for in so ample a field where could I have stop’d?) but I chose this, as the most apt, and justifiable for my purpose, which was to do right to your Poem,1 and to jerke those wretches your unworthy Detractors. Epigrammatique I pronounce it; and ’twas the most 3 Alvaro Semedo, Imperio de la China (Madrid, 1642) was translated into English as The History of that great and renowned Monarchy of China (London, 1655) by “a Person of quality,” Evelyn’s friend Thomas Henshaw. See Pasmore, “Thomas Henshaw, F.R.S. (1618–1700).” 4 Vincent Leblanc, Les Voyages fameux du Sieur V. Leblanc ... le tout recueilly de ses mémoires par le Sieur Coulon (Paris, 1648); in English as The world surveyed: or, The famous voyages & travailes of Vincent le Blanc, or White, of Marseilles (London, 1660). 5 Johann Albrecht von Mandelslo’s account of his travels in Persia and India was published with the travels of Adam Olearius, his companion on the first part of the journey, first in Dutch (Utrecht, 1651), and subsequently in German (Schlesswig, 1656) and French (Paris 1656; Evelyn Library, no 1097 and Eve.a.153). In English as The Voyages and Travels of J.A. de Mandelslo ... into the East-Indies. Begun in the year 1638 and finish’d in 1640, trans. J. Davies in Olearius, The voyages & travels of the ambassadors sent by Frederick Duke of Holstein, to the great Duke of Muscovy (London, 1662, 1669; Evelyn Library, no 1098, 1099). 6 Fernão Mendes Pinto, Peregrinaçam de F. M. P. em que da conto de muytas e muyto estranhas cousas que vio e ouvio no reyno da China (Lisbon, 1614); in English as The voyages and adventures of Fernand Mendez Pinto … during his travels … in the Kingdoms of Ethiopia, China, Tartaria, Cauchinchina, Calaminham, Siam, Pegu, Japan, and a great part of the East-Indiaes, trans. Henry Cogan (London, 1653; in the 1687 library catalogue). 1 In company with Cowley, Jasper Needham, Christopher Wase, and (perhaps) Mary Evelyn, Evelyn wrote a commendatory poem to accompany the second edition of Samuel Tuke’s play The adventures of five

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antient, and best forme of conveying Civilities to Friends; For whenc have we anything of this nature that exceedes Martial, and where so Witty? Let others then envelop you like a precious Mummy, fold upon fold, and sheete on sheete; they shall never embalme your never dying Name Worke beyond the merite of it; as where the Piece is not transcendent (like yours) I have somtimes knowne too officious friends abuse the Readers appetite, by raising an expectation, like setting placing the second Course on the table before the first, the Coarser meates after. Who reades You, will smile at these impertinences. Farewell. etc. Says-Court: 29: January 1662/3

Abraham Cowley1 Letter 202 [199] March 20, 1663 f 118v

Epistle CLXXXXIX. To Abraham Cowley Esquire

Sir, I had before this accknowledgd your most civil letter could I (without a blush) have taken notice of your mentioning a Præsent so very meane as the Trifles which I sent you: They were yet such as the Beds which I durst open at this Season afforded; so that before they come to blow, you will (I hope) have forgotten whence they came, that my Apology may finish here. The Paquett which I now send you containes a part of my Vernal Semination: They are most of them Italians, some very choyce, and some but Vulgar;2 but you are pleas’d with easy Offerings, though had I any more worthy, I should cherefully devote them to you, as becomes Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 20th: March 1662/3

hours (1664), a translation of Los Empeños de seis horas by Antonio Coello. Evelyn’s poem is also included in his verse miscellany (Add 78357: f 25v). Evelyn records attending the first performance on 8 January; he notes that the play “so universaly tooke as it was acted for some weekes every day, & twas believed would be worth the Comedians 4 or 5000 pounds: Indeede the plot was incomparable but the language stiffe & formall” (Diary III.350). 1 Abraham Cowley (1618–67; ODNB). Although Evelyn first records Cowley in the Diary in 1663 (III.355), they had previously met in France. In 1660 he returned to England where his brother, Thomas, held a post in the dockyard at Deptford, near Evelyn’s house, and where Cowley himself was given the manor of Oldcourt. Evelyn supplied him with seeds for his garden and dedicated the second edition of Kalendarium Hortense to him. This in turn prompted Cowley to dedicate his essay “The Garden” to Evelyn, who included it in the third and fourth editions of his Sylva. 2 This letter is early evidence of Cowley’s interest in gardens and gardening. Cowley replied, thanking Evelyn for the seeds, on 29 March (BL Stowe 755: f 13). He adds that “I hope to see shortly your work of Horticulture finished and published, and long to bee in all things your Disciple.”

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Robert Breton1 Letter 203 [200] March 29, 1663 f 119

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Epistle CC To the Reverend Doctor Breton

Sir, I have consider’d the deplorable condition of this poore Proselyte,2 and shall be glad to contribute what lyes in my power to recommend him for the bettering of his present condition: I have indeede a resolution to entertaine a Tutor for my Little Sonne, and, I would not care how soone I could light upon a fit Person. I do not perceive (by what he writes) any reason to distrust his abillities; but, because I would not change willingly, when once I have put my Boy in a Course, I am the more nice and circumspect in the choyce: For with me it will signifie but little, that one can teach the Latine-tongue; my owne greate defects (as well as inclination) require him to be a Græcian, and of somewhat a Mathematical-Genius, without which, realy, I esteeme nothing the ordinary progresse of Scholars: Besides, I abominate the two extreames so usualy found in Tutors Pedantrie, or Morosenesse; the one being commonly the effect of the Colledge, and UniversityNovitiate, the other of the Convent, and their cloystrall severity. If this Person be qualified with the character I have describ’d to you, and propos’d to my selfe; or but likely to accommodate to this institution, when being a little refresh’d, he shall have the opportunities, I shall receive him upon such farther conditions as are just and reasonable; but and that with the greater propensitie for being French, a stranger and in distresse. Of those Particulars if you shall please to informe your selfe, and me (without taking any notice to him of your designe, ’till I have seene him) You will infinitely oblige Reverend Sir Your etc. Says-Court 29: March 1663

1 Robert Breton (1628–72; Diary). Educated at Cambridge from which he received a DD in 1663, Breton was rector of St Nicolas, Deptford (Evelyn’s parish church) from 1662 to 1672, before becoming rector of St Martin’s Ludgate in London and a prebendary of St Paul’s. He was also chaplain-in-ordinary from 1662 to c.1665. 2 It is unclear who this was, but it is possibly Morillon who wrote to Evelyn on 10 July 1663 (Add 38717: f 30 [10.7.1663]). As late as 22 September, Evelyn was consulting with Needham about a tutor (Diary III.364). Evelyn’s son, John, was first educated (probably by clerics) with the sons of Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk, and subsequently (in 1663) by Edward Phillips (1630–96; ODNB), Milton’s nephew, but only after Evelyn had assured himself that Phillips was “not at all infected with his principles, & though brought up by him, yet no way taintd” (Diary III.365).

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Abraham Cowley Letter 204 [201] May 28, 1663 f 119

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Epistle CCI To Abraham Cowley Esquire

Sir, Had I bin so happy to have seene you on this side the Bridg, I should my selfe have deliver’d my Cousens1 Play [RM: Adventure of five Houres] to you; and because You made me hope it, I have delay’d to send it to you ’till now, that my Cousen expects an account of his Commands: But this is not all; for I was to let you know, how greate an honor he would esteeme it, if to the second Impression (which, it seemes, he has design’d) You did favour him with your generous Suffrage: And truely, I know not where he could have made choyce of such a Paranymph, and therefore I must speake his request once more, who am, his and Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 28: May: 1663.

Nicholas Crisp Letter 205 [202] June 14, 1663 f 119v

Epistle CCII To Sir Nicholas Crisp:

[LM: In behalfe of one Mr. French for a Searchers place in Dorset-shire] Sir, This poore Man, who has layne at the Poole1 these many Monethes, would now in Charity be reliev’d. I have the Interest of your Generosity, and Dr. Beale, that of some Relation, to reccommend him as a fit object of your assistance for a bare livelyhood, and a faithfull Servant in a place of trust. If you thinke not fit to gratifie his Friends request, by possessing him of what he seekes, do not punish him for his hopes, by suffering him to starve in this miserable Towne: It will be a mercy to send him away (as the case stands) whom you have no intention to relieve: But if his chargeable dependance thus long on your promises, 1 Evelyn visited Cowley on 14 May (Diary III.355). The second edition of Tuke’s play had introductory poems by Evelyn, Jasper Needham, Christopher Wase, and possibly Mary Evelyn. 1 the Pool of London, the main wharf area for shipping

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have made that a Debt to him, which at first, had ben an effect of your bounty; suffer him no longer to languish; nor your selfe to be farther importun’d by Sir, Your etc.

London 14th June 1663.

Philip Warwick Letter 206 [203] July 9, 1663 ff 119v–20

Epistle CCIII To Sir Philip Warwick etc.

It is not without reluctancy that I receive obligations from persons of whom I can never hope to merite, and I am never to make these approches to you without a sense of my debts for all your past favours: It has bin your noble charity to me in a greater instance, which makes me supplicate for a poore man, who importunes me for these hasty lines. The Bearer hereoff is a distress’d creature, whose husband was our Chapel-keeper at Excester house1 when we served God in the late Persecution: Her Case is is [sic] thus. A baptiz’d Turke (whom they call my Lord Cornaro)2 having ben long entertain’d at her house, has unworthily absented himselfe, without pa[y]ing for his dyet, and lodging, to the utter undoing of her lame husband etc. It is assur’d me that this ingratefull Proselyte receives a competent Pension from my Lord Treasurer:3 if so, she humbly supplicates that you would do her justice, and defaulte so much as is due to her, out of his next exhibition. There is a worse report of this Turco-Christianus, then what this ammounts too, for a turpitude not to be named; but, it is altogether undeserv’d, and notoriously injurious to him, being omni venere ineptus,4 as all Physitians must accknowledge; and therefore nothing ought to prejudice the continuance of your wonted charity to him after he has don right to this poore woman, and that her pretense appear to you. I have no more to add to trouble yor trouble, then to beg of you to believe me Your Sir etc. Says-Court 9: July: 1663.

1 The chapel of John Manners, 8th duke of Rutland, at Exeter House on the north side of the Strand in London, was an important place of Anglican worship prior to the Restoration. 2 He appears as “Richard Christophilus, Duke of Negropont, a convert Turk” with a pension of 40 shillings a week from the king in Calendar of Treasury Books 1660–7: 76. He was a eunuch and rumoured to be a catamite. 3 Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton (1608–67; ODNB), member of the Privy Council and lord treasurer until his death. 4 incapable of the sexual act

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William Croone1 Letter 207 [204] July 11, 1663 f 120

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Epistle CCIV To Dr. Croone Professor of Rhetorique at Gressham Colledge London

Sir, It has neither proceeded from the unmindfullnesse of your desires, or your deserts, that I had not long before this gratified your inclinations, in finding you out a Condition, which it might become you to embrace, if you still continue your laudable curiosity, by wishing for some opportunity to Travell and see the World. There have pass’d occasions (and some which did very neerely concerne my Relations) where I might happly have engag’d you; but having long had a greate ambition to serve you; since I had this in prospect, I rather chose to dispence with my owne advantages, that I might comply with yours. My Worthy, and most noble Friend Mr. Henry Howard,2 has by my Cousen Tuke3 signifie’d to me his desires of some fit Person to instruct, and Travell with his two incomparable children;4 and I immediately suggested Mr. Croone to them, with such reccommendations, and civilities as were due to his merits, and, as became me: This being cherefully embrac’d on their part, it will now be yours to second it. All I shall say for your present encouragement, is but this: England shall never present you with an equal opportunity, nor were it the least diminution that Mr. Croone, or, indeede one of the best Gentlemen of the nation, should have the Tuition of an heyre to the Duke of Norfolke (after the royal family) the greatest Prince in it. But the Title is not the thinge I would invite you to, in an age so universaly deprav’d amongst our wretched nobility. You will here come into a most opulent, and worthy family, and in which I prognosticate (and I have it assur’d me) you shall make your fortune, without any farther dependances: For the Persons who governe there, have both the meanes to be very gratefull, and as generous a propensity to it as any family in the England: Sir, if you thinke fit to lay hold on this occasion, I shall take a tyme to discourse to you of some other particulars, which the limits of an hasty letter will not permitt me to insert. I have bin bold to leave this for you at the Colledge;5 because I was uncertaine of seeing you, and that I have promis’d to give my Friends an 1 William Croone (1633–84; ODNB). In 1659 he was elected professor of rhetoric at Gresham College, and was the first registrar and an original fellow of the Royal Society. He was made MD (Cambridge) in 1662, and a candidate of the College of Physicians in 1663. 2 Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk 3 Samuel Tuke. In a letter of 28 September, Tuke notes “to my greate regritt that my hopes of Dr. Croons company are disapointed, for truly I promisd my selfe much hapines in his conversation” (Add 78306: f 109 [28.9.1663]). 4 Although Croone went to France in 1665, Howard’s children, Henry and Thomas, went abroad with Tuke himself (Diary III.373). 5 Gresham College

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accoumpt of its reception. If your affaires could so far dispose with you, as to afford me an afternoones Visite at my poore Villa, I should with more liberty conferr with you about it, and in hope of that favour I remaine Sir, Your etc.

Says-Court 11: July 1663.

Abraham Cowley Letter 208 [205] July 11, 1663 f 120v

Epistle CCV To Abram Cowley Esquire

Sir, I should be extreamely confident, and hardy, if in my owne behalfe, I did importune you to say any thing well, much more to write it in that style wherein you are accostom’d to oblige your friends: But, my Cousen Tuke1 has now a third tyme challeng’d me for your Suffrages on his Play, and thinkes I injuriously detaine them because he knows the Muses visite you continualy, and that he has express’d his ambition for them. Be pleas’d to let him know by the Effects, that I have faithfully discharg’d his Commands, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 11: July 1663.

Samuel Tuke Letter 209 [206] May 24, 1663#1 ff 120v–1

Epistle CCVI To Collonel Tuke Thus far the Newes, now to be Serious: –

Whiles the Signe continues in Aquario, or the Dog (’tis all one at Tunbridge)2 there will be nothing but drinking, and rendring; with paines, and giddinesse in the head. Many 1 Samuel Tuke. See Letter 204. 1 See note 4 below. 2 Tunbridge Wells, the popular health spa at this time

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Splenetick Persons will repaire thither they know not why, and take the waters they know not wherefore, and returne home they know not when: Whiles we in the Country make hay as the Sun shines, which has not ben above a day, and a quarter since your auspicious smooth forehead, and the rayes of your Perruque gilded our abandond Hemisphere. Besides the Matrimony3 (mention’d by my Moll, in the Missive here envelopp’d) we have had geboren in our Metropolitan Citty that Princely thing4 which was yesterday by Jacobified by his Majestie, my Lord Chancelour,5 and (for the Good Queene Mother) the beauteous Dutchesse of Bouckingham:6 The Periscelidan7 Prælate8 Officiating Which all was to shew that we merry should be With an hey downe, a downe a downe derry.

for all your Lord of Bristols big words against my honorable Patron Before whose Grace Still goes a Mace And Purse, in spight Of Popish wight, Or any thing God save the King

and Queene too, from your Mountebanke Spaa’s, and wiccked præscriptions of all dilutions, ablutions, solutions and abusions whatsoever, that she may returne safe, and sound to our late White, but now black-Hall mourning, and languishing for the faire Sex, whose dismal silence was yerst cheer’d with the harmonious murmures of the rustling Peticotes, which being decently let fall by the smooth-chin’d Pages, our Gallants us’d to take up, and I, poore I, in humble wise or philosophique dignity rather to treade upon, and all-to-conspucrate [sic], as became a Philosopher [.] Dey Laugh, Sir! You’l change Copy anon. The Pope must downe, ’tis the news o’th Towne, Turke, Tartar King of France and all my bookes of prophesy;9 besides Almanacks, and my deare friend Mr. Beale,10 ErraPoder saith the same (i) Sir J. Berkenheads11 Deputy: 3 probably the marriage of Charles II’s illegitimate son, James Scott, duke of Monmouth (1649–85; ODNB) to Anne Scott, countess of Buccleuch. “My Moll” is Mary Evelyn. 4 James Stuart, duke of Cambridge (1663–7), son of the duke of York and Anne Hyde. Since he was born on 12 July, the letter may be misdated or revised. 5 Edward Hyde 6 Mary Villiers, née Fairfax (1638–1704) 7 This is a nonce word of Evelyn’s that probably means “dried up” or “lean” but may mean “around the legs”: in the latter case, presumably, infirm. Archbishop Juxon was seventy-one at the time. 8 William Juxon 9 probably a reference to the rumour of Louis XIV’s being poisoned by the pope 10 John Beale 11 Sir John Berkenhead (1617–79; ODNB), from 1660–3 licenser of the press and editor of Mercurius Publicus. His “deputy” was Sir Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704; ODNB), Royalist pamphleteer, who was surveyor of the imprimery, and succeeded Birekenhead as licenser in August 1663.

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But enough of this ita vertere Seria12 Dear Cousen, I send you enclos’d both my Copy to Mr. Cowley,13 and his returne, as a specimen of my obedience to your Commands. Whither those expressions in his letter signifie his transmitting the Papers to me for you, or immediately to you, I cannot well interpret: My hitherto frustrated expectations make me believe, and hope you have already receiv’d the effects: I long to enjoy you here, with Jack,14 and his Mother, who are your servants, and so is Deare Cousen Your etc. [RM: From the Wooden study, in the Wooden Parlour, of the Wooden house,15 this 24th day of the 5 moneth. 1663.]

George Evelyn, nephew Letter 210 [207] August 5, 1663 f 121r–v

Epistle CCVII To my Nephew Mr. George Evelyn

[RM: at Paris] It is now some tyme that I have ben indebted to you for a Letter you sent me; and I ought to have congratulated your late recovery from sicknesse; but upon the going away of Mr. Walker,1 your Fathers2 irresolution, whither he should send for you back, or continue your progresse, did withhold me from writing to you ’till now that this might come to you by the hand of one who is design’d to succeede Mr. Walker, and to conduct you in your Travells. And now Cousen, I will accknowledge to you, that it has ben more on the greate importunity of my Brother, then any forwardnesse of my owne (upon experience of the many hazards, and the little thankes, which such offices do usualy contract) that I have reccommended this bearer Dr. Pope3 to be your Pilot: not that I have reason in the least to

12 “so to pass from grave to gay.” Horace, Ars Poetica 226 (Fairclough, trans) 13 Abraham Cowley. Cowley’s “papers” here are the prefatory verses for the second edition of Tuke’s Adventures of five hours. 14 John Evelyn Jr 15 Sayes Court 1 Obadiah Walker 2 George Evelyn, brother 3 Walter Pope. Evelyn visited London on 5 April to recommend as a tutor “that Ingenious & learned Gent: Dr: Pope, bro: in Law to Bishop Wilkins” (Diary III.354).

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diffide either of his conduct, and ability; or of your readinesse to embrace him upon your Fathers commands; but because the ill successe (which God avert) if any should fall out, will be imputable to my choyce, though in truth, I have no other Interest by it, then what may signifie my study to serve you: The Person being for his learning, experience and excellent qualifications, in all things suitable to the designe of your Father, and of your best Friends, which is to improve your education, and render you accomplish’d. I must therefore deare Cousen make it my suite (and I do not doubt of the effects) that you will justifie my choyce by your resolution of being guided by him, and of learning those things from him, which may furnish you with solid, and usefull notices; that so by his Instructions, being mingled with your other advantages, you may returne to your Country with reputation, and to the universal satisfaction of your Friends. This, Cousen, is the period which must crowne all, and wherein the seedes of all Your future happinesse must is to be sowne and cultivated; and I am apt to promise my selfe, that you will be so just to your owne advantage, as to contribute all you can to it; for that there will be nothing else wanting, I am perfectly assur’d: I shall likewise desire of you, that you will send transmitt me an impartial account how you are pleas’d with the Doctors Conversation, whom you will not find of so morose a temper as his prædecessor: because I thinke it not convenient; but one that I am assur’d will be ready to accommode with you in all things which are becomming his relation to you, as one intrusted for your safty, and improvement. And having flatter’d my selfe with this from the prospect I have of your discretion, and wise pondering of things that do so much concerne your owne future good, I take my leave Your etc. Says-Court: 5: August 1663

Thomas Pierce1 Letter 211 [208] August 20, 1663 ff 121v–2v

Epistle CCVIII To Dr. Pierce President of Magdalen Colledge in Oxford; and one of his Majesties chap laines in Ordinary:

Reverend Sir: Being not long since at Somersett-house, to do my duty to her Majestie the Queene Mother, I fortun’d to encounter Dr. Goffe:2 One of the first things he asked me, was, Whither I 1 Thomas Pierce (1621/2–91; ODNB). He was elected fellow of Magdalen College in 1643, but was ejected in 1648. He was elected president of Magdalen in 1661 and was installed as dean of Salisbury in 1675. 2 Stephen Goffe (1605–81; ODNB), Roman Catholic priest and chaplain to Henrietta Maria. The account of this episode in the diary differs. While visiting the earl of Clarendon, “I had discourse with my Lord AB of Canterbury, & Winchester, who injoynd me to write to Dr. Pierce President of Magd: in Oxon: about a Letter sent him by Dr. Goff a Romish Oratorian, about an Answer to Deane Cressys late book” (18 August; Diary III.360).

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had seene Mr. Cressys3 Reply to Dr. Pierces so much celebrated Sermon?4 I told him, I had heard much of it; but not as yet seene it; upon which he made an offer to present me with one of the bookes; but being in hast, and with a Friend, I easily excus’d his civility, that I could not well stay ’till he should come back from his lodging: In the meane time that he made gave no ordinary elogies encomiums of that rare Piece, which he exceedingly mägnified, as beyond all Answer; and to reinforce the Taking up he told me, that you had written a letter to some friend of yours (a Copy whereoff he believed he should shortly produce) wherein (after you had expressed your greate resentiment that some of the Bishops had made you their property, in putting you upon that ungratefull Argument) you totaly declin’d to engage any farther in the controversy; intimating, that you would leave it at the Bishops dores, and trouble your selfe no more with it: This (or words to this effect) being spoken to my selfe, and to some others who stood by, would have weigh’d more with me, had I not been as well acquainted with those kind of artifices to gaine Proselytes by, as of your greater discretion, never to have written such a Letter and Abillities to vindicate what you have publish’d, when you should see your time. Nor indeede had I pursued it thus far likely thought more of it, had not my Lord of Canterbury,5 the Bishop of Winchester,6 together with my Lord Chancelor7 (to whom upon some occasion of private discourse, I recounted the Passage) expressly commanded injoyned me to give you notice of it; because they thought it did highly concerne you; and that you would take it Civily from me. And, Sir, I have don it faithfully; but, with this humble request, that (unlesse there be very greate cause for it) you will be tender of mentioning by what hand your Intelligence comes; because it may do me some injury. Sir, I am perfectly assur’d, that you will do both your selfe, and the Church of England that right, which becomes you upon this Occasion. I will not say, that the burthen ought to be cast upon your shoulders alone; but I will pronounce it a greater marke of your charity, and zeale; and of such as intitles you to the universal obligation which all men will have to you, upon confidence whereof I satisfie my selfe you will soone dismantle this douty Battery, and assert what you have gaind so gloriously: Thus I discharge my obedience duty, in obedience to their Commands – But it is upon another account that I was not displeas’d of with having an meanes opportunity by this occasion to expresse my thankes and greate accknowledgements to you, for the Present which you made me of that your incomparable Sermon, and which in my opinion is sufficiently impregnable; But something must be don by those buisy Men, to support their Credit, though at the irreparable expense of Truth, and ingenuity. The Epistle before 3 Hugh Cressy, aka Serenus (1605–74; ODNB), Benedictine monk and chaplain to Catherine of Braganza. 4 Cressy’s Roman-Catholick doctrines no novelties was a reply to Pierce’s sermon The primitive rule of reformation (London, 1663; in the 1687 library catalogue), which had been preached before the king on 1 February (Diary III.360, n. 5). 5 Gilbert Sheldon (1598–1677; ODNB). He was ejected from the wardenship of All Soul’s in 1648, and became bishop of London in 1660 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1663. 6 George Morley (1598?–1684; ODNB). In 1649 he officiated at Sir Richard Browne’s chapel in Paris, and travelled with the exiled court of Charles II. He became bishop of Worcester in 1660 and bishop of Winchester in 1662. 7 Edward Hyde

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Mr. Cressys papers dos not want confidence; and we are very tame whiles we thus suffer our Church to be thus treated by such as were being once her sons of it did so unworthily desert her. But pardon this Indignation – I am Reverend Sir Your most etc. Says-Court 20th: August 1663.

Sir, This opportunity, and the greate desires I have of improving it, prompts me to the reccomendation of a poore Youth now under your Government, who will be an exceeding a worthy object of your Charity and goodnesse: It is one William Snatt,8 whose Father9 was my Schoolemaster, a loyal, honest and learned person; but by whose untimely death, the child has (as I am inform’d) been abandon’d to unexpressable difficulties for his Education: I have never in my life (that I know of  ) seene the Youth; but I am softn’d by his frequent Letters Addresses and encourag’d by your piety, to solicit your favour towards him for some clearks place or other place small exhibition, as you shall find him deserving: That small little contribution which I am able to allow him (that I may do something likewise for others, who are upon my hands) I shall continue; but alas! without some propitious beams from you, he must needes wither; and I am not willing his necessities should interrupt his studies, much lesse, call him home; because I am told his Mother, is more then a little Phanaticaly enclind. The Boy is one Mr. Basketts10 Schollar (as I understand), and by what he writes to me, capable of making a good Scholar hopefull proficient: But, if he prove an honest, and a happy man too, That he must owne derive from your sole favour, and remaine your most obligd Beneficiary as well as in his behalfe Sir, Your etc. Thomas Pierce Letter 212 [209] September 17, 1663 ff 122v–3

Epistle CCIX To Dr. Pierce etc.1

Sir, I receiv’d your favour of the first of this Moneth with very different Passions, whiles in some periods you give me Reasons so convincing, why you should rather consult your 8 William Snatt (1644/5–1721; ODNB). The son of Edward Snatt and a clergyman, William subsequently solicited Evelyn to help him to a living in letters of 1667 and 1668 (Add 78317: f 19 [1667]; f 85 [28.1.1668]; f 89 [11.5.1668]). Evelyn later very much disapproved of Snatt’s participation (with Jeremy Collier) in the absolution of convicted traitors in 1696 (Diary V.235–6). 9 Edward Snatt (see Letter 116) 10 Richard Baskett. Baskett had been expelled from Magdalen College (Oxford) in 1648 and restored in 1660 (Magdalen College, Register [Oxford: James Parker, 1876], II.150). 1 Evelyn notes that on this day (17 September) he “Dined at the Bish: of Salisberies [John Earle] with whom I had buisinesse that concernd Dr. Pierce” (Diary III.363).

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health, and gratifie your charge, and personal concernements, then reply to impertinent Bookes;2 and in others againe make such generous, and noble offers, that the Church of England, and the Cause which is now dishonour’d should not suffer through your Silence: And I had (according to your Commands) made my Addresses to those honorable Persons with some thing of what you had intrusted me; had either my Lord of Winchester,3 or my Lord Chancelor4 been in Towne: Since I receiv’d your Letter my Lord of Winchester is indeede gon to Farnam some few days past: But I was detain’d by speciall buisinesse in the Country til this very moment, when comming to London on purpose to waite on him I miss’d him unfortunately, and unexpectedly: In the meane time, I was not a little rejoyc’d at something my Lord of Salisbury5 did assure me, of some late kind Intercourse betweene you and your Visitor,6 to the no small satisfaction of all who love, and honor you here. In pursuance of your further injunction, I was this very morning with Dr. Goff,7 after a short ceremony we touched upon Cressy’s Pamphlet: He tells me there are Eight sheetes more printing (by a Reverend Father of the Society, as he nam’d him) who has put Mr. Cressys Rhapsody into Mode and Figure, that so it might do the worke amongst Scholars, as it was like to do it with his illiterate Proselytes; Upon this I tooke occasion to remind him of the letter which he lately pretended you had written, intimating your resolution not to Reply: After some pause he told me, That was a Mistake, and that he heard it was onely a Friend of yours which writt so: Whither he suspected I came a birding, or no, I cannot be satisfied: but he now thanck’d what before (I do asure you) he affirm’d to me concerning your owne writing that letter: This is the infelicity (and I have observ’d it in more then one) That when Men abandon their Religion to God, they take their leave also of all ingenuity towards Men: And what could I make of this Shuffling, and Caution, now turn’d to a mistake, and an heare say; but so it seemes was not that of your being offended with the Bishops for the ingratefull Taske they put upon you, which he often repeated; and the difference ’twixt you and your discoursd of Visitor: So after a short velitation, we parted. Sir, I have nothing more to add to your trouble, then that I still persist in my Supplication, and that you would at last breake through all those discouragements, and objections for the publique benefit. It is true Men deserve it not; but the Church, which is dearer to you then all their Contradictions can be grievous, requires it. You can (in the interim) govern a dissorderly College which calls for your assiduous care: but so dos no lesse the needes of a despiz’d Church; nor ought Any in it, concerne themselves so much as to this particular, without being uncivill to you: Though (I confesse) after you have once chastiz’d this Insolence; no barking of the Currs should provoke you for the future: Sir, I do not use a quarter of those Arguments which your Friends here suggest, why you ought to gratifie the Church by standing in this gapp; because I am confident you perfectly discerne them; and

2 3 4 5 6 7

See Letter 211, note 4. George Morley Edward Hyde John Earle (1598x1601–1665; ODNB) probably Hugh Cressy Stephen Goffe

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that though some particular Persons may have unjustly injur’d you; Yet she has been kind, and Indulgent; and in a Cause which concernes either her honor, or veracity, it will be glorious (not to say gratefull) you should vindicate her wrongs: You are not the onely Subject which that Academique Jack-Pudding has provoked reproch’d more bitterly and personaly: The Drunkards made Songs of holy David; yet still he daunc’d before the Arke of God, and would be more Vile. What are we Christians for? – I do assure you, there is nothing I have a greater scorne and indignation against, then these wretched Scoffers, whom and I looke upon our neglect of severely punishing them as an high defect in our Politiques, and a forerunner of something very funest. I would to God Vertue, and Sobriety were more in reputation: but we shall turne plainely Barbarians, if all good men be discourag’d. Sir, you are of a greater mind then not to despize this. Fa pùr bene e lascia dire8 – But I run into Extravagances, and I beseech you to pardon my Zeale, and all other the Impertinencies of Sir, Your etc. London 17th September 1663.

John Mordaunt Letter 213 [210] January 24, 1664 f 123v

Epistle CCX To my Lord Viscount Mordaunt1

My Lord, The part which my Wife beleeves my Lady,2 and your honor do take in all that so neerely concernes us; makes her sollicitous you should know, how well she is discharg’d of her greate belly; it having pleased God (after now 6 yeares interval) to repaire our late losses with another sonn3 which those who conjecture from the present Phænomena, make us believe is a very fine Boy. But I shall then thinke him so my selfe, if your Lordship deigne to adopt him, by reckoning him among the happy number of your God-sonns: If your Lordship believes I usd extraordinary violence with my selfe ’ere I could be perswaded to give you this trouble (and which is the reason that I dare not shew my face, as in good manners I ought to have don) all I can say is, tanto plus debes (Heros illustrissimus) quod erubui,4 and that it is a charity, and an honor which we both humbly supplicate; because 8 Be good and let them talk. 1 Elizabeth and John Mordaunt responded jointly to this appeal on 25 January (Add 78679: f 38 [25.1.1664]). 2 Elizabeth Mordaunt 3 This child was also named Richard, but died in infancy, as did his predecessor, George, who was born in 1658. The baby was christened by Sir Richard Browne, with Mordaunt and Lady Warwick as sponsors (Diary III.368). 4 “You owe me all the more [most renowned hero], for having blushed.” Adapted from Martial 8.17 (Bailey, trans)

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there is none to whom we have a greater inclination to be oblig’d. There will waite upon your Lordship at this necessary Ceremony, my Lady Warwick Boutteler5 (who is a neere kinds-woman of my Wifes) and Sir Richard Browne her Father: but the day is wholy left for your Lordships designation: We had pitch’d upon Thursday afternoone next, if it might accommodate with your honors occasions; and if your Lordship will be so friendly as to accept of a plaine Country dinner with us, your pennance will be the greater, but your returne the easier, in respect of the Season, and shortnesse of the Dayes. It were too infinite a presumption to expect my Lady should do us the honor of her presence likewise, though we cannot but extreamely desire it who remaine My Lord Your etc. Says-Court: 24. January 1663/4

Joan Warwick Letter 214 [211] February 1, 1664 f 123v

Epistle CCXI To my Lady Butler:

Madame, I have too much studied the nature of Benefits,1 to forget the many obligations I have to you; and especialy, for that last signal charity of your Letter and the honor you have conferred upon my Family: In recognition of this it is, that I dispatch this Expresse to your Ladyship whom we have charged to bring us word how you got to Frog-poole that Evening, and thence to London: I beseech your Ladyship to accept of these sincere expressions of our profoundest Accknowledgements for the favour we have received in your late friendly, and generous Condescention;2 because we looke upon it as no other than a perpetual tye on your Servants, to whose number your Ladyship has added one little Christian more who tacitely beggs your Benediction by Madame, Your etc. Says Court 1: February 1663/4

5 Joan Warwick, née Fanshawe (1607–72), second wife of Sir Philip Warwick, widow of Sir William Boteler, and sister of Sir Richard Fanshawe. 1 Evelyn here connects Seneca’s De Beneficiis with Joan Warwick’s agreement to be godmother. Her house, Frogpoole (now Frognal) was in Chislehurst. 2 She had agreed to be godparent for Richard (b. 8 January–d. 26 March, 1664). He had been christened on 27 January (Diary III.368)

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George Evelyn, nephew Letter 215 [212] March 30, 1664 f 124r–v

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Epistle CCXII To my Nephew George Evelyn:

Deare Cousen If my letters have reach’d you, they will have long since pay’d you the obligation which I accknowledge for that of yours1 which I receiv’d upon your taking leave of France: I understand you are now at Rome, and by this time (I presume) return’d from Naples, full of admiration of those natural, and stupendious rarities which that Citty, and the environs of it have afforded you: I neede not put you in mind how you are to govern your selfe at Rome for the improvement of your time, being in a Station which dos so appositely prompt you to instruct your selfe in the histories of what it was heretofore, and how it came to the condition you now find it, Illustrious in its very Ruines; because I am perswaded you have resolv’d upon it long since, to make the best use of your Travell; which is not onely to divert your eyes with fine sights, and various objects; but to informe your Judgement, get an handsome Ideä of the World, and improve your experience, that so you may returne a Usefull, and ornamental member of your Country, a comfort and delight to your Parents and Friends. Cousen, I cannot forbeare to let you know, that my Brother your excellent Father,2 is somewhat troubl’d at the greatenesse of your Expenses; since upon enquiry of such as are but lately return’d out of Italy, he is assur’d things are there as cheape as ever: I have endeavord all I can to palliat this suggestion; but upon comparing of what I spent in my Sejourne abroad (for all went through my Brothers hands, who was pleas’d to take that trouble upon him during my absence) there appeares to be a greate difference; and yet, I kept a servant, sometimes two; entertaind several Masters, and made no inconsiderable collection of Curiosities, all of it within £300 per Annum. I do not urge this to justifie my selfe; for it is certaine, I might have yet ben a better husband; nor pretend the effects of my poore fortune compar’d with my Brothers; but as I was then a single person, and in a very plentifull condition, I had ben able to have enlarg’d my Expenses; but because I found that was a very handsome proportion, in a place so reasonable, and upon considerations of the transitorynesse of a Travellers condition and designe, which is I ever reckond was not to gratifie his extravagancies but his judgment, as having an eye to his owne Country at the greatest distance, and (as you ought to have) to the satisfaction of his Parents, and in reccompense of their care and liberality for the bettering of his education. Cousen, I know you have also these worthy resolutions, and that you do prudently weigh the occasions which your Father may have for the advancement of your other 1 There is no recorded incoming letter from George Evelyn, but there is a letter from his tutor, Walter Pope (presumably in reply to this letter) on 23 April 1664. Pope thought George was “not made for study” (Add 78317: f 42 [23.4.1664]). 2 George Evelyn, brother

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neere Relations; therefore I do onely put you in mind of these things, as being in some sort oblig’d to it from the Interest I have in what concernes your reputation; and the good opinion of those whose expectations will be high at your returne, and which makes me the more earnest with you to cultivate your selfe with whatsoever may render you worthy and acceptable in the esteeme of your Friends, amongst whom I assure you of the good wishes of Deare Cousen: etc. Your etc. Says-Court xxx March 1664

Walter Pope Letter 216 [213] March 30, 1664 ff 124v–5

Epistle CCXIII To Dr. Pope: etc.

Sir, I make bold to enclose a small letter to my Nephew George,1 which I fill with as tender expostulations, and instructions as I thinke convenient upon the prospect which I had of his Government abroad hinted by your letters to my Brother: It is very certaine that Italy dos support the utmost frugality, and that ’tis there amongst the Vertues of a Traveller: I had no obligation to stint my selfe from the narrownesse of my fortune, being then mei ­juris2 (as they speake) and a single person; yet I found £300 per annum plentifully sufficient for that perigrination, including my severall Masters, Mathematics, Musique, Language etc. besides a Servant or two, and the amassing of no inconsiderable Collection too of Pictures, Medaills, and other trifles, and be in the Company of the best men abroad in my time. Upon enquiry it appeares the Genius of the place is not much chang’d as to the particular of frugal living, all which consider’d, my Brother, then, as now, returning the Bills, makes him the more importunat, that you use your authority to restraine and modifie all extravagances in my Nephew; that so your expenses being brought within compasse, the supplies may come with cheerefullnesse, and without Suspition: He is well assur’d of your industry and integrity; but Young men are inconsiderate, and it is a trust you have undertaken, which he hopes you will passe through with all to his satisfaction, and of that I do daily renew his assurance: It is not intended you should do any thing meanely for the saving of a few pownds; but that your prudence take all occasions of preventing unnessessary charges, and where it dos not contribute to something of improvement in his education, and the buisinesse he is to mind in this transitory pererration: I neede say no more to you, and I know you will not be displeas’d, that I say so much. 1 George Evelyn, nephew; see Letter 215 2 responsible only to myself

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Since your departure from Lions I never receiv’d line; yet I do not believe you forget the promise you made me of a more frequent correspondency, and letting me understand the Character of my Cousen, as well as the occurrances of the Curious World amongst the Italian Virtuosi: Those were refreshments which I promis’d my selfe from you: The seasoning my Nephew with some more then superficial tincture and insight in the Arts best acquir’d upon the place, as Architecture, and the love of Gardens at Rome etc. was a particular you ingag’d to me at your going hence: I desire if you can learne any thing of new and rare which concernes Agriculture in general, and Gardning in particular that you will reserve a page in your notes and daily Commentary expressly for me: I have lately publish’d a Worke concerning the propagation of Timber,3 which having had the good fortune to be well receiv’d by the World, prompts me to a second edition, and you would infinitely oblige me to enquire how the good best husbands in Italy, and the Places you travell through, manage their woods and plantations, how they fell, season employ and convert these materials; and what improvements may be derivd to our Country: There are divers rare Essences, curiosities, and receipts about Perfumes, and as well of the plants and flowers, as of other drougs which being imperfectly or fraudulently deliverd us in bookes, may be learned at Rome and Florence; so likewise the making of artificial Marbles, Corall and a thousand rarities of that kind even amongst the very Mountebancs. It was at Rome I saw one of them inflame a little stone (enchasd in a ring) with a little spittle; I have since exceedingly deplor’d my stupid neglect of not purchasing the receipt, as confident of what I had read in Johannes Baptista Portas4 rhapsodies: I pray let my Nephew furnish himselfe with the prints of what is lately built and made at Rome; They are things of small expense, but of greate use:5 I do not meane trifling and ill design’d bookes of the Piazzi di Roma etc. wretchedly handled and ill understood; but what there has been newly erected by Cavalier Bernini about St. Peters, in the Piazza Navona and other places; not forgetting to collect all rare bookes which treate of the Mechanics, and which I use to inscribe Libri Materiarum:6 If you could convey any seedes of ever-greenes as the Ilex, Olive-Stones, Lentiscs, Phillyreas, Corke, Myrtills, Jassmines (which you remember rarities with us)7 they would be acceptable presents both to my Brother and your other friends: The Gardiners can instruct you how he put them up: and if you have not ben at Genöa I could never procure any Seedes of the Platanus which were ripe: There are rare Tuberoses, Anemones, Junquills, Ranunculus etc. in most places of Italy, at Rome especialy, which might easily be conveyd in their bulbs and rootes. But my Commissions exceede – I wish but my selfe for one moneth with you, that I might be resated with the

3 Sylva (1664). The second edition did not appear until 1670. 4 Giambattista della Porta, Magiæ naturalis libri viginti (Frankfurt, 1607; in the 1687 library catalogue) 5 Evelyn had a large collection of such prints in his collection (1687 library catalogue ff 121–3), material he was to use in his A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664). Much of the material in this passage was also related either to his unpublished “History of Trades” or to his “Elysium Britannicum.” 6 See the 1687 library catalogue, ff 101–3. 7 Of this list, only “lentiscs” (Pistacia lentiscus) are unfamiliar. Evelyn describes them, alongside rosemary and lavender, as “sweete shrubbs” (Diary II.162), and planted a large number of them at Sayes Court, as did Charles II at Greenwich (Diary III.370).

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amœnities of the delights of the World. Roma instar omnium: I beseech you present my most humble service to Mr. Walker,8 and ever esteeme me Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 30 March 1664.

Anthony Bateman1 Letter 217 [214] April 20, 1664 f 125v

Epistle CCXIV To my Lord Major of London

[LM: Sir Anthony Bateman] My Lord, I am much asham’d that my personal gratulations of your Dignity, as well as my accknowledgements for so many past Civilities, should not have prevented this importunate Addresse: I did intend to do my selfe that honor very shortly; but I have been prevented with the indisposition of my Wife since the losse of a Child2 which God had lately added to us: My Lord I write now to you in behalfe of one of my Domestic Servants; who by an unfortunate mistake is like to fall into some trouble; but from which he will be as easily freed by your Lordships favour and just power: I shall referr the particular to the bearers relation, and onely add, that though ignorance dos not excuse a toto, yet it dos a tanto,3 and upon my Conscience, neither of the poore men are in the least guilty of any ill intention; for my owne servant, I durst depose for his perfect integrity, and that all this prævarication has onely proceeded from his ignorance, having lived many yeares with me, and that to my very greate satisfaction as to his honest, and exemplary Deportment however he fell upon this unlucky mistake. This is the trifle which I have been so much asham’d to importune your Lordship with; but it was necessary to pacifie the feares of a Servant who is very deare to me, and that by your favour and Authority he may not come into farther trouble: That likewise your Lordship would take off the prosecution from the other innocent Person concern’d. Since your Lordship being a Judge, and a Magistrate of

8 Obadiah Walker 1 Sir Anthony Bateman (1616–87; Diary, L). Bateman was an alderman in London in 1649 and from 1657–67, knighted in 1660, and mayor of London in 1663–4. 2 Richard Evelyn (January–March, 1664). Evelyn records his death on 24 March (Diary III.371). 3 not completely but sufficiently

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so greate power in the Court where this is threatned to be pleaded, may use the authority of a Chancelor here with greate justice and Charity, and thereby exceedingly oblige My Lord Your etc. Says-Court: 20: April 1664

Elizabeth Carr1 Letter 218 [215] May 2, 1664 f 126

Epistle CCXV To my Lady etc.

Amongst the sundry Calamities of my Life, This I reckon for one of the most disastrous, that having little to do, I cannot be present at the Squires2 addresse to night in making the Sack-posset:3 I should neverthelesse adventure a journey, could I believe he were like to prove as successfull as I thinke him rash in challenging the Sex; and especialy that divine Lady who treated us on friday night: He had more neede consult his Apologies, than his Receipts for so temerarious an adventure, no where mention’d (that I remember) in any of the Romances: However, I approve the stratagem, long spoons and Custard; since so much beauty, and excellent company were an easy purchase at the hazard of being laughd at, and that there are so many excuses ready from the qualitie of the Milke, the Wine and the Spice, besides the gentle Carriage of it to my Ladys Chamber, which you know was like to spoile all the other day: If a Sedan be not thought easy enough, I would advise Mr. Carr to consult how one of the new Coaches upon springs may be epitomiz’d,4 and drawne into a Parlor; they say they are wondrous easy, and one of the best inventions that was ever devis’d for the conveyance of a Sack-Posset: Let him by all meanes make use of Ginger-bread instead of the French, ’tis the most likely of all other to hinder the breach of Coagulation, and to keepe the Curd from mutining: I have knowne meate stewd betweene two Cushions, essay it with a Sack-Posset to prevent ebullition, and the brands end: For my part, since he is engag’d, I would have him come off with as much applause as might be; though to speake seriously, I feare the worst: But let him be of good cheere, 1 Elizabeth Carr, née Bennet (d. 1696; Diary). The sister of Henry Bennet, Elizabeth was Evelyn’s close friend, and married Sir Robert Carr (later chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster) in 1664. 2 Sir Robert Carr, 3rd baronet (c.1637–82; H). Educated at Cambridge in the late 1650s, Carr concealed his first marriage in order to marry Elizabeth, the sister of Henry Bennet. He was knighted in 1664 and succeeded as baronet in 1667. 3 Sack-posset was a drink made from hot milk curdled with sherry to which sugar and spices were added. This occasion is obviously associated with the marriage of Elizabeth Bennet and Sir Robert Carr. Evelyn describes another part of this entertainment in his entry for 5 May 1664 (Diary III.372). 4 miniaturized. Evelyn is probably referring to the new calèche that his friend Croone is said to have introduced (Diary III.475 and n. 5).

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he that can’t make a Sack posset, can eate one, and Hide-parke, and a play, with a treate at Mulberry-Garden5 may do much to recover the young Gentlemans Credit if he should chance to miscarry in this weighty affaire; and so with my humble Service to my Ladys wounded thumb, I committ him to your Mercy, and sing To the tune – Of all the birds that ever I see – 6

Says-Court 2: May: 1664

Of all the regâles spoone ’ere in did dip Sack-posset’s the best, I sweare by Misstress Chip: For when the day’s don, and Mortals leave eating The Ladys and Gallants with this begin treating: Pure Creame from the bowle, and Crumbs of White-bread, Spice, Suggar and Sack together mingled By hand o’th’faire Sex I judge to be best, For Men to be dabbling I hold but a jeast; Their hands were not made for mingling of Curds But to defend Ladys distress’d with their Swords: Repent then your Challenge rash Man that you are You n’ere will gaine Credit by this deede of Warr To witt, to whoo; To whome eate you – Raptim John Beale Letter 219 [216] July 23, 1664 f 126v

Epistle CCXVI To Mr. Beale:1

Sir, It was thursday last that my Lord Treasurer2 commanded me to waite upon him, when leaving a greate deale of Company, he lead me before dinner into his Bed-chamber, where 5 On the site of part of the present Buckingham Palace was a garden in which James I had tried to encourage silkworms by growing mulberries. It was used as a place of entertainment during the Commonwealth when Evelyn described it as “the onely place of refreshment about the Towne for persons of the best quality” (Diary III.97). Subsequently it was the site of Henry Bennet’s garden at Arlington House (see Letter 334). 6 Thomas Ravenscroft, “Of all the birds that ever I see,” Deuteromelia: or the seconde part of Musicks melodie, or melodius musicke Of pleasant roundelaies (London, 1609), 70–1. Evelyn’s poem, entitled “Extempore Upon Sir Robert Carr’s Challenge,” is found in Add 78357: f 27. 1 Beale replied to this letter on 30 July (Add 78312: f 9 [30.7.1664]). See Sylva (London, 1664), 34. 2 Thomas Wriothesley. Evelyn notes that he dined with Wriothesley on 20 July, and that “his Lordship used me with singular humanitie” (Diary III.376). He dedicated Pomona, included in the first edition of Sylva, to Wriothesley.

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taking my Sylva from a Table on which it lay, as he opened the Booke, Mr. Evelyn says he, I pray God you have not made a greate mistake in one particular: My Lord, sayd I, I am already conscious of too many, but of none I hope that are incorrigible with your Lordships wonted favour to me: If you have not (replys my Lord) you have infinitely ingaged me, and I hope you have not, with words to that effect, not without obliging elogies etc. The place he turn’d to was page 34. Cap: 15 of Birch, where, in the last Paragraph I recite a specifique made of the decoction of the interiour bark of the Oake-tree for the wonderfull cure of a bloody strangure, together with the History of the Effect upon a very aged man. My Lord demanded of me whither I had received this relation from a Person fide digna?3 upon which I told him, that I had ben carefull to impose nothing without that qualification as neere as I could, and that I durst stand to the attestation, as having derived it from Mr. Beale, whose Character if I gave him according to my affection and greate obligation, I hope he will pardon. Then my Lord added that he had indeed been himselfe much incommoded with that infirmity, and that his Physitian (one Dr. Hurst4 a grave and learned person not unknowne to me) had more remarkably pointed him to this passage of my Booke in justification (it seemes) of something of that ingredient which he reccommended to him by a late Præscription, and to encourage his Lordship in the more cherefull using; because he had ben something averse to it from an accident which his Lordship told me us’d to happen to some of his Cattell in the Country, which drinking of a certaine Pond in, and about which many Oakelings grew, were observ’d to have their gutts so clung up, and shrivell’d that they frequently dyed, which he imputed to the over astringent quality of that these trees contributed to the waters, and that this made him difficult to use the Remedy præscribd by his Doctor: but that now I had greately removed that Scrupule, and therefore he conjur’d me to write to you for a more ample description of that history; and that withall, you would please to impart to him the dose of the Barke, quantity of Liquor, manner of decoction, regimen and successe of that Receipt in every minute particular. This, I told his Lordship, I durst undertake you would do most readily to his Lordships intire satisfaction, and that so soone as it should arive to my hands I would not faile to waite upon him with it. After this he carried me to dinner: And so have you the sole occasion of this trouble to you by this Letter, together with my most humble request, that you will fully, and speedily comply with my Lords request desires, since as those sayd to our Blessed Saviour concerning that pious Centurion in the Gospell, so m[a]y I to you of his Lordship for many reasons ὅτι ᾂξιός ἐσ[τ]ιν5 – But Sir, I will detaine you no longer at present, then to assure you that I am most unfainedly Sir Your etc. London 23d: July 1664

3 worthy of trust 4 This is possibly William Hoare (c.1635–66; R), who appears again in Letter 226. The DNB says that Wriothesley was attended by a French physician. 5 That he was worthy (Luke 7:4)

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This Dr. Hurst is Sir J. Evelyns physitian of Deane my Cousen Germain,6 who has given him £100 per annum during his life, for recovering him of a malignant feavor. Richard Evelyn Letter 220 [217] August 9, 1664 f 127

Epistle CCXVII To my Brother Richard Evelyn:

[RM: upon occasion of the death of my Lady Cotton,1 my Eldest Brothers Wife] Deare Brother It is not in the power of my Pen to expresse the affliction of an Heart so full of Sorrow as is mine, upon the sad account you send me, and which I find heightned by a thousand reflections not onely of the change, and vicissitudes of all sublunary things; but upon the consideration of my Brothers unspeakable losse; so as I conceive nothing more decent and seasonable than a Visit at this tyme; though I can name it a Consolation no farther, than as he will find companions to deplore with him, and to divide his griefe: Deare Brother, this rent will make a greate wound in all our Relations, and I looke upon the consequences of it with a very sad prospect: But I would not exasperat your Passion, which has already made so excellent a use of this accident. Indeed, there is nothing more effective especialy common then death; but, withall there is nothing more afflictive; especialy, when this king of Terrors comes by surprize; but so did it not here to that excellent Woman, who has doubtlesse made a most advantagious exchange; for a Person of greater Piety, and Vertue I do not remember ever to have knowne of her sex: The losse is therefore on our parts, and on my poore Brothers, which if mingling sorrows might in the least aleviate, I am sure his share would soone be diminish’d: Brother I will not faile (God Willing) to waite upon you after dinner, and in the meane time thinke your proposition of a Visite so reasonable, as I shall come with a resolution to beare you company, and to do all those charitable Offices which becomes Deare Brother Your etc. Says-Court: 9: August 1664.

6 Sir John Evelyn, of West Dean (1601–85; Diary, H). A member of one branch of the Godstone Evelyns, Sir John was a first cousin once removed of John Evelyn. A graduate of Cambridge, he was knighted in 1623, and from 1637 until his death he was a justice of the peace in Wiltshire and from 1641 to 1660 in Hampshire. He opposed Charles I and became first a commissioner for the Westminster Assembly in 1643, then a commissioner for provisions to the New Model Army in 1645, and for the Admiralty from 1645 to 1648. Although he was a Councillor of State in 1660, he took no active part in politics thereafter. 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn. Evelyn heard of her death on 8 August (Diary III.377). As the letter suggests, he and Richard visited George on 9 August.

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George Carteret1 Letter 221 [218] August 22, 1664 f 127v

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Epistle CCXVIII To Sir George Cartrett Treasurer of the Navy, and Vice Chamberlaine to his Majestie etc.

Sir, I make bold to trouble your Honor with these few lines in behalfe of my Tennant Mr. Simon Smith:2 he hires a Wharfe of me on the River of Thames contiguous to his Majesties Yard in Deptford; but in reguard of the Masts lying before it, is so obstructed, and greately indammag’d, that he can make no use of it: I leave refer the particulars to his owne description, and to your honors consideration and justice; because I am certaine you will not suffer the poore man to be at so greate a losse, nor my Interest therein to be infring’d; the whole Wharfe, and consequently the Levell being so much weakned and in danger since they lay there, besides other greate inconveniencies. You will be pleas’d to receive his Addresses, and to excuse this importunity of Sir Your honors etc. Says-Court: 22: August 1664

George Evelyn Letter 222 [219] September 19, 1664 f 127v

Epistle CCXIX To my Brother George Evelyn Esquire

[LM: After the death of my Lady Cotton]1 Deare Brother It is now tyme for me to pay you this civility, not onely that I may receive an accoumpt of your health; but to let you know how greate a part I take in all the circumstances of your late 1 Sir George Carteret, 1st baronet (1610?–80; ODNB). He was vice-chamberlain of the household, member of the Privy Council, and treasurer of the navy. 2 A “Demand by Simon Smith, tenant to Squire Evelyn of Sayes Court, for damage done to his wharf at Deptford by floating masts” is recorded on 1 June 1664 (CSP Dom 1664: 630). 1 Mary Cotton Evelyn

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affliction: But God Almighty having (I trust) in some measure assisted you to beare what he has been pleas’d to impose on you, I would not entertain you with those sad reflections, but with my obedience to your commands, in writing to my Nephew2 and his Governor3 in the style, and with those cautions you enjoyn’d me, which I hope will leave such an impression, as you may receive the effects of to your greate comfort when you designe their returne. There is here a person of eminent quality who would take your house in CoventGarden; they endeavor’d to see it, but could not be admitted into the upper ro[o]mes: If I may understand on what conditions you desire to part with it for your tearme, or for an annual rent, I shall render you an accoumpt of it with all speede. The Person who would deale is one Mr. Carr,4 who is to marry Mr. Secretary Bennets5 sister; They are all my very worthy friends, and I dare promise you such as will not onely prove good Tennants, but most obliging upon all occasions. My Wife and I do most affectionatly kisse your hands, and with our humble services to your whole family remayne Your etc. Says-Court 19 September 1664.

Thomas Sprat1 Letter 223 [220] October 31, 1664 ff 128–9

Epistle CCXX To Mr. Sprat Chaplaine to the Duke of Buckingame:2

[RM: Since Bishop of Rochester] Upon receipt of the Doctors letter3 and the hint of your designe which I receiv’d at Oxford in my returne from Cornebery,4 I summond such scatter’d notices as I had and which I

2 3 4 5

George Evelyn, nephew. See Letters 215–16. Walter Pope Robert Carr Elizabeth Carr, née Bennet

1 Thomas Sprat (1635–1713; ODNB, R). Sprat was at this point chaplain to the duke of Buckingham. He received his BA (1654) and MA (1657) from Wadham and was a fellow there 1657–70. In 1663 he became a fellow of the Royal Society. He became dean of Westminster in 1683 and bishop of Rochester in 1684. He was commissioned to write The history of the Royal-Society of London (London, 1667; in the 1687 library catalogue). 2 George Villiers, 2nd duke of Buckingham (1628–87; ODNB) 3 Christopher Wren, to whom Sprat’s Observations on M. de Sorbier’s Voyage into England is addressed. Wren had been named Savilian chair of astronomy at Oxford in 1661. By this time the Sheldonian Theatre was also under construction. 4 Lord Clarendon’s estate in Oxfordshire. Evelyn had visited Henry Hyde on 25 September and had returned to Oxford the next day (Diary III.384).

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thought might possibly serve you in some particulars relating to the Person and condition of Sorbiere.5 His birth was in Orange (a Citty then under the dition of that Prince) where he was the sonn of a Protestant, a very indigent and poore man; but however making a shift to give him some education as to letters, he designd him for a Minister, and procur’d him to be padagogue to a Cadet of Monsieur le Count de la Suze,6 in whose family he lived easily enough, ’till being at length discover’d to be a rampant Socinian he was discharg’d of that employment, but in revenge whereof (’tis reported) he turn’d Apostat, and renounc’d his Religion, which had been hitherto Huguenot: I forget to tell you that before this he obtain’d to be made a Schoolemaster to one of the Classes in the Citty; but that promotion was likewise quickly taken from him upon the former suspition. He has pass’d through a thousand shapes to ingratiat himselfe in the world, and after having been an Aristarcas, Physitian (or rather Mountebanque), Philosopher, Critic and Polititian (to which last he thought himselfe worthily ariv’d by a version of some heterodox pieces of Mr. Hobbs)7 the late Cardinal Mazarini8 bestow’d on him a pittifull Canonicat at Avignon worth about 200 Crownes per annum which being of our mony almost 50 pounds, is hardly the sallary of an ordinary Curat: but for this yet he underwent the basest drudgery of a Sycophant in flattering the Cardinal upon all occasions the most sordidly to be imagind; as where I can show you him speaking of this fourb for one of the learnedst Persons of the age. He styles himselfe

5 Samuel de Sorbière (1615–70). Evelyn’s tone here may reflect a certain embarrassment. He had published a translation of Sorbière’s life of Giacomo Favi in Sculptura (London, 1662), A5–b1v, and praised his “eloquent pen” (A4) in his dedicatory letter to Robert Boyle. Sorbière travelled to England in June 1663. On 22 June he was made a fellow of the Royal Society, and had an audience with Charles II. When he returned to France, he published his Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre, où sont touchées plusieurs choses, qui regardent l’estat des sciences, et de la religion (Paris, 1664; in the 1687 library catalogue). His account of the Royal Society, his attack on the earl of Clarendon, and his insulting treatment of English manners and food provoked outrage. Sprat responded in Observations on M. de Sorbier’s Voyage into England. Written to Dr. Wren (London, 1665; in the 1687 library catalogue). Sprat directly incorporates much of Evelyn’s material. Both Sorbière’s and Sprat’s texts, along with the letter to Courcelles of 1 July 1652 (referred to below) and a life of Sorbière, were collected in A Voyage to England (London, 1709). See Sarasohn, “Who Was Then the Gentleman? Samuel Sorbière, Thomas Hobbes, and the Royal Society” and Malcolm’s entry on Sorbière in the biographical register to Hobbes, Correspondence, 893–9. Sorbière wrote to Hobbes on 23 August 1664, complaining that “I did not think that what I said about the entire English people could offend learned men,” and probably comparing his account to Evelyn’s A character of England (London, 1659): “Nor was my outspokenness any different from that of the person in London who brought out a description of the English way of life which has been through several editions in English.” Hobbes, Correspondence, No. 169, 629–32 (trans. Malcolm). 6 Gaspard de Champagne, comte de la Suze, was a Huguenot who had been married to Henriette de Coligny, the daughter of Gaspard III de Coligny, and a writer in the circle of Mme de Scudéry. The marriage was annulled in 1661. 7 Thomas Hobbes’s De Cive (Paris, 1642; in the 1687 library catalogue) was translated by Sorbière as Elemens philosophiques du citoyen (Amsterdam, 1649), who had also supervised the printing of the two 1647 Latin editions. He also translated Hobbes’s The Elements of Law as Le Corps Politique, ou les éléments de la loi morale et civile (Leiden, 1652). Evelyn had known Hobbes (1588–1679; ODNB) in Paris, when he was tutor in mathematics to Charles II. See Letter 332, note 31. 8 Jules Mazarin

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Historiograph du Roy,9 the mighty meede of the comonest Gazetiere, as that of Conseiller du Roy is of every trifling petifoger which is in France a very despicable qualification. It is certaine that by some servile intelligence he made a shift to shrew himselfe into the acquaintance of many Persons of quality, at whose Tables he fed, and where he entertain’d them with his impertinencies. A greate favoure of our late Republic he was, or rather the vilany of Cromwell whose expedition at sea against Holland he infinitely extolls, with a prediction of his future glorious atchivements, to be seene in the Epistle of his to Monsieur de Courcelles 165210 and upon other occasions, not to omitt his inciting of our Roman Catholiqs to improve their condition under his Majestie by some effort which smells of a Rebell-spirit even in this Relation which he presumes to dedicat to the French king: Thus as to the person of the man and his Communications: For the rest in which this audacious Delator sufficiently exposes himselfe to your mercy, I forbeare to add; unlesse it be to put you in mind of what occurrs to me in relation to your vindicating my Lord Chancelor,11 whom all the world knows he has most injuriously vilified; and you have an ample field to proceede on, by comparing his birth, and education with that of his Cardinal Patron whom he so excessively magnifies, and makes a demi-god of. My Lord Chancelor is a branch of that antient and honorable family of Norbery in Chesshire, as it is celebrated by Mr. Cambden12 in his Britannia, and so famous for the long robe, that an Unkles sonn13 of his present Lordship came to be no lesse a man than Lord Chiefe Justice of England not long since, which dignity runs Parallel with their premier President de Paris, one of the most considerable charges of that Kingdome. Nor has this Person ascended to this deserved eminency without greate and signal merits, having pass’d through so many Superior Offices, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privie Counsellor, Ambassador Extraordinary etc. not to mention his early engagement with 9 Sorbière had been appointed “Historiographe royale” in 1660 on account of his relationship with Mazarin. Sprat makes much of his inadequacies as a historian. 10 Sorbière’s letter to his cousin Étienne de Courcelles of 1 July 1652, was claimed to have been first published as Lettre d’un Gentilhomme François … sur les desseins de Cromwel but was more widely accessible in Lettres et discours de M. de Sorbiere sur diverses matieres curieuses (Paris, 1660; in the 1687 library catalogue), 202–11. It had been solicited by the governor of Orange, at the time when Sorbière was principal of the local college. It offers a strong defence of Cromwell’s military campaign against Holland. Sprat emphasizes the inconsistency between his support for the English in 1652 during the Commonwealth, and his criticisms of current English policy. Étienne de Courcelles (1586–1658) was professor of theology in Amsterdam (and an Arminian) and had been associated with Descartes, Grotius, and Saumaise. See Vermeulen, “Strategies and Slander in the Protestant Part of the Republic of Letters.” 11 Edward Hyde. In his letter to Hobbes (see note 5), Sorbière says, “I cannot deny that I made a serious mistake when I wrote, of a most illustrious man, that he paid little attention to the fairer Muses and did not favour men of letters” and expresses hope that Hobbes can assist in overcoming “the utterly justified anger of your most illustrious Chancellor” (630). 12 William Camden (1551–1623; ODNB), author of Britannia (London, 1590 and 1607 ed. in 1687 library catalogue, and Evelyn Library, no 292); Annales rerum Anglicarum, et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha (London, 1615 and 1627 in 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 291; the catalogue also lists a ghost 1677 ed.) and Remaines concerning Britaine (1637 ed. in 1687 library catalogue) 13 Sir Robert Hyde (1595/6–65; ODNB). Cousin of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, he was knighted at the restoration, and made a justice of common pleas (1660) and chief justice of common pleas (1663).

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his Majestie Charles the 1 in a Period of so greate defection; The divers weighty affaires he has successfully manag’d, fidelity to the present King, his Eloquent tongue, dextrous and happy pen, facetious conversation and obliging nature, all of them the products of a free and ingenuous education, which was both at the University and Inns of Court, and now crown’d with an experience and addresse so consummat, that it were impossible this Satyrist should have hit on a more unreasonable mistake, than when he refin[e]d upon the qualifications of this illustrious Minister. You will meete in a certaine letter of the old Kings to his Consort the Queen Mother, that his Majestie long since had him in his thoughts for Secretary of State.14 But these are infinite Topicks were infinite, and ’tis no wonder that he should thus defame a Chancelor who has been so bold as to dare to censure a Crown’d head, and to call in question the procedure of the King of Denmark about the affaire of Cornlitz Ulfeld,15 for which Monsieur l’Abbe De Paulmyr16 has perstring’d him to the purpose, and publish’d it in French, together with some observations of an English Gentleman upon this Relation of Sorbiere, in which, those unworthy and malicious imputations of La Schets and basseste in the Nation is perfectly vindicated, even by citations out of their owne French Authors,17 as namely André du Chesne, du Verdier, Philippe de Commines, d’Avily, and others of no meane name and estimation amongst their most impartial Historians, sufficient to assert the Courage and Gallantry of the En­ glish without putting mentioning the brave impressions the nation has made even into the very bowells of their Country, which after the winning of several signal battaills, they kept in subjection some hundreds of yeares. You cannot escape the likely choice which he made by which to judge and pronounce of the worth of English bookes, by the learned collection he carried over with him of

14 In early 1643 Charles I planned to have Hyde replace Edward Nicholas as secretary of state, noting in an intercepted letter to Henrietta Maria, published with the authorization of the parliamentary forces, that “I must make Ned Hyde Secretary of State; for the truth is, I can trust nobody else.” See Lister, Life and Administration of Edward, First Earl of Clarendon, I, 215. 15 Corfitz Ulfeldt (1606–64), former Danish ambassador to Holland (and dedicatee of Sorbière’s translation of De Cive), later banished by the Danish king Frederick III and ultimately active against Denmark in support of Charles X, king of Sweden. Evelyn alludes to Sorbière’s criticisms of Frederick. 16 Abbé de Saulmeyer, Danish ambassador to the court of Louis XIV. Through Saulmeyer’s intervention, the marquis de Lionne, Louis’s minister of foreign affairs, became involved, and the Conseil d’etat ordered all copies of the Relation confiscated, its republication prohibited, and its author banished to Nantes. Gaston de Commenge, the French ambassador to London, reported on these actions to the earl of Clarendon. In his letter to Hobbes of 23 August, written from Nantes (see note 5), Sorbière asks him to “use all your skill, and the patronage which you can call on among important men and leaders of society, to come to my aid as soon as possible” (630–1). 17 Evelyn’s knowledge of French historical writings was selective. In the 1687 library catalogue, he listed three works by Philippe de Commines: Les Memoires (Paris, 1649; Evelyn Library, no 405); De Carolo octauo, Galliæ rege, & bello Neapolitano (Strasburg 1548); De rebus gestis Ludouici, ejus nominis undecimi, Galliarum regis, & Caroli, Burgundiæ ducis (Paris, 1568). He also had Enrico Caterino Davila’s Historia della Guerre civili di Francia (Paris, 1644; Evelyn Library, no 446 [see Letter 89, note 8]) and Andre Duchesne, Les Antiquitez et recherches de la grandeur et majeste des Roys de France (Paris, 1609; Evelyn Library, no 492). “La Schets” is similar to the Dutch word for “sketch” and probably refers to a satirical attack.

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the workes of that thrise noble Marchionesse18 – no more than of his experience of the English dyet by the pottage he eate at my Lord of Devonshires:19 But it is much after the rate of his other observations; or else he had not pass’d so desultorily our Universities and the Navy, with a thousand other particulars worthy the notice, and not to be excused in one pretending to make Relations; to omitt his subtil reflexions on matters of state, and medling with things he had nothing to do with; such as were those false and presumptuous suggestions of his that the Presbyterians were forsooth the sole restorers of the King to his Throne, and the palpable ignorances of our Historiograph Royal, where he pretends to render an accoumpt of divers antient passages relating to the English Chronicle: The jurisdiction and legislative power of Parliaments which he mingles and compares with that of the Kings to celebrate and qualifie his Politicks: upon all which you have infinite advantages. It is true he was civily received by the Royal Society as a person who had reccommended himselfe to them by pretending he was Secretary to an Assembly of learned men formerly meeting at Monsieur Monmors20 at Paris; so as he had been plainely barbarous not to have accknowledg’d it by the mention he makes, whiles those who better know whose Principles this Mushrom is addicted to, must needes suspect his integrity; since there lives not on the Earth a person who has more disoblig’d it than that hauty [illegible]21: [RM: Mr. Hobbs:] Sir, I am Your etc. Says-Court: 31. October 1664.

P.S. I know not how you may have design’d to publish your Reflexions upon this dissingenuous Traveller; but it would certainely be most communicative and effectual certainly in Latine, the other particular of his Relation comming onely to those who understand the French, in which language it is already going to be printed.

18 Sorbière had singled out Margaret Cavendish’s work: “I brought a Volume writ by the Marchioness of Newcastle along with me, by which, as also by Three other Volumes of the Poetical, Political, and Philosophical Works of this Lady, I was glad to make it appear in France, how much her Excellent Genius, Admirable Sence and Eloquence, abounded throughout the whole Composition.” Voyage to England, 71. Margaret Cavendish, née Lucas, duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne (1623?–73; ODNB). Evelyn had known the Cavendishes in Paris. They had been married in Sir Richard Browne’s chapel in 1645, and had been guests at his wedding. In this case, his attitude may be reinforced by her intellectual proximity to Hobbes, whom Sorbière had translated (see note 7), and whom he praises extensively. He also notes Hobbes’s exclusion from the Royal Society, on account of his being perceived as “very Dogmatical” (40). See Letter 368. 19 William Cavendish, 3rd earl of Devonshire (1617–84; ODNB), tutored by Hobbes, whom Sorbière praises extravagantly (65–8). Sorbière’s account of his English journey had severely criticized English food. 20 the so-called Académie Monmor, an important grouping of savants who met at the house of Henri Louis Habert de Montmor 21 The last word is obscure but might be an abbreviation of “Hephaestus.”

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Robert Boyle Letter 224 [221] October 31, 1664 f 129v

Epistle CCXXI To Mr. Boyle for his history of Colds1 [LM: This letter was Printed in his history of Cold 1665:] Sir, After the accknowledgment of your greate civilities to me at Oxford,2 I have nothing to make you in returne but the notice of my delivering your letter, with my owne hands immediately upon my arival, and this frigid entertainement, which you are pleased to command in the following description. The Snowpitts in Italy etc. are sunke in the most solitary and coold places; commonly at the foote of some mountaine or elevated ground, which may protect them from the Meridian and Occidental sunn. 25 foote wide at the Orifice, and about 50 in depth is esteem’d a competent proportion; and though this be excavated in a Conical forme yet is the bottom made flatt, as I have illfavordly prick’d it out in the margen with my blotti[n]g pen [fig. 10]. the sides of the Pit are layd with joyces for a close lining of boards nailed

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Fig. 10 Add 78298: f 129v ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved 1 Robert Boyle, New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, or an Experimental history of cold (London, 1665; Eve.a.6). The printed version of the letter differs somewhat from this copy. There is a plate in Boyle’s book that is closely related to Evelyn’s drawing. The letter and the plate occur at 407–9 (sigs Dd4–Dd5). Evelyn is introduced by Boyle as “my ingenious friend” and praised for his “his inquisitive travels and his insight into the more polite kinds of knowledge, and particularly Architecture” (407), referencing Evelyn’s A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664). See Plate 15. 2 Evelyn had visited Boyle in Oxford on 26–7 October (Diary III.384–6).

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upon them (his Majesties at Greenewich newly made one the side of the Castle hill is steened with brick and I thinke hardly so wide at mouth). about a yard above the bottome (suppose aa) is tied a strong frame or Tressle of timber, upon which lyes a kind of wooden grate. The Top or Cover is doubly thatched with reede or straw upon a Coped frame or roofe, in one of the sides whereof is a narrow doore case hip’d one [on] like the top of a dormer and thatch’d, and so it is compleate: To conserve the Snow, they lay cleane straw upon the grate or wattle afore sayd, so as to keepe the snow from slipping through whiles they beate it to a hard cake of an ycie consistence of neere 1 foote thick: upon this they lay a layer of straw, and on that, snow againe beaten as before, and so continue a bed of straw, and a bed of snow straw snow straw till the pit be brim full. Finaly, they they cover all with Straw or reeds to a good thicknesse, and keepe the dore locked. This grate is contrived that the snow comming by accident to mealt, as by defect of beating or some extraordinary Season, it may drain away from the masse, and sinke without stagnating upon it, which would accelerate the dissolution, and therefore the very botome is but slightly or scarse paved. Those who are extraordinary accurate preserve a tall circle of shady Trees about their pitts, which may rather shade than drip upon it. Sir, I am Your etc. Says Court 31 October 1664

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 15 © The Wellcome Library

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Edward Hyde Letter 225 [222] November 1, 1664 f 130

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Epistle CCXXII To my Lord High Chancelor of England:

My Lord, I make bold to bespeake your Lordships favour in a particular1 the obtaining whereof, as it will greately oblige me, to your honor so I hope too it will not be thought disproportionable to the qualifications requisite in the Suppliant. I am inform’d since my comming to Towne that there are [words deleted] - - - - to whom there will be - - - - [words deleted] inspection: I am told likewise the number of those [words deleted] there, there has been propos’d [words deleted]. The thing is as yet recent and but in fieri2 only; and your Lordship who knowes the motive will not thinke it missbecomming my application, and the confidence your Lordship is pleas’d to allow me of deriving continual favours from you, that I now make it my humble suite that your Lordship would be pleas’d to moove his Majestie and his Royal Highnesse in my behalfe: I might suggest - - - - that my dwelling is neere the Towne, and the ordinary station of the Navy, that I have a perfect disposition [words deleted]; not to insist that - - - - etc. However it succeede, I shall ever esteeme my

1 probably in connection with Evelyn’s nomination and appointment as one of the Commissioners of the Sick and Wounded, to which he was nominated on 28 October (Add 78320: f 1 [28.10.1664] and f 2 [n.d.; official commission] and Diary III.388). For Evelyn’s work on behalf of the Commission, see Darley, “‘Action to the Purpose’: Evelyn, Greenwich, and the Sick and Wounded Seamen,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 165–84. This was Evelyn’s first important appointment to a government post. He describes his visit to Whitehall on 28 October: “The same day, at Council (there being Commissioners to be made, to take care of such sick & Wounded, & Prisoners at War, as might be expected upon occasion of a succeeding Warr, and Action at sea; a War being already declared against the Hollanders) his Majestie was pleasd to nominate me to be one; amongst three other Gent: of quality, Parliament Men: viz: Sir William D’oily knight & Baronet, Sir Tho: Clifford [since L: Tressurer of England], & Bullein Rhemys Esquire, with a salary of 1200 pounds amongst us, besides extraordinares &c: for our care & attendance in time of Action, each of us appointed his particular District, & mine falling out to be Kent, [&] Sussex: with power to constitue Officers, Physitians, Chirurgeons, Provost Martials &c: dispose of halfe of the Hospitals thro England” (Diary III.387–8). Although a formal declaration of war was not issued until 22 February 1665, conflict had already occurred in Africa and North America, and war was recognized to be imminent. Evelyn’s correspondence pertaining to this position is in Add 78320–2. Other records, including financial disbursements, and materials relating to the hospitals under his jurisdiction are in Add 78394–400. 2 in process

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selfe infinitely obliged to your Lordships favour in my behalfe, to which I have recourse with all the imaginable submission of My Lord Your etc.

London 1. November 1664.

Thomas Povey1 Lettter 226 [223] November 6, 1664 f 130

Epistle CCXXIII To Thomas Povey Esquire

[RM: Auditor to his Royal Highnesse the Duke of Yorke] Sir, I have reason to be prowde of nothing more than that the honor which his Majestie and Royal Highnesse (to whom I must ever accknowledge my selfe most particularly oblig’d) have don me, puts me in any capacity to serve my Friends; and especialy a Person to whom I am so infinitely engag’d as Mr. Povey; though I will not say but Dr. Hoare2 has sufficient merit of his owne to reccommend him. I do confesse that my old Friend Dr. Needham3 (a Person perfectly well accomplish’d) had a title to my suffrages before in my privat thoughts; but I shall hope for some other opportunity to gratifie that deserving man. In the meane time that I bespeake both yours, and Dr. Hoares favour, that in case there be necessity of a Collegue with him, he may have that honor. Sir, I shall not faile of giving my attendance tomorrow at my Lord Generals,4 and to make it my especial buisinesse to serve that accomplish’d Person your happy Friend, and to receive what farther you have to command Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 6: November 1664.

1 Thomas Povey (1613/14–d. in or before 1705; ODNB, H). He was an MP, and an original member of the Royal Society. He was treasurer of the duke of York (1660–8) and treasurer of Tangier (1662–65), a position he resigned to Pepys. 2 William Hoare. See Letter 219, note 4. 3 Jasper Needham 4 George Monck

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William Brouncker1 Letter 227 [224] November 9, 1664 f 130v

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Epistle CCXXIV To my Lord Viscount Brounker Præsident of the Royal Society:

[LM: When I presented them with my Parallel of Architecture]2 My Lord, Because this Booke had the honor to be most obligingly receiv’d of his Majestie I am the more emboldn’d to make a Present of it to the Royal Society; not for any merit of the Publishers; but in submission to their Commands, and to testifie my eternal devotion to their service. I choose to Supplicate this favour Sir, of You; because I am accidentaly detain’d from rend’ring my respects to them in Person, and for that I was unwilling it should be too-much expos’d before this Oblation was Pay’d by their, and Your etc. Says-Court 9th: November 1664

Robert Boyle Letter 228 [225] November 23, 1664 ff 130v–1

Epistle CCXXV To Robert Boyle Esquire1

Sir, The honor you designe me by making use of that trifle2 which you were lately pleased to command an account of, is so much greater than it pretends to merite, as indeed it is 1 William Brouncker, 2nd Viscount Brouncker of Lyons (1620–84; ODNB, R). An MD from Oxford (1647), Brouncker was a mathematician and astronomer and an original fellow of the Royal Society, as well as its first president (1662–77). 2 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern ... To which is added an Account of Architects and Architecture, in an ... Explanation of certain Tearms particularly affected by Architects (London, 1664). The work is a translation of Roland Fréart, Parallèle de l’Architecture Antique et de la moderne (Paris, 1650). Evelyn had already presented this work to Charles II, Henrietta Maria, and Lord Clarendon (Diary III.380). 1 The original of this letter is Add 4279: ff 25–6. The text printed in Boyle, Correspondence, II, 409–10 is based on that version. 2 Letter 224 to Boyle

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far short of being worthy your acceptance: But if by any service of mine in that other Concerne,3 I may hope to contribute to an effect the most agreeable to your excellent and pious nature; it shall not be my reproch that I did not my uttmost endeavors to oblige it. I do every day, both at London and at home, put Sir Richard4 in mind of your Suppli[c]ans case; and indeede he needes no monitor; my selfe being Witnesse that he improves all occasions to serve him in it; nor wants there any dispositions (as far as I can perceive) both to discharge the poore mans5 engagements here, and afford him a competent viaticum. As for that Sacred Worke you recommend to me [LM: *the Bible translated into the Lithuanian tongue], it is inform’d there is a most authentic copy shortly to be sent over;6 the well meaning attempt of this Person being not so fully approv’d of: This is in effect what I have to say why the impression is retarded; I should else esteeme it one of the most fortunat adventures of my life, that by any industry of mine I might be accessory in the least to so blessed an undertaking. If my bookes of Architecture7 do not fall into your hands at Oxford it will come with my apologie when I have the honour to kisse your hands at London as well as another Part of the Mysterie of Jesuitisme which (with some other papers relating to that horrible Iniquity) I have translated, and am now printing at Roystons;8 but without my name – so little ceredit [sic] there is in these dayes, in doing anything for the interest of Religion.

3 probably the Latin translation of Boyle’s Some Considerations touching the Style of the H. Scriptures (London, 1661) published in 1665 4 Sir Richard Browne 5 This is possibly Anthony Horneck (1641–97) whom Evelyn describes in Diary V.317 as “late Minister of the Savoy, who was an Exile of Lituania.” Horneck was in fact a German, as Evelyn notes in another entry (Diary IV.306–7), and went to England in 1661 where Evelyn’s friend Thomas Barlow made him chaplain at Queen’s College. He was subsequently preacher at the Savoy. 6 A Lithuanian Bible translated by Jan Bretkun and edited by Samuel Boguslaw Chyliński is recorded in the BL catalogue as possibly published in London at this time (Pirma kniga Mayzészaus wadynama Genesis ([London?], [1660?]). See Samuel Boguslaw Chyliński, An Account of the Translation of the Bible into the Lithuanian Tongue, etc. (Oxford, 1659). See also Boyle, Correspondence, II, 7–11. 7 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664). 8 Μυστήριον τη~ς ’Aνομίας. That is, Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism; or, The new Heresie of the Jesuites ... Together with The Imaginary Heresie, in three Letters ... Never before published in English (Eve.a.34). Published anonymously by Richard Royston on 2 January 1665 (Diary III.393). The work is a translation of La Nouvelle hérésie des Jésuites (Paris, 1662) by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole and of part of Nicole’s Les Imaginaires, ou Lettres sur l’hérésie imaginaire. It followed earlier anonymous editions of a translation of Pascal’s Lettres Provinciales (Les provincials): or, The mysterie of Jesuitism [London, 1657] and The Jesuites displayed, or, Their works of darkness brought to light: … As a further discovery of the mystery of Jesuitism set forth for the publick good of this nation [London, 1658]). See also Keynes, Bibliography, 123–8.

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I know not whither it becomes me to informe you, that it has pleas’d his Majestie to nominate me a Commissioner to take care of the Sick and Wounded Persons during this controversy with our Neighbours the Dutch; but so it is, that there being but 4 of us9 design’d for this very troublesome and sad employment; all the ports of Kent and Sussex from Dover to Ports-mouth fall to my district alone, and makes me wish a thousand times I had such a Collegue as Mr. Boyle, who is wholy made up of Charity, and all the qualifications requisite to so pious a Care. But I cannot desire you so much trouble; the prospect whereof would even draw pity from you, as well in my behalfe, as for the more miserable; who forsee the confusion, and importunities of it in every Article of our buisy Instructions. But the King has layd his positive Commands on me; and I am just now going towards Dover and those other places in my charge to provide for mischiefe. Farewell sweete repose, Bookes, Gardens, and the blessed conversation you are pleased to allow Deare Sir Your etc. Says- Court 23 November: 1664

P.S. Mr. Goldmans dictionary10 is that usefull booke of the kind which I mention’d to you. Here is Mr. Stillingfleets new Piece in vindication of my Lord of Canterbury:11 I have hardly dip’d into it as yet; it promises well, and I very much like of the Epistle, the style seeming to me lesse perplext than his usualy is. Dr. Meric Casaubon12 upon the same subject I presume you have seene. One Rhea13 has publish’d a very usefull booke concerning the culture of flowers but it dos in nothing reach my long-since attempted designe on that intire subject; with all its ornaments and circumstances: but God only knows when my opportunities will permit me to bring it to maturity: My most humble Service to Dr. Barlow14 whose Answer to Cressy15 etc. I infinitely breath after.

9 Evelyn’s fellow commissioners: William Doyley (c.1614–77; Diary); Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh (1630–73; ODNB); Bullen Reymes (1613–72; ODNB). See Diary III.388 and Letter 225, and Darley, “‘Action to the Purpose’: Evelyn, Greenwich, and the Sick and Wounded Seamen.” 10 Francis Gouldman, Copious Dictionary in three parts (London, 1664). 11 Edward Stillingfleet, A rational account of the grounds of Protestant religion (London, 1665; Eve.b.32), a defence of Archbishop Laud’s polemic against Roman Catholicism, A Relation of the Conference between William Laud ... and Mr. Fisher, the Iesuite (London, 1639; Eve.b.10). Stillingfleet (1635–99; ODNB) was appointed to the rectory of St Andrew’s Holborn in January 1665, and subsequently dean of St Paul’s (1678) and bishop of Worcester (1689). 12 Meric Casaubon, Of the Necessity of Reformation (London, 1664). 13 John Rea, Flora; seu de Florum Cultura. Or, a complete Florilege, furnished with all requisites belonging to a florist (London, 1665; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1250). 14 Thomas Barlow, whose responses to Cressy are in his papers now housed in Queen’s College 15 Hugh Cressy

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William Davenant1 Letter 229 [226] November 24, 1664 f 131v

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Epistle CCXXVI To Sir William D’Avenant:

Sir, I was to waite on you at Lincolns inn Theater upon the account of a Friend2 of mine, who would put into your hands a production of his (if my judgement be any-thing) not unworthy your perusall: Be pleas’d to let me know by Mr. Batterton,3 at what time we may be least troublesome to you to heare it recited; and if then you shall thinke it worthy your approbation and the stage; it will be freely presented to you, with some no inferiour pieces of that nature which are to follow it. Sir, I am Your etc. London November 24: 1664

Thomas Clifford1 Letter 230 [227] December 29, 1664 f 131v

Epistle CCXXVII To Sir Thomas Clifford:

Sir, I was this morning to kisse your hands before my going out of Towne, and am yet willing to let you see what I have written to the Governor of Dover-Castle;2 because I presume you will judge it effectual for that very small time it is like to prevent my personal appearance in the Place; having resolv’d to deferr my journey no farther than tuesday next: I desire therefor that you will upon occasion, justifie my dilligence, and excuse me to his 1 At this time Davenant was manager of the Duke’s Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. 2 Samuel Tuke 3 Thomas Betterton (1635–1710; ODNB), actor and collaborator with Davenant in the Duke’s Company 1 Evelyn’s fellow commissioner was also named sub-commissioner for prizes on 4 January 1665. Clifford advanced quickly: under Henry Bennet’s sponsorship he was named comptroller of the household in November 1666; in December 1666 he became a member of the Privy Council; and in June 1668 ­treasurer of the household. He was named 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh in 1672. 2 See Letter 231. Heneage Finch, 3rd earl of Winchilsea (1627/8–89; ODNB) was governor at this time, but was also serving as ambassador-extraordinary to the Porte in Constantinople. In the next letter, Evelyn identifies the governor as John Strode, who was lieutenant governor.

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Royal Highnesse3 till my present indisposition be a little more over; I shall not faile to render you an accoumpt from my severall Rendizvous’s of all affaires, and in the meane time am ready for your Commands to Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 29 December 1664

John Strode1 Letter 231 [228] December 29, 1664 f 132

Epistle CCXXVIII To The Governor of Dover-Castle

[RM: Collonel Stroode:] Sir, Having received an order from the Lords of the Councill directed to me, as one of the Commissioners in the Kentish district, concerning the seizing and securing of all Dutchmen, or others found on Board any Dutch-Vessel whatsoever taken by any of his Majesties Men of Warr during this hostility betwixt the two Nations; and not being as yet (by reason of an indisposition upon me) fully at liberty to set forth on my journey towards your parts; there to take order for the settling this affaire according to my Instructions; (as by the beginning of the next weeke I hope I shall):2 This comes with an humble request to you, that upon perusall of the inclos’d, and then transmitting it to the partys concernd; You will be pleas’d to give your best assistance for the seizing, securing, and safe guarding of such Prisoners, as either are, or shall be brought to your Port of Dover; and the rather, for that this request of mine dos but a little anticipate a letter which I shall suddainely have the honor to kisse your hands with, that comes to you from his Grace the Duke of Albemarle3 of the same tenor, but more expressly desiring your fartherance: Sir, this favour I humbly request of you, ’til I can be in a capacity to ease you of some trouble by constituting such an Officer to be my Martial, as (when I come downe) you shall thinke fit to reccommend to me: There will be a competent Salary allow’d him, and care taken for discharge of the entertainement of the Prisoners according to the rates establish’d by his Majestie and Councill; and if you shall please to cause this to be 3 the duke of York 1 John Strode (1627–86; Diary, H). He was appointed lieutenant governor of Dover in 1660 and subsequently became an MP for Sandwich and a lieutenant-colonel in the Grenadier Guards in 1682. 2 Evelyn reports on his reception at Dover by Strode on 7 January 1665 (Diary III.395). He travelled to the various towns in his assigned territory (Kent and Sussex) between 4 and 12 January. 3 George Monck

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likewise communicated, by your influence, to the Chiefe Magistrates of Deale and Sandwich (to whom I have letters from the Lords of the Councill) that so a like care may be there taken also, You will infinitely oblige Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 29: December 1664

Elias Ashmole1 Letter 232 [229] January 2, 1664 f 132v

Epistle CCXXIX To Elias Ashmole Esquire2

[LM: For his history of the Knights of the Garter:]3 Sir, In the Yeare 1615 I find that after a Sollemn Proceeding on horse-back, there was a Triumph and a joust cal’d Guerra d’Amore,4 whither this were that at the marriage of the Gran Ducca, may be easily computed from some relation of that Yeare and Place: But in the yeare following upon the comming of the Prince of Urbine,5 there was a most sumptuous Proceeding on horse-back, accompany’d with a greate traine, Machines, and Pageants, which ended in a Joust and a Ball: This was carried on by 42 Cavalieri, consisting of the greatest Princes of Italy; and in which was represented a bataill of 300 Gentlemen with sword, bouckler and launces after the antient manner: This was certainely for the rare and antique invention of Chariots and other entries most magnificent, all acted in the gran Piazza of Florence, which was scaffolded about in manner of an Amphitheatre: Lastly, in the yeare 1637: 15 July was there another Procession or festa a Cavallo6 in the same Theater, and afterwards in that of the Garden of the Piazzo de Piti: These are all I can suddainely call to mind of late Triumphs in Italy; unlesse it were that of Prencipe Gallicano, who celebrated a joust after the old knight-errant manner 1 Elias Ashmole (1617–92; ODNB). Evelyn first records meeting Ashmole, who was an antiquary, herald, and astrologer, in 1655 (Diary III.159). Ashmole bequeathed his library to Oxford as well as the collection of antiquities that formed the core of the Ashmolean Museum. 2 The original version of this letter is Bodleian Ashmole Ms 1115: f 172 (dated 3 January 1664). 3 The Institution, Laws & Ceremonies of the most Noble Order of the Garter, etc., 2 vols (London, 1672; Eve.c.10). 4 Andrea Salvadori, Guerra d’Amore; festa del serenissimo Gran Duca di Toscana Cosimo Secondo. Fatta in Firenze in Carnevale del 1615 (Florence, 1615). 5 Francesco Maria della Rovere II (1548–1631) 6 Andrea Salvadori, Guerra di bellezza. Festa a cavallo fatta in Firenze per la venuta del serenissimo principe d’Urbino. L’ottobre del 1616 (Florence, 1616).

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upon the inauguration or Coronation of Pope Innocent the tenth, and to entertaine Cardinal Panfilio his Nephew, which happened 1644, at my being at Rome.7 Sir, If in any thing else I may be of use to your glorious designe, freely command Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 2d: January 1664.

Henry Hyde1 Letter 233 [230] January 2, 1665* f 133

Epistle CCXXX To my Lord Viscount Cornbery:

My Lord, I cannot accuse my want of respect, but of good fortune, that I have not had the honor to kisse your Lordships hands, and to render you my personal augures of an happy new Yeare; because (if your servants be just to me) they must needes have inform’d your Lordship that I have been severall times to waite on you at White-hall; as I was yesterday yesterday likewise at my Lord Chancelors,2 believing I should certainely encounter you there; but it was not my hapinesse: The truth is, I came to present your Lordship with your owne* booke; [RM: *The other part of the Mystery of Jesuitism, translated and published by me:] for so that Epistle would have loudly proclaim’d it selfe, had not the Argument been too invidious, and that it were more in fashion to owne any thing which were don in vindication of truth. As it was I left it with my Lord your Father; because I would not suffer it to be publique ’till he had first seen it, who on your Lordships Score, has so just a title to it; and that my going the next day towards Dover and my Kentish district might not prevent me. My Lord I have given a charge to Royston3 to present your Lordship with a booke4 fitter for his Lordships Library, which he has promis’d me to 7 Antonio Gerardi, Trionfal Processo della Santità di Nostro Signore Innocentio x. alla sacrosancta Basilica Lateranense, seguito il di 23 Novembre 1644 (Rome, 1644). Evelyn’s detailed account of seeing “the sollemne, and greatest ceremony of all the state Eccelsiastical” is in Diary II.279–82. De Beer suggests (279, n. 3) that Evelyn bases his account on an etching by Tempesta which he owned. 1 Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon (1638–1709; ODNB, H) was the eldest son of Edward Hyde. He was Lord Cornbury, and succeeded his father as earl in 1674. At this time he was a commissioner of trade and private secretary to Catherine of Braganza and became her lord chamberlain in this year. 2 Edward Hyde 3 Evelyn’s publisher was Richard Royston. The work was published at the urging of Henry Hyde and had previously been shown to Hyde’s father, Edward Hyde. 4 Evelyn’s Μυστήριον τη~ς Ά̓νομίας. That is, Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism; or, The new Heresie of the Jesuites, issued by Royston on 2 January. For the complicated origins of this work see Keynes, Bibliography, 124–6.

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waite upon you with; and at my returne I shall not faile to begg your Lordships Pardon for this presumption of My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 2d: January 1664

The particulars which you will find added after the 4th Letter are extracts out of severall curious papers and passages lying by me which, for being very apposite to the acco controversy, I thought fit to adjoyne annex, in danger otherwise to have been never been producd: I present my most humble Service to Mr. Belin:5 every glorious day flatterd me with the honor of seeing your Lordship with him at our poore Villa; but that favour is reserv’d for my returne: I beseech your Lordship preserve me in his good graces: Silius Titus1 Letter 234 [232] February 2, 1665 f 133v

Epistle CCXXXII To Sylas Titus Esquire one of the Groomes of his Majesties Bed-chamber

Sir, I am not so much a stranger to Captain Titus’s worth, or so indiferent of obliging a Person whom I so highly honor that I should have needed any reccommendation, after Sir Richard Brown first spoke to me concerning my Officer at Deale; but so it is, that upon long designation, I have bestow’d that employment upon one Gardiner,2 who, has not onely already given me sufficient security of £200, but one whom I find also extraordinarily capable of executing the Place; so as to reject him now that he has receiv’d a formal Commission from me, together with the Bookes and Instructions, were I conceive not onely to injure the Man, but show a disrespect to some Persons of honor, who applied themselves to me in his behalfe, and are bound for his fidelity. Halfe this, will I perswade my selfe satisfie a Person of your reason that I had no designe to disoblige one for whom I have so extraordinary a value; but that I esteeme it a very greate misfortune I was not 5 Richard Bellings (c.1626–1716; Diary). Bellings was secretary and master of requests to Catherine of Braganza and hence closely associated with Henry Hyde, who was the queen’s private secretary. 1 Silius Titus (1622/3–1704; ODNB, H). He was groom of the bedchamber and keeper of Deal castle. Subsequently he was a leader of the anti-Popish faction in the Commons. 2 On 16 November 1665 Timothy Gardner was commissioned by Evelyn “to ask how to dispose of those men who are incapable of future service” (CSP Dom. 1664–5: 60). Again on 5 December Gardner reports to the commissioners that recovered seamen collapse when they return to their ships and asks for further instructions as well as for a “Little Breviat” of conduct (89). See Evelyn’s correspondence with Gardner in Add 78320–1.

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more timely acquainted with your Commands, which none should have more cherefully embras’d than Sir Your etc Says-Court. 2: February 1664/5

Thomas Chiffinch1 Letter 235 [232] February 7, 1665 ff 133v–4

To Thomas Chiffing Esquire Page of the Back-Stayres to his Majestie and keeper of his Closet Epistle CCXXXIII

Sir, In answer to the Laudable Designe of his Majestie for fit Repositories of those precious treasures and Curiosities committed to your charge; I conceive you may compleately martial them in a Catalogue under these heads2  1. Dactyliothecæ   2. Gemmæ incisæ   3. Cameæ is: Talismans:  4. Monilia  5. Encausta  6. Vasa  7. Automata  8. Numismata3   9. Statuæ, Personæ etc. 10. Tituli 11. Pinacotheca 12. Toreumata

 1. Rings  2. Intaglias  3. Constellated Sculptures etc.  4. Jewells  5. Enammellings   6. Urnes, Cupps of Achat etc.   7. Watches, Clocks etc.  8. Medailes   9. Statues etc. 10. Inscriptions 11. Pictures

12. Turnings of Ivory etc. 13. Deliciæ Exoticæ 13. Curiosities and Rarities of all sorts, not reducible to the former heads: 14. Myrothecium 14. Precious drougs, Bezouk, perfumes, Elixirs, etc. Panaceas, Tinctures, Magisteries 15. Hoplotheca 15 Antient Armes Weapons etc.

1 Thomas Chiffinch (1600–66; ODNB). He was keeper of the king’s jewels and comptroller of the excise. He was also concerned with acquiring works of art for the king. 2 In order, the unfamiliar items here are: I: 1. collections of rings; 2. incised gems; 3. engraved cameos; 4. necklaces, collars; 5. enamels; 6. vases; 7. machines; 8. coins 9. statues, persons; 10. inscribed tablets; 11. paintings; 12. embossed or relief work (properly “toreuma”); II: 3. collections of sculpture; 6. cups of agate; III: 13. exotic delicacies; 14. collections of wonder or magic; 15. antidotes, magic substances; 16. collections of armour. This collection is focused on objets d’art and excludes the naturalia that were so prominent in Ashmole and Wharton’s catalogue of the Tradescant collection (Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a collection of rarities preserved at South-Lambeth neer London [London, 1656]; in the 1687 library catalogue), the first such work printed in England. The starting point for contemporary accounts of the “cabinet of curiosity” is Impey and MacGregor, The Origins of Museums. See also Chaney, “The Italianate Evolution of English Collecting,” in The Evolution of English Collecting, 1–124; Peck, Consuming Splendor, 154–62; and Zytaruk, “‘Occasional specimens, not compleate systemes’: John Evelyn’s Culture of Collecting.” 3 Elias Ashmole was asked to catalogue the coins and medals in the royal collection in 1660.

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This were in truth a noble way to preserve his treasure intire, so as upon occasion to permit a sight of it to greate Princes and curious strangers; for it is greate pity it should not be made as famous as the Cabinet of the Dukes of Florence4 and other foraign Princes which are onely celebrated for being more universaly known to the World, and not because his Majesties Collection is not altogether as worthy: His Majestie being likewise himselfe so exquisite a judge, as well as possessor of so many rare things, as might render not onely White-hall but the whole Nation famous for it abroad. If it be his Majesties pleasure, I shall when ever you call upon me, and that it may least importune his Privacy, make the Inventory of Particulars, and cause them to be fairely transcribed in a Booke which his Majestie may keepe by him, and add to the Catalogue as curiosities increase and come in: The very looking over this will afford no small delight, and they might be martial’d in such a new order and method as readily to leade to the particulars how small or numerous so ever: But to this would I have added in another Register the names and portraitures of all the exotic and rare Beasts, and fowles which have at any time been presented to his Majestie and which are daily sent into his Paradyse at St. James’s Parke, and this Booke I would call intitule VIVARIUM REGIUM.5

Because they are truely Royal curiosities, and in some respects to be preferrd before those dead and inanimat rarities of art and nature: They are instructive diversions, and such as have render’d Kings and Princes famous to posterity amongst Writers and Learned men for their universal and greate genius’s, as we find recorded in the holy stories of Solomon and in that of the lives of Alexander and Cyrus and it dos adorne their memory, and is usefull to Philosophy; and to many profitable speculations. But I shall enlarge no farther, having perhaps already exceeded your commands who am Sir, Your etc. London 7: February 1664/5

4 Evelyn describes his visits to the Uffizi in Diary II.188-93 and 413-14. His account conflates his own observations and passages adapted from other published sources (188-89, n. 13), and focuses on the collections displayed in the “Ceimeliarcha or Repository” (188) on the top floor of the Uffizi Palace, and particularly in the Tribuna, the “large Square roome, in the middle whereoff stood a Cabinet of an octangular forme so adorned and furnish’d with Christals, Achat, Sculptures &c as certainely exceedes any description” (189-90). See Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, 53–61. 5 the king’s museum of living creatures

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Henry Hyde Letter 236 [234] February 9, 1665* ff 134v–5v

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Epistle CCXXXIV To my Lord Vicount Cornbery.

My Lord, Being late come home, imagine me turning over your close printed memoires, and shrinking up my shoulders; yet with a resolution of surmounting the difficulty, annimated with my Lord Chancelors,1 and your Lordships commands, whom I am perfectly dispos’d to serve, even in the greatest of drudgeries, the translation of a Bookes: [LM: Mysterie of Jesuitisme, and its Pernicious Consequences as it relates to Kings and states, which I published this yeare:]2 But why call I this a drudgery? Who would not be prowd of the service? By the slight tast of it, I find God, and the King concern’d, and I will in due tyme endeavor to present your Lordship and the World with the fruites of your my obedience, cherefully, and with all due reguards: Nor is it small in my esteeme, that God directs you to make use of me in any thing which relates to the Church, though in my secular station. I began indeede (as your Lordship well remembers) with that Essay on St. Chysostome3 some yeares since upon that consideration, though prompted by a lugubrous occasion; such a one (though in no respect so greate a one) as what I but too clearly sensibly perceive afflicts my Lord, your Father; [LM: upon the death of his sonne Edward, a very brave and hopefull young man:]4 for as I last beheld his countenance, mithought I saw the very shaft transfixing him; though the greatenesse of his mind, and pious resignation suffer him to do nothing weakely, and with passion: Besides the divine præcepts, and his Lordships greate Example I could never receive anything from Philosophy that was able to add a graine to my courage upon these irremedilesse assaults like that Enchiridion and little Weapon of Epictatus, Nunquam te quicquam perdidisse dicito, sed reddidisse, says he; Filius obiit? redditus est: it is in his 15th cap:5 repeate it all to my Lord, and to your selfe; You cannot imagine what that little target will encounter: I never go abroad without it in my pocket: What an incomparable guard is that τά οὐκ ἐφ’ ἡμ˜ι ν? cap: 1.6 where he discourses of the things which are, and are not 1 Edward Hyde 2 Evelyn is probably referring, not to his Μυστήριον τη~ς ά̓νομίας. That is, Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism as the marginal note implies, but instead to his The Pernicious Consequences of the New Heresie of the Jesuites against The King and the State, published by Richard Royston in 1666. 3 The golden book of St. John Chrysostom concerning the education of children (London, 1659), undertaken after the death of his son, Richard, in 1658. 4 Edward Hyde, a younger son and student of law died unmarried in 1665. 5 i.e., Epictetus, Enchiridion. An early edition (James Sanford’s of 1567) translates it: “Never say thou haste loste any thing, but that thou has restored it. If thy sonne die, he is restored” (B7v). Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue records five editions of this work (Cambridge, 1655; Antwerp, 1616; Amsterdam, 1670; Delft, 1683; in English: London, 1670). 6 “τω˜ ν ὄντων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἐφ᾽ ἡμι˜ ν, τὰ δὲ οὐκ ἐφ᾽ ἡμι˜ ν.” “Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control” (Oldfather, trans)

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in our power: I know my Lord you employ your retirements nobly, weare this defensive for my sake, I had almost sayd this Christian Office: But My Lord, I am told, we shall have no Lent7 indicted this yeare: I acknowledge for all Dr. Gunning that I much doubt of its Apostolical Institution: But I should be heartily sorry a Practise so neere to it, so agreable to Antiquity, so usefull to devotion; and in Summ so confirm’d by our Laws should now faile, and sinke, that his Majestie and his Laws are restor’d. I know not what subtile and political reasons there may be: It were better, Flesh should be given away for a Moneth or two to the Poore, in some greate proportion, and that particular men should suffer, than a Sanction and a Costome so decent should be weaken’d, not to say abrogated; believe it, ’twill not be so easy a thing to reasume a liberty of this nature which gratifies so many humors of all sorts: Because God gives us plenty, must we always riot? If those who sit at the helme hearken to the murmers of impertinent and avaritious men, pray God they never have cause to repent of the facility when ’tis too late: I know religious fasting dos not so much consist in the Species and quality as the quantity; nor in the duration, as the devotion: I have always esteemed abstainance a tanto beyond the fullfilling of periods and Quadragessimas; nor is this of ours, every where observd alike by Christians; but since (all who are under that appellation) do generaly ob keepe it where Christ is nam’d (I do not meane among the Romanists Catholiq alone) a few imperfect reformers excepted; mithinkes a reverend and antient Costome should not so easily be canceld; for so I looke on it, if once we neglect the Indiction: But were that for a one fortnight with a strict Proclamation, and lesse indulgence to the Faulty (as they call that shop of iniquity) and some other pretenders to liberty; in my opinion it would greately become the sollemn, and aproching station of the Passion-Weeke: And I would to God it were reduced but to that, that the Irksomenesse might not deterr the more delicat, nor the prohibition those whose interest it is to sell flesh: We in this Iland have so natural a pretence to mind weave mingle this concerne of Devotion into that of the State; that they might be both preserv’d without the least shadow of Superstition, and if once our Fishery were well retriv’d (than which nothing could be more popular, nor indeare the Person who should establish it) the profit of that alone would soone create Proselytes of the most zealous of our carnivorus Samaritans. Why should there be an interruption of our Laws for a Yeare, to the infinite disadvantage of the Church of England in many reguards? My Lord You are a pious person, and the Lenten Abstinence minds me of another incongruity; that you Parliament men will I hope reforme, and that is the frequency of our Theatrical-Pastimes during that Indiction. It is not allow’d in any City of Christendom so much as in this one Towne of London, where there are more Wretched and Obscene Plays permitted, than in all the World besides. At Paris 3 days, at Rome 2 weekely, and at the other Cittys of Florence, Venice, etc. but at certaine jolly Periods of the Yeare; and that not without some considerable emolument to the Publique; whiles our Farces and Enterludes here are every day alike, so as the Ladys and the Gallants come reaking from the Play late on Saturday night, to their Sonday Devotions; the Ideas of the Farce possesses their 7 Peter Gunning’s sermon, The Holy Fast of Lent defended against all its Prophaners: or, a discourse, shewing that Lent-Fast was first taught the world by the Apostles was first preached in 1662 and published in 1677. Gunning (1613–84; ODNB) was regius professor of divinity and master of St John’s College, Cambridge (1661), and subsequently bishop of Chichester (1670) and Ely (1675).

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fantsies to the infinite prejudice of devotion, besides the advantage it gives to our reprochfull blasphemers: Could not Friday, and Saturday be spard; or, if indulg’d, might they not be employd for the Support of the Poore, or as well the maintainance of some Workehouse, as a few debauch’d Comedians? What if they had an hundred pound per annum lesse comming in, This were but policy in them, and more than they were borne too, and the onely meanes to consecrate (if I may use the tearme) their scarse lawfull allowable Impertenences: If my Lord Chancelor8 would be but instrumental in reforming this one exorbitancy, it would gaine both the King, and his Lordship multitudes of blessings: You know my Lord that I (who have written a Play and am a scurvy Poet too some times)9 am far from Puritanisme; but I would leav have no reproch left our Adversaries in a thing which may so conveniently be reform’d: Plays are now with us become a licentious Excesse, and a Vice, and neede severe Censors that should looke as well to their Morality, as to their lines and numbers. Pardon this invective; My Lord nothing but my perfect affection to your Person and your Vertue could have made me so intemperate; and nothing but my hopes that you will do the best you can to promote the greate interest of Piety, and things worthy your excellent opportunities, could have renderd me thus prodigal of my Confidence: Season my Lord your Father with these desiderata to our consummat felicity; but still with submission and under protection for the liberty I assume; nor let it appear presumption irremissable, if I add, that as I owne my Lord, our Illustrious Chancelor for my Patron and Benefactor; so I pay him as tender and awfull respect (abstracted from his greatenesse and the Circumstances of that) as if he had a natural, as he has a Virtual and just dominion over me; so as my Gratitude to him as his Beneficiary, is even adopted into my religion, and ’till I renounce that, I shall never lessen of my duty; and For I am ready to professe it, I have found much more tendernesse, and greate humanity from the Influences of his Lordship than from all the Relations I have now in the World, wherein yet I have many deare, and worthy Friends: My Lord pardon againe this Excesse, which I sweare to you, proceedes from the honest, and inartificial gratitude of My Lord Your etc. London 9: February 1664

8 Edward Hyde; Evelyn’s remarks on stage plays (which he both frequented and purchased as texts) are echoed in Letter 385 to Margaret Godolphin. 9 See Add 78358, Thersander. A Tragi-Comedy, and the miscellaneous verse in Add 78357.

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Roger L’Estrange Letter 237 [235] February 24, 1665* f 136

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Epistle CCXXXV To Roger le Strange Esquire

Sir, We thinke our selves much concern’d to find in the last Thursdays Gazet,1 mention of the barbarous usage of the Dutch Prisoners: If one instance of their ill treatement be, that they did never once complaine but of their Bread being too fine;2 we hope there will neede no greate invention to confute what you have let slip your pen, and their ungratefull returne for his Majesties extraordinary indulgence towards them, who allowes to every individual man 5 pence per diem; which is more by a peny than ever was heretofore grantd persons in their Condition, unlesse Officers, who have their augmentation accordingly: This being constantly pay’d them every morning, makes us wonder what measures they take of barbarity in Holland; and whether they were not sufficiently reveng’d by having lately dragg’d some of our men fallen into their hands through their Townes in Chaines, more like slaves then Christians: But to refute this unworthy Fable and vindicate the honorable Commissioners, to whose care and inspection their treatement is committed, and in which relation I am principaly concern’d: The Dutch Ambassador3 and Friends have onely to give their Country-men a Visite at Chelsey-Colledg4 and survey their provisions: His Majestie having likewise order’d the very same care (which is 7 pence per weeke, besides the charge of Chyrurgeons and Cure) for their sick and hurt, as for his owne natural Subjects employd in his Service: Be pleas’d in your next to give the World the Vindication which is due to us, and in particular to Sir. Your etc. London 24: February 1664:

1 As L’Estrange did not begin publishing the Gazette until November 1665, Evelyn must be referring to Newes Published for Satisfaction and Information of the People, issued on Thursdays. See Kemp, “The Works of Roger L’Estrange: An Annotated Bibliography,” in Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture, ed. Duncan-Page and Lynch, 211-12. 2 Evelyn records this “complaint” on 8 February (Diary III.397–8). L’Estrange’s Newes reports Dutch allegations of the “barbarous usage of their Prisoners” in the issue of 23 February (Issue 16, 121). 3 Michiel van Goch (1603–68; Diary). Van Goch was the Dutch ambassador to England from 1660–2 and again from June 1664 to December 1665. 4 Chelsea College. Founded as a college to promote controversy against Roman Catholicism, it was derelict by this time when it was used for Dutch prisoners. After the war it was granted to the Royal Society but was subsequently demolished and replaced by Chelsea Hospital.

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Christopher Wren Letter 238 [236] April 4, 1665 f 136v

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Epistle CCXXXVI To Dr. Christopher Wren etc.

Sir, You may please to remember that some time since I begg’d a favour of you in behalfe of my little boy:1 he is now susceptible of Instruction, a Pleasant, and (though I speake it) a most ingenious and pregnant Child: My designe is to give him good education; he is past many initial difficulties, and conquers all things with incredible industry: Do me that eternal obligation, as to enquire out, and recommend to me some Young man for a Præceptor:2 I will give him £20 per annum Sallary, and such other accommodations as shall be no ways disagreable to an ingenuous spirit; and possibly I may do him other advantages: In all cases, he will find his condition with us easy, his scholar a delight, and the conversation not to be despis’d: This obliges me to wish he may not be a morose, or severe Person, but of an agreable temper. The qualities I require are, that he be a perfect Græcian and if more than vulgarly Mathematical, so much the more accomplish’d for my designe: Myne owne defects in the Greeke tongue and knowledge of its usefullnesse, obliges me to mention that particular with an extraordinary note, in summ, I would have him as well furnish’d as might be for the laying of a permanent and solid foundation: The Boy is capable beyond his yeares; and if you encounter one thus qualified, I shall receive it amongst the greate good fortunes of my life that I obtaynd it by the benefit of your friendship, for which I have ever had so perfect an esteeme: There is no more to be say’d, but that when you have found the Person, you direct him immediately to me, that I may receive, and value him. Sir, I am told by Sir John Denham3 that you looke towards France this sommer: be assur’d, I will charge you with some addresses to Friends of mine there, that shall exceedingly cherish you; and though you will stand in no neede of my reccommendations, yet, I am confident you will not refuse the offer of those Civilities which I shall bespeake you. There has layne at Dr. Needhams4 a Copy of the Parallel5 bound up for you, and long since design’d you, which I shall intreate you to accept; not as a recompence of your 1 John Evelyn Jr was 10. 2 John Evelyn Jr’s tutor had been Edward Phillips. Evelyn notes that Phillips had left the position to enter into the service of the earl of Pembroke (27 February; Diary III.401). Phillips’s departure seems to have been on friendly terms. He wrote from Oxford in October, where he had gone to escape the plague (Add 78317: f 55 [10.9.1665]), and Evelyn would subsequently recommend him for other positions (see Letter 293 and Letter 388). Phillips was replaced in the summer of 1665 by Ralph Bohun, nephew of Ralph Bathurst, who was recommended by John Wilkins (Diary III.416). Bohun seems to have been more strict. A letter to Evelyn from R. Waith informs him that John Jr had attempted to run away because of his tutor’s harshness (Harris, Transformations of Love, 71). 3 Sir John Denham (1614/15–69; ODNB), the poet, was named surveyor of works in 1660 and made a knight of the bath in 1661. Evelyn provided Wren with introductions to his contacts in France when Wren visited Paris, intending to meet Bernini. See Jardine, On a Grander Scale, 239–47. 4 Jasper Needham 5 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664)

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many favours to mee, much lesse, a thing in the least assistant to you (who are your selfe a Master) but as a toaken of my respect, as the Booke it selfe is of the affection I beare to an Art which you so hapily Cultivate Deare Sir I am your etc.

Says-Court 4: April 1665

Thomas Clifford Letter 239 [237] April 20, 1665 f 137

Epistle CCXXXVII To Sir Thomas Clifford:

Sir, Upon receipt of yours of the 17th instant,1 I repair’d to my Lord Arlington,2 and from him to his Majestie who on sight of your letter added his particular Commands, that upon arival of the Prisoner I should immediately bring young Everse3 to him, and that then he would instruct me farther how he would have him treated. Which I perceive will be with greate respect, and some thinke with liberty; for the other Captaine,4 that I should pursue his Royal Highnesses directions: and in order to this, I have commanded my Martial5 to be ready: I am sorry we are like to have so many wounded men in their Company, but I have taken all the care I can for their accomodation: I pray send me a list of the names and qualities of our prisoners, they being so apt to contrive and forme stories of themselves, that they may passe for Embdeners6 or Danes: I thanke God all our affaires are here in good order: I did yesterday repaire to the Commissioners of the Navy to remove the obstruction which hinderd our Receiver from touching the effects of our Privy Seale, they pretending a defect in the order, which I have been faine to carry back to the Councill: Collonel Reymes7 writes for £700: Sir here have been an host of Women, making moane for their losse in the unfortunat London.8 I have with much artifice appeazd them for

1 See Add 78320: f 63 (17.4.1665). 2 Henry Bennet 3 Cornelis Evertsen (1642–1706; Diary, N). The son of Cornelis Evertsen the Old (1610–66) who was lieutenant general in Zeeland and the nephew of Jan Evertsen (1600–66), Evertsen was captain of one of the two Dutch ships captured on 15 April 1665. Evelyn discussed the treatment of Evertsen with Charles II on 20 April, and presented him to the king on 24 April. See Diary III.406–7. 4 Captain Masters; see Add 78320: f 63 (17.4.1665). 5 Evelyn’s marshal at Dover was Capt. John Slowman (see Add 78399: ff 67–115). 6 Evelyn notes six captives from Emden, Germany (i.e., mercenaries, not Dutch) in June 1665 (Diary III.412). 7 Bullen Reymes 8 The London was a frigate of 1,104 tons that blew up accidentally on 7 March 1665 with the loss of more than 300 men. Evelyn gives an account of this in Diary III.403, 408.

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the ­present; but they are realy objects of much pitty; and I have counseld them to make choyce of some discreete Person to represent to us their respective losses, and expectations, that we may consider their cases without clamor and disturbance: Sir, I am ravishd to heare our fleete is in so flourishing a Condition, I pray God continue it, and give you all successe: I would beg the presentment of my most humble Duty to his Royall Highnesse, and that you will grace with your more particular Commands Sir Your etc. London 20: April 1665

Michiel van Goch Letter 240 [238] April 27, 1665 f 137v

Epistle CCXXXVIII To my Lord Ambassador of Holland

[LM: Mÿn Here Goch] My Lord Upon mentioning your Excellencys desire of obtayning his Majesties favour for the Captaine of the Salomon,1 his Majestie is pleased that upon your Excellencys Word that he shall not transgresse this indulgence, to permit him the liberty of your Excellencys house; as Captain Masters2 enjoys it; Your Excellency obliging your Parole, that he shall be forth-comming at his Majesties Pleasure: This is what I was commanded to signifie to your Excellency who am My Lord Your Excellencys etc. White-hall 24 April 1665:

Captain Evertse,3 will shortly receive a farther testimony of his Majesties generosity and graces:

1 Jan Roelofsze. Koningh Solomon was sunk by the English fleet in the straits of Smyrna in the previous December. Evelyn records the order for his release on 24 April 1665 (Diary III.407). 2 the captain of the other Dutch ship captured with Evertsen. See Clifford’s letter of 17 April (Add 78320: f 63 [17.4.1665]) and Letter 239. 3 Cornelis Evertsen. See Letter 239.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Monck Letter 241 [239] May 30, 1665 ff 137v–8

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Epistle CCXXXIX To his Grace the Duke of Albemarle:1

May it please your Grace, Being here at Dover for the examining and auditing my Accoumpts, as one of his Majesties Commissioners in this Kentish district; and finding that our Prisoners at the Castle here, since their late attempt to escape through the Magazine (over which they had till then a very spacious and convenient roome to Lodge in) are now for want of accommodation necessitated to be kept in a very straite Place; by meanes whereof they grow miserably sick; and are indeede reduced to a sad condition, which cannot be remedyed without extraordinary inconvenience to the Lieutennant:2 My most humble suite to your Grace is, that you will be pleas’d to give Order they may be conveyed to Chelsey Colledge; and the rather, that there being no greate numbers of them, it will be hardly worth the while and charge to maintaine Officers for them here and particular Guards: The Condition of the poore-men (who suffer for the attempt of some of their more daring fellowes) is very deplorable nor can it be prevented without enlargement of their quarters; which the Governer cannot spare them without danger. I have already inform’d your Grace how much we suffer by the scrupules of those Vessells, who refuse to transport our recover’d men to the Fleete; which makes me againe to supplicate your Graces fresh orders; It would infinitely conduce to his Majesties Service: But of this, as of Severall other Particulars I shall render your Grace a more ample accoumpt at my returne to London, where I shall not faile to do my duty to your Grace, as becomes May it please your Grace: Your Graces etc. Dover 30: May: 1665

1 Monck had been created Baron Monck of Potheridge, Beauchamp, and Teyes, earl of Torrington, and duke of Albemarle in July 1660. Evelyn’s correspondence with him in his role as Commissioner is in Add 78320 and Add 78678. 2 John Strode. Evelyn records being at Deal finishing his accounts on 1 June (Diary III.409).

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John Strode Letter 242 [240] June 10, 1665 f 138

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Epistle CCXXXX To The Governor of Dover-Castle:

[RM: John Stroode Esquire]1 Sir, I ariv’d Yesterday so late to Dover, that I could not in good manners importune you: To day I was to waite on you at the ship, and after, at the Prize-Office (as Sir Francis Clarke2 can Wittnesse) but neither was it there my good fortune to encounter you: I came then to the Castle, where I found you sufficiently employd, or diverted rather with a Lady, whose Conversation needed no suppliment: Madame Fiennes3 has an excellent talent and you too much a Cavalier to abandon the Sex to receive a Compliment from me, though I do assure you I came with a very greate ambition to kisse your hands, and to acknowledge the many favours I have receiv’d from you: I made bold to give a Visite to our Prisoners, and to leave the sense of myne infinite obligations to you with that worthy Gentleman your Brother.4 The necessity of my speedy returne to London will excuse this abrupt departure from these quarters, and this Expresse the regrett of going in this manner, who am Sir Your etc. Deale 10: June 1665

1 Strode was the lieutenant-governor of the castle. 2 Sir Francis Clerke (c.1624–86; H, Pepys Diary). He was elected to Parliament in 1660 where he became an advocate for the sick and wounded during the Second Anglo-Dutch war, though he was subsequently accused of irregularities as a “prize commissioner” in that war. He was also a colleague of Pepys in the Navy Office and with him on the Commission of the Chatham Chest as well as the collector of the hearth tax in Kent in the 1660s. 3 This could not be the famous traveller, Celia Fiennes, who was born in 1662 but might well be her mother Frances, née Whitehead whose husband (1608?–69), like John Strode, had had a distinguished military career during the Commonwealth. 4 Sir Nicholas Strode (1624–83; Diary). He was an examiner in chancery and a barrister. One of his brothers, George, married the daughter of Evelyn’s neighbour, Sir Nicholas Crisp.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Bennet Letter 243 [241] June 13, 1665 f 138r–v

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Epistle CCXLI To my Lord Arlington Principal Secretary Of State etc.

My Lord, In obedience to your Lordships Commands I am now ariv’d at the Downes, but find none of the Fleete in this roade;1 nor are there any Prisoners, or Wounded-men sent to any of the Ports in this quarter, the Wind being contrary: I am therefor dispatching Dr. Clarke2 to Harwich where I conceive there may be more neede of him: I have in the meane time given notice to the Mayor of Canterbury and Rochester what is his Majesties Pleasure; that so they may not be surprized. To morrow I am for Dover, to see the state of affaires there, and if within some competent time I heare nothing from the Fleete, shall shape my Course to London, and receive your Lordships Commands: My Lord I am in all humble submission Your Lordships etc. Deale 13: June 1665:

Joseph Williamson1 Letter 244 [242] June 13, 1665 f 138v

Epistle CCXLII To Joseph Williamson Esquire Secretary to My Lord Arlington:

Sir, Since the sealing up my Packet to my Lord2 having sent on board the Captaine of the Elizabeth3 (come lately into this roade) I am inform’d that the whole Fleete is at Soale 1 The fleet was in Sole Bay (i.e., Southwold) from 8–14 June (Diary III.411, n. 2). See Letter 244. 2 Timothy Clarke (d. 1672; Pepys Diary). Clarke became an MD in 1652 and a member of the College of Physicians in 1654. By 1660 he had been chosen physician in ordinary to the royal household, and his friend Pepys records his having done dissections before the king. Clarke was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society. 1 Sir Joseph Williamson (1633–1701; ODNB). In 1660 named under-secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas, secretary of state for the south. An original fellow of the Royal Society, Williamson became its president (1677–80). He was made clerk of the Privy Council and knighted in 1672, and became secretary of state (1674–8). 2 Henry Bennet (see Letter 243) 3 Captain Robert Robinson (1653–c.1682) held seventeen commands. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War he wrote frequently to Pepys who kept two of his later dispatches in his library. See Pepys Diary VII.424 and CSP Dom 1665: Aug. 1665.

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bay with seaven Dutch-men of Warr, taken in this last conflict: That most of the Prisoners and Wounded Persons are sent up the river, besides such as are entertaind at Ipswich and Colchester under the Care of Sir William D’oily4 my brother Commissioner: This being all at present, I will shorten the importuning you longer from Sir Your etc.

Deale: 13 June: 1665

Thomas Clifford Letter 245 [243] June 9, 1665* ff 138v–9

Epistle CCXLIII To Sir Thomas Clifford

[LM: afterwards Lord high Tressurer of England:] Sir I was in precinct for my journey when your Letter ariv’d, which imparted to us that most glorious Victory,1 in which you have had the honor to be a signal atchiver: I pray God we may improve it as becomes us. His Royall Highnesse2 being safe becomes a double instance of rejoycing to us; and I do not know that ever I beheld a greater and more sollemn expression of it, unlesse it were that on his Majesties restauration, than this whole Citty testified the last night, and which I cannot easily figure to you without hyperbolies: I am heartily sorry for those Heros that are fallen, though it could not have been in a more transcendent occasion. Sir, I communicated your letter to my Lord Arlington,3 and to his Majestie who read it greedily: My greatest solicitude is now how to dispose of the Prisoners in case you should be necessitated to put them in at the Downes, in order to which my Lord Duke of Albermarle4 has furnish’d me with 400 Foote and a troop of Horse, to be commanded by me for Guards if neede require; and I am just now going to put all things in order: His Grace concluds with me that Dover Castle would be the most convenient place for their Custody, but would by no meanes invade his Royal Highnesses particular Province there without his highnesses consent, and therefore advises me to write to his Highnesse for positive Commands to the Lieutennant:5 It is therefore my humble request

4 William Doyley

1 2 3 4 5

the battle of Lowestoft fought on 3 June 1665 (Diary III.410). duke of York. He returned to London on 16 June (Diary III.411). Henry Bennet George Monck John Strode

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that you will move him therein, it being of so greate importance at this time, and not onely for his Castle of Dover; but the Forts likewise neere it; and that (besides my owne Guards) he would be pleasd to order that a competent number of Land Souldiers might be sent you with them from on board, to prevent all accidents, till they come safe to me; for it was so likewise suggested by his Grace, who dissmiss’d me with this facetious, but just expedient: Mr. Evelyn, says he, when we have fill’d all the Goailes in the Country with our Prisoners, if they be not sufficient to containe them; as they sent our Men to the EastIndies last yeare, We will send them to the West this-Yeare by a just retaliation. I thing Sir, I thinke fit to let you understand, that I have 3 days since obtaynd of the Councill a PrivySeale, which I moved might be £20000 in reguard of the occasion; together with the Use and Disposal of the Savoy-Hospitall6 (which I am now repairing and fitting up, having given order for 50 beds to be new made and other Utensils) all which was graunted. I also obtaind an Order of Councill for power both to add to our Servants, and to reward them as we should see cause. His Majestie has sent me 3 chests of Linnen, which he was pleasd to tell me of himselfe before I knew they were gon; so mindfull, and obliging he is, that nothing may be wanting. Sir, I have no more to add, but the addresses of my most humble duty to his Royall Highnesse and my Service to Mr. Coventry from Sir Your etc. Paynters-Hall7 London 16 June: 1665:

John Earle1 Letter 246 [244] June 18, 1665 f 139

Epistle CCXLIV To my Lord Bishop of Salisbury:

My Lord, I can upon no pretence of mine owne hope to obtayne a favour, which I yet I am oblig’d to tempt you to grant to a friend of mine, who believes I have a greater interest in you, than I can any ways clayme: But I do assure you the Subject is worthy for his Person,

6 Diary III.409–10 7 Painters Hall was the hall of the Painter-Stainers livery company in Little Trinity Lane, southeast of St Paul’s Cathedral where the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen usually met. This letter is misdated; it should be 9 June. See de Beer, “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford,” 130. 1 John Earle (1601?–65; ODNB). Evelyn knew him in Paris where he was chaplain to Charles II and had conducted his marriage. After the restoration he became bishop of Worcester (1662) and Salisbury (1663).

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Gravity and Abilities who has a very greate ambition to be obliged and neere to your Lordship in the station, or preferment of Dr. Reeves2 Archdeacon and Canon of Sarum; or Prebend there (for I know not the particulars) whom he heares is dead, or past recovery. The Gentlemans name (for whom I supplicat your grace) is one Mr. Beale,3 Doctor in Divinity; formerly of Kings-Colledge in Cambrig, and traveld with Sir Henry Wotton:4 a Person without reproch for his Piety, Learning and Cathedral genius. I will not make any other relation of mine to him the least ingredient, or motive; though it be the neerest, and indeede the greatest and most sacred; an intire, and (for many merits) an establish’d friendship; because I know his owne deserts sufficiently qualifie him, and I have strong inclynations to do him what service lyes in my power in this particular instance, if it may consist with your Lordships greate favour to My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 18 June: 1665.

Peter Wyche1 Letter 247 [245] June 20, 1665 ff 139–40v

Epistle CCXLV To Sir Peter Wiche knight

[RM: Chaire-man of a Comittie appointed by the Royall Society to consider of the improvement of the English tongue]2 Sir, This crude Paper (which beggs your pardon) I should not have presum’d to transmit in this manner; but to obey your commands, and to save the imputation of being thought

2 John Ryves (1593–1665). He was a canon of Salisbury (1625), archdeacon of Berkshire (1634), and then canon of Winchester 3 John Beale had been at Eton when Wotton was provost, and had resigned his fellowship at Kings in 1640. See Stubbs, “John Beale: Philosophical Gardener of Herefordshire: Preface to the Royal Society (1606–1663).” 4 Henry Wotton (1568–1639; ODNB), diplomat and writer, and appointed provost of Eton in 1624. Beale had been his protégé. 1 Sir Peter Wyche (1628–d. in or after 1699; ODNB). He was an early member of the Royal Society. He served on the council of the society in 1663 and 1670, and remained on the list of members until 1693. Wyche chaired the society’s committee investigating means of improving the English language. See Emerson, “John Dryden and a British Academy.” 2 Letter 247 was published in part in The Gentleman’s Magazine 67, pt 1 (1797), 218–19. Evelyn reports that on 24 January “I was of a committee selected out of our Assmbly, for the Improvement of our English tongue” (Diary III.396). De Beer (n. 4) says that it had been appointed on 7 December, and would

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unwilling to labour; though it be but in gathering straw: My greate infelicity is, that the meeting being on Tuesdays in the afternoone, I am in a kind of despaire of ever gratifying myne inclinations, to in a Conversation which I so infinitely honor, and that would be so much to mine advantage; because the very houre interferes with an Employment, which being of publique concernement,3 I can no way dispense with: I mention this to deplore myne owne misfortune onely, not as it can signifie to any losse of yours, which cannot be sensible of so inconsiderable a member. I send you not-withstanding these mine indigested thoughts; and that attempt upon Cicero, which you enjoind me. I conceive the reason both of additions to, and the Corruption of the English Language, as of most other Tongues, has proceeded from the same Causes; namely from Victories, Plantations, Frontieres, Staples of Commerce, Pedantry of Scholes, Affectation of Travellers, Translations, Fancy and Style of Court, Vernility and mincing of Cittizens, Pulpits, Politique Remonstrations, Theaters, Shopps, etc. The parts affected with it, we find to be the Accent, Analogy, Direct Interpretation, Tropes, Phrases, and the like: 1. I would therefore humbly propose, that there might first be compil’d a Grammar for the Præcepts; which (as it did the Romane, when Crates4 transferr’d the Art to Rome that Citty, follow’d by Diomedes, Priscian and others who undertooke it) might onely insist on the Rules, the onely sole meanes to render it a learned, and learnable tongue: 2. That with this a more certaine Orthography were introduc’d, as by leaving out superfluous letters etc. such as (o) in Weomen, People etc. u, in honour: a, in Reproach etc. ugh in though etc. 3. That there might be invented some new Periods, and Accents, besides such as our Grammarians and Critics use, to assist, inspirit, and modifie the Pronuntiation of Sentences and to stand as markes beforehand how the voice and tone is to be governd as in the reciting of Playes, reading of Verses etc. for the varying the tune of the Voyce, and affection etc.

meet in the rooms of Sir Peter Wyche. See Birch, The History of the Royal Society, I, 499 and II, 7. Its twenty-two members included Evelyn (who was unable to participate actively in its work because of the demands of the war) and John Wilkins. This is a subject that continued to interest Evelyn and is also dealt with in Letter 619 and Letter 622 (1 October 1689) to Pepys, to which he appends passages from this letter. See Lewis, Language, Mind and Nature: Artificial Languages in England from Bacon to Locke, 146–9, for the larger context of the work of this committee. The suggestion (in Evelyn’s item 5) that there be a collection of technical words is related to Evelyn’s unpublished history of trades and looks forward to John Harris’s Lexicon Technicum (London, 1704–10; Eve.c.18). 3 The meeting of the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen was also on Tuesday afternoon. 4 Evelyn looks to the Latin precedent of systematic grammars as a model to be emulated for English. Interest in the grammatical study of Latin (based on Greek models) was thought by the Romans to have been initiated by Crates, who (according to Suetonius, De Grammaticis 2) lectured on poetry in Rome around 168 BC. Diomedes was a late fourth-century AD grammarian, whose surviving work is De Oratione et Partibus Orationis et Vario Genere Metrorum libri III (Ars grammaica). Priscian (late fifth and early sixth centuries AD) was the author of the Institutiones grammaticae, the most influential systematic exposition of Latin grammar. See Keil, Grammatici Latini, (Leipzig: Teubner, 1855–80); Michael, English Grammatical Categories and the Tradition to 1800, 9–24.

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4. To this might follow a Lexicon,5 or Collection of all the pure English-Words by themselves; then those which are derivative from others, with their prime, certaine and natural significations, then, the Symbolical; so as no innovation might be us’d or favourd; at least ’till there should arise some necessity of providing a new Edition, and of amplifi[y]ng the old upon mature advise. 5. That in order to this, some were appointed to Collect all the technical words; especialy those of the more generous employments; as the Author of the Essaies des Merveilles de Nature, et des plus nobles Artifices6 has don for the French: Francis Junius and others have endeavor’d for the Latine,7 but of this must be gleaned from shops, not Bookes: and has ben of late attemptd by Mr. Moxom;8 6. That things difficult to be understood translated or expressd, and such as are as it were, incommensurable one to another; as determinations of Weights, and Measures; Coines, Honors, National-habits, Armes, Dishes, Drinkes, Municipal Constitutions of Courts; old, and abrogated Costomes etc. were better interpreted than as yet we find them in Dictionaries, Glossaries, and noted in the Lexicon. 7. That a full Catalogue of exotic-Words; such as are daily minted by our Logodædali were exhibited, and that it were resolved on what should be sufficient to render them Currant, ut Civitate donetur,9 since without restraining that same indomitam novandi verbi licentiam,10 it will in time, quite disguize the Language: There are some elegant Words introduc’d by Physitians chiefely, and Philosophers worthy to be retained; others it may be, fitter to be abrogated; since there ought to be a Law, as well as a liberty in this particular. And in this choyce, there would be some reguard had to the well sounding, and more harmonious words, and such as are numerous, and apt to fall gracefully into their Cadences and Periods, and so reccommend themselves at the very first sight as it were; others, which (like false stones) will never shine, in what-ever light they be placed; but embase the rest: And here I note, that such as have lived long in Universities doe greately affect words and expressions no where in use besides, as may be observed

5 Edward Phillips had been tutor to Evelyn’s son, John Jr. See Letter 238, note 2 and his New World of English Words (London, 1658) was undoubtedly an influence in these recommendations. Evelyn was also conscious of the attempts to codify the French language by the members of the Académie française (see Letter 619). 6 René François (pseud. for Étienne Binet), Essay des merveilles de nature, et des plus nobles artifices. Pièce très necessaire à tous ceux qui font profession d’éloquence. Seconde édition ... augmentée par l’autheur (Rouen, 1622). 7 Gerardus Vossius, De quatuor artibus popularibus, de philologia, et scientiis mathematicis, cui operi subjungitur, chronologia mathematicorum, libri tres, ed. Franciscus Junius (Amsterdam, 1650). See also Junius’s philological manuscripts now in the Bodleian. 8 The reference to Joseph Moxon is a later addition to the manuscript, entered after the publication of Mechanick Dyalling, teaching ... to draw a true Sun-Dyal on any given plane ... only with the help of a straight ruler and a pair of compasses, and without any arithmetical calculation (London, 1668) and Mechanick exercises, or, The doctrine of handy-works (London, 1677–83; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1055). 9 “so that it might be granted to the citizenry” 10 “untamed license of inventing words”

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in ­Cleavelands-Poems11 for Cambridg; and there are also some Oxford-words us’d by ­others, as I might instance in severall. 8. Previous to this to this it would be enquir’d what particular Dialects, Idiomes and Proverbs were in use in every several Country of England; for the Words of the present age being properly the Vernacula, or Classic rather, special reguard is to be had of them; and this consideration admits of infinite improvements. 9. And happly it were not amisse, that we had a Collection of the most quaint and Courtly expressions, by way of Florilegium or Phrases; distinct from the Province: For we are infinitely defective as to civil Addresses, excuses and formes upon suddaine and unpremeditated (though ordinary) encounters: etc. in which the French, and Italian and Spanyards have a kind of natural grace and talent, which furnishes the Conversation, and renders it very agreable: here may come in Synonimas, Homonymas etc. 10. And since there is likewise a manifest rotation and Circling of Words which goe in, and out like the mode and fashion; Bookes would be consulted for the reduction of some of the old layd-aside-words and Expressions had formerly in deliciis; for our Language is in some places sterile and barren; by reason of this depopulation, as I may call it; and therefore such places should be new cultivated, and enrich’d either with the former (if significant) or some other: For example, we have hardly any words that do so fully expresse the French clinquant, naifaetie, Ennüii, bizarre, concert, façoniere, Chicaneries, Consumme, Emotion, Defer, effort, shocque, entoure, défaute or Italian Vagezze, Garbato, Svelto croopo,12 etc. Let us therefore (as the Romans did the Greeke) make as many of these do homage, as are like to prove good citizens subjects etc. 11. Something might likewise be well translated out of the best Orators and Poets: Greeke Latine and even out of the Moderne Languages; that so some judgement might be made concerning the Elegancy of the style, and so a laudable, and unaffected imitation of the best reccommended to Writers: 12. Finaly, There must be a stock of reputation gain’d by some publique Writings and Compositions of the Members of this Assembly, that so others may not thinke it dishonor to come under the Test, or accept them for Judges and Approbators: And if the designe were ariv’d thus far, I conceive a very small matter would dispatch the Art of Rhetoric, which the French propos’d as one of the first things they recommended to their late ­Academitians: I am Sir, Your most etc. Says-Court: 20: June: 1665

11 The early poems of John Cleveland, written largely while he was at Cambridge (1627–31) were first printed in Poems. By J.C. ([London], 1651). See Cleveland, The Poems, l–lv for evidence of their earlier and continuing circulation in manuscript. 12 Most of these words have now entered the English language in modified spelling. Of those that have not, clinquante means “bright, meretricious, vulgar”; façoniere means “manner”; entoure means “surrounded”; vagezze are “longings, delights”; garbato means “agreeable, in good taste, genial.”

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Henry Hyde Letter 248 [246] June 21, 1665 ff 140v–1v

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Epistle CCXLVI To my Lord Vicount Cornebery

My Lord, Those who defin’d History to be Disciplina Composita de bono practico obtinendo1 pointed us to that use of it which every Wise-man is to make of it by his reading of Authors: But as it is the Narration Rerum gestarum,2 (for whatever is matter of Fact, is the subject of History) your Lordship cannot expect I should at this distance from my study,3 and Bookes of that kind be able to present you with so compleate a series of Authors as you require of me; much lesse such a Method, as your affection for so noble a resolution, and so becomming a greate Person, dos truely merit: However, that this may not be looked on as an excuse; and that I may in some measure obey your Lordships Commands; I shall as far as my talent, and my faithlesse Memory serves me at Present, give your Lordship the names of those Authors which have deservedly been esteemed the most worthy and instructive of those greate and memorable Actions of the Ages past:4 A Recention of the Greeke Historians5 from the Reigne of Cyrus (before which we

1 History is “a discipline concerned with obtaining practical goodness.” Johann Heinrich Alsted, Scientiarum omnium Encyclopaediæ (Lyon, 1649), IV, 25. Evelyn’s copy (Herborn, 1630) is Eve.c.6. 2 of things done, past events 3 As this “letter” is alleged to be written at Hyde’s house, it is no “letter” in the ordinary sense but an instructional essay in epistolary form of the sort that Evelyn was to write, particularly to Pepys, over the next three decades. Even if imagined (or fictionalized) as emerging at some “distance from my study, and Bookes” it provides a model of Evelyn’s use of his library and commonplace books in assembling, archiving, and retrieving knowledge. 4 The “greate and memorable Actions of the Ages past” are explicitly understood to belong to the world of classical antiquity, from Herodotus and the emergence of “Prophane History” to Justinian, the last great Roman emperor, responsible for the codification of Roman law. The “later Periods from Valens and the Gotic Emperors to our Times” (see below) are to be investigated after this first course of study. 5 Evelyn’s library, as described in the 1687 catalogue, was stronger in Latin than in Greek historical writing. Some of his surviving copies are annotated. For Herodotus he lists a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Frankfurt, 1608) and Du Ryer’s French translation (Paris, 1677); for Thucydides, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Frankfurt, 1594) and Hobbes’s English translation (London, 1629; Eve.b.38); for Xenophon,

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have nothing of Credible in any Prophane History)6 ’til after Justinian, and the confusion of the Roman-Empire by the Goths and Vandals: 1. Herodotus. 2. Thucydides. 3. Xenophon. 4. Polybius. 5. Diodorus Siculus.

6. Dionysius ­Halicarnassus. 7. Josephus. 8. Arrianus 9. Appianus:

10. Dion-Cassius. 11. Herodian. 12. Zosimus. 13. Procopius. 14. Agathias. etc.

The Latine Historians7 from the Foundation of Rome, to the death of the Emperor Valens 1 Salust, 2 Caesar, 3 Titus Livius: 4 Velleius Paterculus. 5 Quintus Curtius. 6 Tacitus, 7 L. Florus. 8 Suetonius. 9 Justinus. 10 Ammianus Marcellinus etc.

a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Frankfurt, 1596), Nicholas Perrot’s French translation of the Anabasis (Paris, 1665), François Charpentier’s French translation of the Cyropaedia (Amsterdam, 1661), and John Newman’s English translation of the Hellenica (London, 1685); for Polybius, a bilingual edition prepared by Isaac Casaubon (Frankfurt, 1619; Eve.c.5) and Du Ryer’s French translation (Paris, 1670); for Diodorus Siculus, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Hanau, 1604); for Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Latin translation (Basle, 1549; Eve.b.24); for Josephus, Arnauld d’Andilly’s French translation (Brussels, 1676); for Arrian, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Amsterdam, 1668) and a French translation (Paris, 1664); for Appian, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Amsterdam, 1670) and an English translation (London, 1578); for Dion Cassius, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Geneva, 1591 and Paris, 1592; Eve.c.7); for Herodian, bilingual Greek and Latin editions (Geneva, 1581; Oxford, 1678), an English translation (London, 1635) and a French translation (Paris, 1675); for Zosimus, a bilingual Greek and Latin edition (Oxford, 1679) and an English translation (London, 1684; Eve.a.35); for Procopius and Agathias no copies are listed in the 1687 catalogue but see Evelyn Library, no 1218 (Paris, 1662–3) and no 9 (Paris, 1660). 6 “The Reign of Cyrus is properly the Beginning of prophane history” (Add 15950: f 2). This is in a series of undated working papers now catalogued as “Notes for the study of universal history” (ff 1–75). 7 All of the Roman historians are represented in the 1687 catalogue in multiple editions and translations. For Sallust, the catalogue lists Latin texts (Antwerp 1564, Amsterdam 1621, and 1624, Leiden 1677), and French (Paris, 1670 and English (London, 1687) translations; for Caesar, Latin texts (Frankfurt, 1606; Amsterdam, 1621; Leiden, 1635; Amsterdam, 1670) and French (Paris, 1638 and 1650) and English (London, 1677) translations; for Livy, Latin texts (Leiden, 1645; Amsterdam, 1679) and French (Paris, 1669) and English (London, 1686) translations; for Velleius Paterculus, Latin texts (Heidelberg, 1596; Paris, 1675) and an edition in the anthology Historiæ romanæ epitomæ (Amsterdam, 1625); for Quintus Curtius, Latin texts (n.p., 1606; Amsterdam 1664 and 1670) and a French translation (Paris, 1659); for Tacitus, Latin texts (Paris, 1622; Amsterdam, 1623; Strasburg, 1638; Leiden, 1640; Amsterdam, 1673) and French (Paris, 1665) and English (London, 1622) translations; for Florus, Latin texts (Oberusel, 1619; Amsterdam, 1635; Strasburg, 1636) and an English translation (London, 1636); for Suetonius, Latin texts (Geneva, 1611; Amsterdam 1621 and 1650; Leiden, 1667; Oxford, 1676) and a French translation (Paris, 1670); for Justinus, Latin texts (Amsterdam, 1621; Saumur, 1671; Leiden, 1683) and an English translation (London, 1664); for Ammianus Marcellinus, Latin texts (Lyon, 1591; Paris, 1681) and an English translation (London, 1609).

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To these may be superadded8 1 Plutarch, 2 Diogenes Laertius, 3 Philostratus and 4 Eunapius among the Greekes: 1 Cornelius Nepos, 2 Æmilius Probus 3 Spartianus, 4 Lampridius and the 5 Augustæ Scriptores of the Latine etc. but for being more mixd, and lesse methodical, they would haply be read in another order; and if the Greekes have happly writen more even of the Roman story than the Romans themselves, it is what is universaly knowne and acknowledgd by the learned; which has made the enumeration of the one, to exceede the mention of the latter: These are my Lord sufficient to afford your Lordship a fairer and more ample Course, then any of your Quality usualy pretend to; being the best, and most worthy consideration both as the grandeur of Examples, and politure of the Language: As to the later Periods from Valens and the Gotic Emperors to our Times;9 I shall furnish your curiosity, when you have finish’d this stage; for it were now my Lord to discourage you, the very calling over the names of so many; how much more, should I add (which your Lordships Curiosity will desire to dip into, to emerge a Compleate Historian) the Biographi10 or Writers of particular lives, Relations, Negotiations, Memoires etc. which are things apart, and that properly come within the series of the more solid and illustrious Historians: Onely as to that of Chronologie, I conceive it of absolute necessity, that your Lordship joyne it with all your readings, together with some Geographical Author and Guide, whose Tables, Mapps, and Discoveries both for the Antient and modern names, situations and boundaries of the Places you shall with incredible advantage consult, to fix and make it your owne:11 1 Scaligers Emendatio Temporum, 2 Petavius Rationarium 3 Calvisius, 4 Helvicus, or our

8 Evelyn distinguishes between historians and biographers. The 1687 library catalogue lists for Plutarch, a bilingual Greek and Latin text (Paris, 1624) and French (Paris, 1681) and English (London, 1683–6, containing John Evelyn Jr’s translation of the life of Alexander the Great) translations; for Diogenes Laertius, a bilingual Greek and Latin text (Cologne, 1615); for Philostratus and Eunapius no copies are listed; for Cornelius Nepos, a Latin text (Nimeguen, 1663) and an English translation (Oxford, 1684); for Aemilius Probus no copies are listed; Spartianus and Lampridius were among the authors to whom the Historiae Augustae Scriptores was attributed, for which there are Latin texts (Paris, 1620 [Eve.c.3]; Leiden, 1671). 9 i.e., the Christian era 10 i.e., life-writers. The term “biographer” is recorded prior to this date, but Evelyn predates by several years the earliest listing for “biography” in the OED (Joseph Glanvill, Præfatory Answer to Mr. H. Stubbe [1671]). 11 Some of the major tools of chronology and universal history: Joseph Scaliger, Opus de Emendatione Temporum (Leiden, 1615; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1305), but not Denis Petau, Rationarium temporum in partes duas libros decem tributum (Paris, 1633) or Sethus Calvisius, Chronologia, ex autoritate potissimùm Sacræ Scripturæ, et historicorum fide dignissimorum (Leipzig, 1605). He owned Christoph Helwich, Theatrum historicum: sive chronologiae systema novum (Giessen, 1618), Henry Isaacson, Saturni Ephemerides, sive Tabula Historico-chronologica. Containing a chronological series ... of the foure Monarchyes ... As also a Succession of the Kings and Rulers over most kingdomes and estates of the world ... with a compend of the History of the Church of God from the Creation (London, 1633; Evelyn Library, no 814); Phillipus Cluverius, Italia Antiqua (Leiden, 1624; Evelyn Library, no 393) and Sicilia Antiqua (Leiden, 1619; Evelyn Library, no 394); Peter Heylyn, Cosmographie … Containing the chorographie and historie of the Lesser and Greater Asia and all the principall kingdomes, provinces, seas and isles thereof (London, 1652; Evelyn Library, no 740); and the three parts of Willem and Jan Blaeu, Le Théâtre du monde ou Nouvel Atlas (Amsterdam, 1640; Evelyn Library, no 176–8).

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5 Isaacson may suffice to assist you, with 6 Cluerius our 8 Peter Hylen, and the late accurate 9 Atlasses set forth by Bleau: To these may be added as necessary subsidiaries12 1 H. Stephens Historical Dictionary set lately forth in London and if your Lord thinke fit to pursue the Cycle with more expedition, which were likewise to gratifie your Curiosity by a preparartion that will furnish you with a very usefull prospect, before you engage your selfe on the more particulars: There is in English one 1 Howel (not James) who has published a very profitable Compendium of universal history, so far as he has brought it; to which you may joyne what 2 Bishop Usher has set forth in two Volumes, containing the Annales of all the memorable actions and passages which have happned in the Church from the Creation, mingled with divers secular p­ assages of rare remarke, and which may serve you in stead of 1 Barronius, or any of his voluminous Epitomizeri 2 Possevinus Spondanus 3 Peruginus etc. And by that time your Lordship is ariv’d thus far, you will have perform’d more than any man of your Quality can pretend to in Court, by immense degrees, according to my weake observation, who somtimes passe my time at the Circle, where the Gallants produce themselves with all their advantages, and (God knowes) small furniture: Nor will it be difficult for you to goe through the rest with delight and ease, whither you would begin at the present Age, and reade upwards, ’till you meete with the Period where you left off (which is Grotius’s advise to Monsieur ­Maurerius)13 or proceede in that order which you began: But my Lord, of this, as of whatever else you shall judge me worthy to serve you in, I shall endeavor to present your Lordship with something more material, and before digested, when you please to Command My Lord Your etc. Cornebery 21 June 1665

12 Some major reference works: Charles Estienne, Dictionarium historicum, geographicum, poeticum ... gentium, hominum, deorum, gentilium, regionum, locorum ... hac editione auctius et locupletius redditum, (Oxford, 1671; Evelyn Library, no 539); William Howell, The Elements of History. From the creation of the world, to the reign of Constantin the Great (London, 1700; Evelyn Library, no 798); and James Ussher, Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti (London, 1650; Eve.b.42) and Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti: a prima mundi origine deducti usque ad extremum Templi et Reipublicæ Judaicæ excidium (Paris, 1673; Eve.c.28). The 1687 catalogue lists Caesar Baronius, Annales ecclesiastici … udovico Aurelio Perusino in totidem libellos brevissime redacti (Rome, 1636) and Annales ecclesiastici ex XII. tomis Cæsaris Baronii ... in epitomen redacti, opera Henrici Spondani ... & eiusdem illustrissimi Cardinalis auctoritate editi (Mainz, 1618). 13 See Grotius, Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650; in the 1687 library catalogue), Letter XVI to Benjamin Aubéry du Maurier (12 May, 1615), translated in Reeves, “Grotius on the Training of an Ambassador”: “I think it more profitable not to begin with the historians of antiquity, but with those who are closer to our own day and matters of our own knowledge, and then gradually to work into more remote times” (625).

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George Ayscue1 Letter 249 [247] July 1, 1665 f 141v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCXLVII To Sir George Ayscue2

[LM: Vice-Admirall in the greate fight against the Dutch:] Sir, Being lately come downe to Chatham to see the state of our Infirmitorys there;3 I find upon examination, that it will not be possible for them either in that place, or in Rochester itselfe to quarter any more with accommodation; there being already neere 800 sick Persons under our inspection: Wherefore my humble request is, that you will please to Order, that such men as you shall for the future thinke fit to send on shore, may be commanded to Gravesend, Where we have but few, and where there will be all due care taken for them, by Sir Your etc. From on board the Prince at the Buy in the Nore 1: July: 1665:

1 Sir George Ayscue (c.1615–72; ODNB). He was captain of the Henry in October 1664, and was viceadmiral to Edward Mountagu, 1st earl of Sandwich (1625–72; ODNB) throughout 1665. 2 Evelyn notes (Diary III.414) that he also spoke to Ayscue on board the Royal Charles on this day. 3 Evelyn had gone to Chatham on 30 June, and then joined Edward Mountagu to visit the fleet at the Buoy of the Nore at the mouth of the Medway on 1 July 1665 (Diary III.413). Mountagu was placed in ­command of the fleet (replacing the duke of York) on this day; the captain of the Royal Prince (the ship from which the letter is written) was knighted for his role in the battle of Lowestoft. Evelyn’s account of the day in the Diary (III.413–14) provides a sharp contrast to this letter. As they approached the Royal Prince, the men on board “made a greate huzza or shout at our approach 3 times: here we dined with many noble men, Gent: and Volunteeres; served in Plate, and excellent meate of all sorts: after dinner came his Majestie & the Duke & Prince Rupert” (413). Evelyn then boarded the duke of York’s flagship, the Royal Charles for the Council which named Mountagu to his new post, before returning to Chatham.

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William Coventry Letter 250 [248] July 5, 1665 ff 141v–2

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Epistle CCXLVIII To Sir William Coventry: knight Secretary to his Royall Highnesse and one of the honorable Privy-Councill.1

Sir, I thinke it requisite to render your honor this accoumpt of the charge under my present inspection; that finding the Clove-tre, Charles the Vth, and the Zealand2 in greate want of men to carry them out of Chatham, I order’d my Agent there to put on board the first of our recoverd men; so as if my Physitians and Chyrurgeons deceive me not, they will have by the morrow or next day an hundred and fifty-men for their turne: But that which I am more particularly to complaine of, is, the negligence of the Captaine and Purser of the Unity,3 who, having divers assign’d for conveyance to the fleete, I find by my passing Erith (where the Ferdinando lies, and her men in very ill condition) refuses to receive them upon an unreasonable apprehension of infection, though they were of those onely who went on shore for ague: Indeede they ought every one to have produc’d his certificate before they were taken on shore; but the Dukes4 Command from you was to be obeyd without any farther formality: But being now so well restor’d, unlesse your honor provide some meanes to convey them, I cannot undertake for their not scattering themselves upon their first liberty: The accoumpt of the Wounded and sick men in my district amounts to neere 1000, I having no lesse then 13 Chyrurgeons amongst them, and am now providing of fifty beds for extraordinary occasions; but all this will not protect me from the Clamor of sick and dying men, unlesse your honor take some course for the accommodations I last mention’d: I will do the utmost to serve his Majestie, and with as much Conscience, pitty and frugality as becomes me in this worthy instance of his Princly charity; but I cannot hope to emerge without your advice and assistance to Sir Your most etc. Says-Court: 5: July: 1665

1 Evelyn accompanied Coventry to a Council at Syon House on 7 July, and conferred with him again at Hampton Court on 9 July (Diary III.414–15). 2 The Clove Tree was an English ship, The Zealand a capture from the Dutch. The Charles Vth is recorded as in dock for repair in 1665 (CSP Dom.1665–6: 108, 355). 3 The Unity, a 4th rate with forty-two guns was a Dutch prize captured in the Medway raid. The King Ferdinando was a ship of 400 tons burden hired from Capt. Simon Nichols and Ben Henshaw in 1665 from 5 April to 5 October (CSP Dom 1664–5: 28 March et seq). 4 the duke of York, lord high admiral of the fleet

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George Carteret Letter 251 [249] August 14, 1665 f 142 r–v

Epistle CCXLIX To Sir George Carteret Knight and Baronet Vice-Chamberlain to his Majestie Treasurer of the Navy, and one of the honorable Privy Council:

Right Honorable Hearing you are now ariv’d at Salisbury, and knowing you to be the most perfectly acquainted with the greate necessities and straites we are reduc’d to, for want of Effects to defray the growing, and daily charge of the sick and wounded Sea-men, Prisoners, and Hospitals under our Inspection: Without assembling any topics to possesse you with the reason of our application, (having don it at large in my Letter to my Lord Arlington)1 it is my most humble suite (in the name of my Brother Commissioners Sir William Doily, Sir Thomas Clifford etc.) that you will be pleased to represent our Condition to his Majestie and to the Lords of the Council; and to thinke it worthy of your Zeale, and serious consideration for the obtaining an effectualy [sic] supply of Monyes towards the carying on of the charge, and Service in which we are embarqued: Your honor can best judge of the consequence, by what your selfe has seene and heard from the numbers who are daily put on shore, and other circumstances of our Urgent necessities: Be pleased to promote the suite we make to you, for your advise and assistance on this occasion, that so as the poore men who are concern’d may be relieved, so his Majestie may not lack the glory of his pious and princely intentions to them: His Majestie must make account, that this affaire will not be carry[ed] on with lesse then fifty thousand pounds; but as it is absolutely the most considerable of the whole Nation whilest we are at this difference with our Neighbours, so it will import the settling of some thing upon a real fonds for the discharge of it: Sir, I have now layd the necessity before your honor and woud not willingly make my personal complaints and addresses to his Majestie till I am informed from you, what we are to trust to; and in confidence of this favour I remaine Your honors etc. Says-Court 14: August 1665.

1 Henry Bennet

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Monck Letter 252 [250] September 8, 1665 ff 142v–3

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Epistle CCL To his Grace the Duke of Albermarle:

May it please your Grace, At my returne the last night from inspecting my Province in the Kentish District, I found your Graces letter and Commands for the supply of his Majesties Prisoners of Warr at Chelsey-Colledge:1 I am sorry there should be any Complaints; since no longer than moneday last our Treasurer payd our Deputy Martial £200 if I do not forget the summ, for so much I orderd him to pay: Your Grace is pleasd so mention the £2000 lately sent me; but do not withall calculate the excessive charge which our Sick, and Wounded men consume lyeng at the severall Ports, where before a penny of this monye arived, I was indebted neere as much more; and if there be not a more effectual course taken to supply us for the future, by establishing a constant fonds, the whole affaire must of necessity fall to the ground: Wherefore I most humbly beseech your Grace to represent our Condition to my Lord High Treasurer,2 and to the rest of the Council, that before the whole Fleete returne upon us, we may have such encouragements as are indispensably necessary: There is one thing more which I am to move your Grace in, and it is that there may speedily be order’d some fitting Empty Vessell to lye at Anker betweene Woolwich, and Deptford, or such place as your Grace shall assigne, which may serve us a Pest-ship, for such as may be touch’d with this sad Contagion;3 and the like I also request I may have at Chatham, there being severall of our sick men already in very ill condition, which may indanger the rest, and possibly the whole Fleete, which were a callamity unexpressable:4 This being of so greate importance, requires the speediest effect; and I make no question but your Graces letter to the Commissioners of the Navy, will both quicken and perfect the worke; in the meane time, that whatever happen of inconveniency may not be imputed to

1 See Add 78320: f 8 (6.9.1665). 2 Thomas Wriothesley 3 On 7 September, Evelyn notes that he “went to the D: of Albemarle for a Pest-ship” (Diary III.418). He describes passing “all along the Citty & suburbs from Kent streete to St. James’s, a dismal passage & dangerous, to see so many Cofines exposd in the streetes & the streete thin of people, the shops shut up, & all in mournefull silence, as not knowing whose turne might be next” (417–18). Evelyn first notes deaths from the plague on 16 July (Diary III.415). On 2 August “Was the Solemn Fast through England to deprecate Gods displeasure against the Land by Pestilence & War” (415); by 4 August “I went to Wotton to carry my sonn & his Tutor Mr. Bohune … for feare of the Pestilence still increasing both in Lond: & invirons” (416). On 8 August Evelyn recorded 4000 dead in London and by the 28th he sent Mary and most of the rest of the household to Wotton to escape (417). Pepys reports that by 29 August the plague had begun “to grow very great” in Greenwich, Woolwich, and Deptford (Pepys Diary VI.206). 4 On 5 September, Evelyn notes that he transported £900 in his own coach to Chatham (Diary III.417).

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me, I have already advertiz’d them of it; and I suppose they attend your Graces Advice: If this could have been supplied by any other expedient on Land, with halfe that safety, I had provided for against all events; but it dos not succeede. As to the Accoumpt your Grace requires of the Prisoners through all those Articles your Grace has specifid, I have this morning commanded my Officers at Chelsey-Colledge to waite on your Grace with it; and as long as that small remainder of mony will hold out, They shall have no cause justly to complaine; and I am certaine your Grace believes, we shall treate them so as may preserve his Majesties honor in his continu’d munificence to them, whilst I cannot doubt of your Graces intercession that the supplyes which must perpetuate it, may be constant and effectual: I am May it please your Grace Your Graces etc. Says-Court 8th: September 1665.

Henry Hyde Letter 253 [251] September 9, 1665 ff 143–4v

Epistle CCLI To my Lord Vicount Cornebery, Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie etc.

My Lord, I should be exceedingly wanting to my duty, and to the interest you are pleas’d to allow me in your friendship, not to preserve it by such accknowledgements as are due to you by infinite obligations: and if this have not been done oftner; distance, and the many circumstances of a jealous intercourse, will easily obtaine your mercy; for, I sweare to you my Lord there breathes not a man upon earth, who has a greater value for your noble Person; because I have establish’d it upon your Virtues, and that which shines in you above titles, and adjuncts, which I reguard but as the shadows of greate-men, nothing constituent of good, and realy permanent. But my Lord I intend not here a Panegyric, where haply an Epithalamium were due,1 if what has been lately told me, of your Lordships being newly married, or shortly rëentring into those golden fetters, be true. But can your Lordship thinke of such a felicity, and not command me to celebrate it? not as a Poët (for I know not what it meanes) but as one perfectly devoted to your good fortune, since that glory must needes be in my mouth, which is already so profoundly engraven in mine heart. I thought indeede that golden Key which I saw ty’d to your side by that silken riban,2 was the forerunner of some other knot, constant as the Colour, and bright as the mettall. My Lord I joy’d you at Hampton-Court for the one, and I would joy you from Says-Court for 1 Henry Hyde did not marry for a second time until 1674. His first wife, Theodosia Capel, had died in 1662. 2 a reference to Hyde’s office as lord chamberlain to the queen

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the other: You have in the first a dignity conspicuous for the ornament it receives from your Vertues; but in the second, onely, a reward of them above the pearles, and the rubies: ’Tis a Price which fortune owes your Lordship and I can celebrate her justice without flattery. Long may you live under her hapy Empire: When I am certaine of the Particulars, I will strew string more roses on this Chaplet, and make you a Country Gardners Present; if the anxiety of being at this distance from a person whose influence is so necessary, do not altogether wither my Genius. But my Lord give me now leave to entertaine you a little with mine owne particular condition; since as contraries illustrate one another, it cannot but improve your happinesse: After 6978 (and possible halfe as many more conceil’d) which the Pestilence has mow’d downe in London this Weeke:3 neere 30 houses visited in this miserable Village, whereoff one has beene the very neerest to my dwelling; after a servante of mine now sick of a swelling (whom we have all frequented, before our suspicion was considerable pregnant) and which we know not where will determine; behold me a living monument of God-Almightys protection and mercy: It was Saturday last ’ere my Couragious Wife would be perswaded to take th’Alarme; But she is now fled, with most of my family; whilest my Conscience, or something like it which I would have taken for my duty, obliges me to this sad station, ’till his Majestie take pitty on me, and send me a considerable refreshment for the Comfort of these poore Creatures, the Sick and Wounded Sea-men under mine Inspection through all the Ports of my district: For my owne particular, I am resolv’d to do my duty, as far as I am capable, and trust God with the event; but the second causes should coöperate; for in summ, my Lord all will, and must fall into obloquy and desolation, unlesse our supplys be speedily settled on some more solid fonds to carry this important service on: My Brother Commissioner Sir William Doily after an accoumpt of £17000 is indebted above £6000, and my reckoning comes after it a pace: The Prisoners of Warr, our Infirmitories, and the Languishing in 12 other places; the charge of Sallaries to Physitians, Chyrurgeons, Officers, Medicaments, and Quarters, require speedy, and considerable supplies; lesse then £2000 a Weeke will hardly support us: And if I have been the more zealous and descriptive of this sad face of things, and of the Personal danger I am expos’d from to; it is, because I beg it may be an Instance of your goodnesse and charity, to reade this Article of my letter to my Lord your Father,4 who I know has bowels, and may seriously represent it to his Majestie and my Lord high Treasurer:5 For My Lord having made mine attempts at Court by late Expresses on this occasion, I am driven to lay this appeale at his Lordships feete; because having had experience of his favour in mine owne concerne, and privat affaires, I addresse my selfe with a confidence I shall succeede, now that it imports the publique: I dare not apply what St. Paule sayd to Timothy6 (because it dos not become me) but give me liberty to tell alude: I know none (amongst all our Court greate-ones) like minded, who dos naturaly care for our 3 The Bill of Mortality for the week ending 5 September reports 6988 deaths from the plague out of 8252 from all causes (Diary III.417, n. 6). 4 Edward Hyde 5 Thomas Wriothesley 6 possibly a reference to 1 Timothy 2:1–2

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state – The Consectary is – for all seeke their owne. ’Tis my Lord a sad truth, and this no time to flatter: We should succumb under the poiz but for some few such Atlas’es as are content to accept of the burthen, with the honor; which though it makes it sit heavy, makes it sit with a good Conscience, and the expectation of a blessing. I am a plaine Country Gentleman yet heare, and see, and observe, as those in the valies, best discerne the Mountaines; and This Nation is ruin’d for want of activity, on our parts; religion and gratitude to God on all. But my Lord, I tirannize your Patience; pardon the excesse, I have not often the opportunity, and God knows when I may enjoy another, who daily carry my life in myne hands: If the malignity of this sad Contagion spend no faster before Winter, the Calamity will be indicible. But let me now acquainte your Lordship how I passe those moments, with my assiduous Prayers to God for your prosperity, and my service of his Majestie do not take up: I’ts now about 2 moneths since I consign’d a large Epistle to Royston: for that Piece, your Lordship enjoynd me to publish in consequence of the former,7 and which I have made bold to inscribe to my Lord Chancellor under some-what an ænigmatical Character; because of the invidiousnesse of the Argument: The booke it selfe was quite finish’d, and wrought off; but Royston being fled, and the Presses dissolv’d, we cannot hope to get our freedome, till it please God in mercy to abate the Contagion: This is that which hinders us from that most incomparable Piece of Mr. Stillingfleetes-friend against Seargeant,8 and divers other particulars; which, though printed, will not as yet be publish’d; both Venders, and buyers, and readers being universaly scattred. As to our Philosophical Concernes Dr. Wilkins,9 Sir William Petty, and Mr. Hoock10 with our Operator11 live alltogether at my Lord George Barclays12 at Durdens neere my Brother, where they are excogitating new riggings for ships, new Charriots, and new Ploughs etc.; so as I know not of such 7 Evelyn’s The Pernicious Consequences of the New Heresie of the Jesuites against The King and the State was printed by J. Flesher for Richard Royston in 1666 (the BL catalogue is mistaken in assigning it to 1664). The cipher at the beginning of the dedicatory preface contains all of the letters in “Clarendon” but is not easily decoded. See Keynes, Bibliography, 174–7. “[T]he former” is his 1665 Μυστήριον τη~ς ἀνομίας. That is, Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism. 8 Edward Stillingfleet; John Sergeant (1622–1707), a Roman Catholic controversialist was engaged in a controversy with Thomas Pierce about the infallibility of the Scripture, a subject dear to Stillingfleet’s heart. 9 John Wilkins 10 Robert Hooke (1635–1703; ODNB). As a student at Oxford, he assisted Thomas Willis and Robert Boyle in their experiments. Appointed curator of the experiments at the Royal Society in 1662, Hooke was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in the same year and was its secretary from 1677 to 1682. See Jardine, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke. 11 Henry Hunt (d. 1713). Trained by Hooke, Hunt succeeded Robert Shortgrave as the Royal Society’s operator in 1676. His career, which included making meteorological instruments, led to his receiving the same salary as Hooke in 1680 and his being appointed keeper of the library and repository of the Society in 1696. 12 George Berkeley (later 8th Lord Berkeley) lived near Evelyn’s brother, Richard, at Durdans House in Surrey. It was inherited from Berkeley’s uncle, Robert Coke, to whom it had descended from Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley. Evelyn gives an account of his visit on 7 August 1665, reporting that “I Dr. Wilkins, Sir William Pettit, & Mr. Hooke contriving Charriots, new rigges for ships, a Wheele for one to run races in, & other mechanical inventions, & perhaps three such persons together were not to be found else where in Europ, for parts and ingenuity” (Diary III.416).

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another happy conversation of Virtuosi in England. And now I mention’d my Brother I were ungratefull to omitt mine accknowledgdement of the infinite honor he tells me my Lord Chancelor was pleas’d to do me before so many Persons of Quality and Gentlemen of our County of Surrey, as came in to waite on him at Farnham,13 at my Lord Bishop of Winchesters14 table; where his Lordship was pleasd to mention me with an Elogy, and kindnesse so particular and obliging, as I can never hope to merite from his goodnesse: But I would esteeme it the most fortunate day of my life; that should present me with an occasion, in which I might signalize my prone, and most ardent inclynations to his service, as being professedly more engag’d to his Lordship than to any person living in this World. And if God heare the humble prayers, which I powre out for the continuance of your Prosperity, I shall have perform’d by but my duty, who am with a most unfained resignation My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 9: September 1665:

William Doyley Letter 254 [252] September 9, 1665 ff 144v–5

Epistle CCLII To Sir William D’Oily knight and Baronet

[LM: My Brother Commissioner] Sir, You have reason to believe I have use of Mr. Fillingham,1 whose Accoumpts begin to swell; be pleasd therefore to let him meete me at my owne house some time the first Weeke in October, but with care not to come through London: Sir, I heare of your intollerable Condition, and do most heartily commissiserate it: The inclos’d2 will show you how I have alarm’d our Greate-ones at Court, which I conjure you to second; the Cause is

13 the location of the bishop of Winchester’s country palace 14 George Morley 1 Bartholomew Fillingham appears as author of a letter to Sir Thomas Clifford on 25 January 1667 referring to prisoners from the ship Victory who are at Exeter (CSP Dom. 1666–7: 25.1.1667). He also worked with Doyley in connection with the hospitals. See also Add 78320: f 95 (14.6.1665) from Fillingham. 2 probably a copy of the previous letter to Henry Hyde

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publique, and is incumbent on us: Be confident I will joyne with you till we have softn’d their hearts: My most humble service to your excellent Lady: I remaine Sir Yours most etc.

Says-Court 9: September 1665

P.S. Sir Thomas Clifford gave me a Visite, and eate with me as he pass’d-by: I conducted him to the Water, where he embarq’d for Denmarke, and whither he is Envoy’ed by his Majestie I suppose to expostulate our late welcome before Bergen.3

Henry Hyde Letter 255 [253] September 12, 1665 f 145r–v

Epistle CCLIII To my Lord Vicount Cornebery Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie

My Lord, By this most agreeable Opportunity I continue to present your Lordship with my faithfull Service, and if it arive seasonably, to supplicate your Lordships pardon, for the Style, the Mistake, and the length of mine of the ninth Instant,1 which will excite in you different Passions, and one My Lord, not an unpleasant one: Smile at my Intelligence, and pity all the rest; for it will deserve it, and find a way to your noble breast. My Servant (whom I there mention, to have sent from my house for feare of the worst) will recover, and proves sick only of a very ougly Surfeit; which not onely frees me from infinite apprehensions, but admitts me to give my Wife a Visite, who is at my Brothers,2 and within a fortnight of bringing me the seaventh sonne;3 and it is time my Lord he were borne; for they keepe us so short of moneys at Court, that his Majesties Commissioners had neede of one to do Wonders, and heale the Sick and Wounded by Miracle, ’till we can maintaine our Chyrurgeons. 3 Clifford had been engaged in the abortive attempt to capture the Dutch East India fleet in the harbour of Bergen at the beginning of August. On 19 August he was appointed to join Henry Coventry (1617/18–86; ODNB) to settle disputed questions about commerce and navigation with the king of Denmark. 1 Letter 253 2 George Evelyn 3 This was to be a daughter, Mary Evelyn Jr, born on 1 October 1665 and died of smallpox in 1685. Eve­ lyn’s eldest daughter and apparently his favourite, Mary’s death from smallpox occasioned his touching memoir of her in the diary (IV.420–31) in which he writes at length of her piety. She was learned, read extensively in her father’s library, and kept a commonplace book (Add 78441). But she also enjoyed the theatre, played the harpsichord, and sang so well that she performed with professional musicians (Diary IV.404).

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My Lord I do not forget your injunction of waiting on you this moneth at Cornebery; but I am momentarily threatn’ed to be turnd hurried to the sea-side againe, after this Conflict of my Lord Sandwich,4 and the Woman in the straw, I would gladly see out of Perill: I will not question your Lordships being at Oxford this approching reconvention of Parliament:5 My Father-in Law6 waites there, and it must go ill with me, if I kisse not your hands. Just now I heare the Gunns from the Tower; this petty Triumph revives us much; but the miserably afflicted Citty, and even this poore Village want other Consolations: My very heart turnes within me at the Contemplation of our Calamity: God give the Repentance of David, to the Sinns of David –. We have all added some weights to this burthen, Ingratitude, and Luxurie,7 and the too too-soone Oblivion of Miracles. The Almighty preserve your Lordship and my best friend in the World, my most honord Lord Chancelor:8 I would say a thousand thing affectionate things-more to Conjure your Lordships beliefe, that I am My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 12 September 1665

Edward Mountagu1 Letter 256 [254] September 18, 1665 ff 145v–6

Epistle CCLIV To my Lord Sandwich:

[LM: Generall of all his Majesties Forces at Sea, against the Dutch: in the Warr 1665] May it please your Excellency Upon your Excellencys Summons, I came immediately out of the Country whither (this miserable Contagion environing my dwelling) I was necessitated to conduct my Family;2 4 See Diary III.419, n. 5 for Sandwich’s victory of 3 September and Pepys Diary VI.220 for his first meeting with Evelyn when the news was received. 5 Parliament assembled at Oxford because of the plague. 6 Sir Richard Browne 7 the theme of Tyrannus Or the Mode (London, 1661) 8 Edward Hyde 1 Edward Mountagu, 1st earl of Sandwich (1625–72; ODNB). admiral of the Blue Squadron, commanding the Royal Prince. Subsequently made ambassador to Spain, on account, according to Evelyn, of his military failings (Add 78431: f 85 [11.10.1665]). 2 Evelyn notes that he returned from Wotton 17 September after receiving Mountagu’s letter (Diary III.418). Upon arriving, he found out that “there were sent me to dispose of neere 3000 Prisoners at Warr” (418–19). On 18 September, he travelled to London to confer with George Monck. On 23 September, he met with Monck and Mountagu: “I was peremptory, that unlesse we had 10000 pounds immediately, the Prisones would sterve, & ’twas propos’d it should be raised out of the East India Prises, now taken by my L: Sandwich” (419).

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and should now have saild proceeded to the Fleete, to receive your Excellencys Commands more personally had not a letter (which I found at my house) from our Treasurer Mr. Cock,3 stayd me till his returne: And I was heartily glad that he, and my Lord Brounchar4 had taken that resolution; since none were better instructed in our Condition then they are: My Lord I have made use of this opportunity, to waite on his Grace the Duke of Albermarle,5 who commands me to signifie to your Excellency that his opinion is, the Prisoners should be put into some of the Dutch Prize-Vessells, and (their sailes being taken away) guarded by some of the Marchand shipps, for which he is pleasd (unlesse your Excellency thinke of any other Expedient) to grant me what numbers of Sir John Griffiths6 men I thinke fit, from his Forts of Tilbury and Graves End: Your Excellency neede not be inform’d of the misery of our Condition to mainetaine 3000 Prisoners, for want of Effects; nor is it for want the neglect of incessant Supplications to the Lords of the Councill; but this will not do; and I find a necessity of repairing to Court; if at least any applications will render them sensible without your Excellency do also (upon my most humble request) joine your assistance, by taking some occasion to represent it to his Majestie that we may have a stock, and assignements worthy of the Province imposd upon us; seeing lesse then fourty thousand Pounds will signifie little, to the immense charges we have already, and do expect to goe through: This, I am the bolder to beg of your Excellency in reguard his Grace (who knowes what causes we have of complaint) has promisd to favour us with his owne recommendations: For the present distress; there is no better way (under submission to you Excellencys judgment) then to victual them from the Petty-Warrant, which, being from eight-pence, reduc’d to the value of 5 pence (his Majesties allowance to Prisoners of Warr) may be reimbours’d the Principal Officers of the Navy, when his Majestie shall inable us to refund it. When I shall understand how your Excellency will dispose of me farther by the returne of my Lord Brounker and our Treasurer, I shall with all alacrity apply my selfe to to your Excellencys Commands, as becomes May it please your Excellency Your Excellencys most etc. Says-Court 18 September 1665.

3 George Cocke (1615–79; ODNB). Cocke was a captain of merchant vessels and a supplier of hemp, tar, and timber to the navy, and was knowledgeable about the trade with Africa. Pepys frequently dined and drank with Cocke in the 1660s, heard a great deal of Court and government gossip from him, and was involved with him in the disposition of Dutch prize ships. 4 William Brouncker 5 George Monck 6 Sir John Griffith (Diary III.422 n. 5). After a career in the army (1662–8), Griffith was knighted in 1665 and made governor of the blockhouses at Gravesend. See correspondence in Add 78320–1.

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George Monck Letter 257 [255] September 24, 1665 f 146

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Epistle CCLV To his Grace the Duke of Albermarle.

[RM: To whom I sent my Sylva]1 May it please your Grace, I take the boldnesse to present your Grace with this poore trifle of mine (the Gentleman your Graces Chaplaine2 was pleasd to mention) not to instruct your Grace, who is already so greate a Master in this laudable and princely Industry; but that through your favour to things of this nature, my pretence of exciting our English Gentry to solid improvements (according to the best of my talent) may be receiv’d with the more successe: I pretend to impose nothing magisterialy: The occasion of its publishing your Grace will understand by the Title, a Command from an Assembly of very worthy Gentlemen Persons.3 As the presumption of now sending it to your Grace springs from the affection which I can testifie you beare to Planting, and for the light and improvement which I am sure I shall derive from your Graces Annimadversions to promote that 2d Impression4 I am now Adorning, this first being almost vended: I have nothing to answer for the Cider-part beyond a Præface, they being Papers I was orderd to Insert:5 The Kallender I challenge, and from the use my selfe have experienc’d, reccommend it to others, which I am likewise enlarging, though for a Pocket Volume.6 The whole Worke implores your Graces indulgence, as this addresse dos your Pardon of May it please your Grace Your Graces etc. Says-Court 24th: September 1665:

1 Sylva, Or A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber In His Majesties Dominions (London, 1664) 2 John Price (1626/7–91; ODNB). Monck’s chaplain and confidant 1654–9, and awarded a DD from Cambridge in 1661. 3 The relevant part of the title is “upon Occasion of certain Quæries Propounded to that Illustrious Assembly [the Royal Society], by the Honourable the Principal Officers, and Commissioners of the Navy.” 4 The second edition did not appear until 1670. 5 There is no evidence that Evelyn was ordered to insert the material in Pomona (though some of it came from his correspondent John Beale). The Kalendarium Hortense was frequently reprinted separately. 6 Kalendarium hortense: or, The Gard’ners Almanac ... The second Edition (London, 1666). This edition was in octavo format.

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Philip Warwick Letter 258 [256] September 30, 1665 ff 146v–7

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLVI To Sir Philip Warwick Secretary to my Lord High-Treasurer

Sir, Your favour of the 16th Current from Stratton1 has not onely inlightened mine eyes, but confirm’d my reason: For sure I am I durst write nothing to you which could cary in it the least diffidence of your most prudent Oeconomy; and you are infinitely mistaken in me if you thinke I have not establish’d my opinion of your sincerity and candor in all that you transact, upon a foundation very remote from what the World dos ordinarily build upon: I am sufficiently satisfied to whose care our Supplies did naturaly belong; for I do not believe, the summs we have receiv’d to cary on our burthen thus far (trifling as they have been, compar’d to the occasion) proceeded from his Sir Georges2 good nature (which I have been much longer acquainted with then you) but to stifle the Clamor which our necessities have at last compelld us to; whilst our Task-masters exacted brick of us without allowing us straw. And if I have express’d any thing to you in a style, more zealous then ordinary, it has been to lay before you a Calamity which nothing can oppose, but a suddaine supply; and for that my Lord Arlington3 (to whom I have frequently sayd as much) directed me to the proper Object: Nor was what I then writ a Prophesy at adventure: One fortnight has made me feele the uttmost of miseries that can befall a Person in my station, and with my affections: To have 2500 Prisoners, and 1500 sick and wounded men to take care of, without one peny of mony, and above £2000 indebted: It is true, I am but newly acquainted with buisinesse, and I now find the happy difference betwixt Speculation, and Action to the purpose; learning that at once, which others get by degrees; but I am sufficiently punish’d for the temerity, and I accknowledg the burthen insupportable: Nor indeede had I been able to obviate this impetuous torrent, had not his Grace the Duke of Albermarle, and my Lord Sandwich4 (in pure Commiseration of me) unanimously resolv’d to straine their Authority, and to sell (though not a full quorum) some of the Prizes, and breake bulke in the an Indian-ship; to redeeme me from this plunge:5 and all this, for the neglect of his personal Care – whom you worthily perstringd6 though for 1 the country house of John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1607–78); Evelyn is responding to a letter from Warwick of 16 September (Diary [1887], III, 169–71). 2 presumably Sir George Ayscue 3 Henry Bennet 4 George Monck (see Diary III.420); Edward Mountagu. The “Indian Ship” was the Golden Phoenix (Diary III.520, nn. 4, 6). 5 See Diary III.419 6 Warwick was secretary to Thomas Wriothesley, earl of Southampton, who as lord high treasurer had been unable to contain the extravagant domestic expenses of the court.

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domestique respects, and other relations they were not willing to expresse their resentiments: Sir, I am in some hopes of touching the £5000 some day this weeke;7 but what is that, to the expense of £200 the Day: Is there no exchange, or pecuniary redemption to be propos’d? or is his Majestie resolv’d to maintaine the Armies of his Enemyes in his owne boosome? whose Idlenesse makes them sick, and their sicknesse redoubles their the Charge? I am amaz’d at this method, but must hold my tongue: Why might not yet the French, who are numerous in this last action (and in my Conscience have enough of the sea) be sent home to their Master, not to gratifie, but plague him with their unprofitable numbers: Sir I most humbly accknowledge your goodnesse for the confidence you have in me, and for that Arcanum, the Accoumpt of the disposure and assignement of this prodigious Royal Ayd of £2500000, which you have so particularly imparted to me, and that I should have preserved with all due Caution, though you had enjoyn’d me none: If I obtaine this small summ of £5000, it will be a breathing till I can meete my Brother Commissioners at Oxford whither I am summon’d to joyne for the effects and settlements of some of those more solid appointments mentiond in your Audit; and which you have promis’d to promote, and therefore I will trouble you no farther at present, then to let you know, that upon that account of your Encouragement (I meane the providence of God, and my sole desire of serving him in anything which I thinke hope he may accept) for (I sweare to you no other consideration should tempt me a second time to this trouble) I am resolv’d to maintaine my station, and to refuse nothing that may contribute to his Majesties service, or concerne my duty, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 30 September 1665:

William Coventry Letter 259 [257] October 2, 1665 f 147r–v

Epistle CCLVII To Sir William Coventry, Secretary to his Highnesse the Duke of Yorke, and one of the Privy Council

May it please your Honour Nothing but a Calamity which requires the application of the speediest redresse, to preserve the lives of men, the honor of his Majestie and (as I conceive) a Concernement of the weightiest importance to the whole Nation, could have extorted this repetition of the sad posture our affaires are in for want of those monys and effects, we were made believe 7 On 29 September, Evelyn reports: “To Erith to quicken the Sale of the Prizes lying there, by orders, to the Commissioners who lay on board, til they should be disposed of, 5000 pounds being proportiond for my quarters” (Diary III.420).

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should be assignd us for the car[y]ing on of the Province intrusted to us: I will not torment you with the particulars of my owne story, which you know so well, by all that has prevented my complaints; but I perfectly apprehend the funest, and Calamitous issue which a few days may produce, unlesse some Speedy Course be taken to stop it: Nor I am also so little acquainted with the respect which I owe to the persons I now write to; as not to know with what decency and reserve I ought to make my addresses, upon any other occasion: But the particulars I have aledg’d are very greate truths, and it were to betray his Majesties gracious intentions, and even his honour to extenuate here: Sir William D’Oily, and my selfe have neere ten-thousand upon our Care, whiles there seemes to be no care of us; who having lost all our Servants, Officers, and most necessary Assistants, have nothing more left us to expose but our Persons, which are every moment at the mercy of a raging Pestilence (by our daily Conversation) and an unreasonable multitude; if such they may be call’d, who having adventur’d their lives for the publique, perish for their reward, and dye like doggs in the streets, unreguarded: Our Prisoners (who with open armes, as I am credibly inform’d by Eye-Witnesses, embrac’d our men instead of lifting up their hands against them) beg at us, as a mercy, to knock them on the head; for we have no bread to relieve the dying Creatures: Nor dos this County afford Goailes to secure them in, unlesse Leeds-Castle1 (for which I am now contracting with my Lord Culpeper)2 may be had; if at least halfe of them survive to be brought so far to starve when they come there: As for the pittance now lately orderd us, what will that be signifie to our numbers and the mouthes we are to feede? neither is that to be had suddainely, and will be spent before we touch it. I could assemble other particulars of a sad Countenance relating to the miserys of our owne Country-men: I beseech your Honor let us not be reputed Barbarians; or if at last we must be so; let not me be the Executor of so much inhumanity; when the price of one good Subject’s life is (rightly consider’d) of more value then the Wealth of the Indies. It is very hard, if in now a twelve-moneths time that we have cost you little more then £30000 through all England where we have supported this burthen, there should not have been a sufficient fonds consecrated and assignd as a sacred stock for so important a Service; since it has been a thing so frequently, and earnestly press’d to their Lordships. And that this is not an affaire which can be menag’d without present monyes to feede it; because we have to deale with a most miserable and indigent sort of people, who live but from hand to mouth, and whom we murther if we do not pay daily or weekely at least; I meane those who harbor our Sick, and Wounded men, and sell bread to our Prisoners of Warr. How we have behav’d our selves for his Majesties advantage and honor, we are most ready to produce the Accoumpts, and to stand to the Comparison of what it cost a former Usurper,3 and a power which were was not lavish of their expenses. Let it please your honor to Consider of the Premises, and if you can believe I have retaine so much of servile in me, as to informe you of tales, or designe to magnifie my owne merits (whatever my particular and private sufferings have been) let me be dismiss’d with Infamy; But 1 the large moated castle near Maidstone in Kent that belonged to Thomas Colepeper and for which Evelyn negotiated a lease for the sick and wounded from December 1665 to August 1667 2 Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper (1635–89; Diary) owned Leeds Castle, about five miles from Maidstone. 3 Oliver Cromwell

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let me beg of your honor to receive first the Relation of his Majesties Principal Officers, and Commissioners of the Navy which accompanies this Paper of Right Honorable Your etc.

Says-Court 2: October 1665.

Edward Hyde Letter 260 [258] October 2, 1665 ff 147v–8

Epistle CCLVIII To my Lord High Chancelor of England etc.

May it please your Lordship I hope your honor has found by my tendernesse not to importune you often (of whose most weighty affaires I am aboundantly sensible) that nothing lesse than an indispensable necessity, and in which my duty is concern’d, could make me presume to breake in upon you with this trouble: For it was not fit I should alarme his Majestie by so many hands penns (as from whome our Complaints may reach his Eares) without acquainting your Lordship with the occasion, and of what importance it is we should be thought on for timely supplies to preserve the honor of his Majestie, and the lives of his Subjects. My Lord the summ is this, Our Credit is lost, and our monys exhausted: Our Friends and our Enne[m]ys dye in the streetes where none will entertaine them; and even in our owne sight and before our very doores, which renders the Clamor, and the Perill so excessive, that if the reproch were not sufficient to make us the produce some seasonable redresse, the necessity, and the danger ought to do it. I have written both to Sir William Coventry, my Lord Arlington,1 and Sir Philip Warwick almost in the same style; but in nothing which dos halfe reach the literall height of our deplorable Condition: Wherefore I do most humbly supplicate your Lordships assistance to quicken some resolutions in those to whom it properly belongs; that whiles we adventure our Persons, and all that is deare to us in this uncomfortable service, we may not be expos’d to ruine, and to a necessity of abandoning our Care to a thousand inconveniencies: We have already lost our Officers and Servants by the Pestilence, and are hourely inviron’d with the saddest objects of Perishing people: But it is not my skin for which I pleade, whilst I may be usefull in a station that may signifie to his Majesties Service, and to the esteeme, which I hope your Lordship has of my fidelity; because I am in hope that having pass’d through the most restlesse, perilous and intollerable condition which can happen to mortal-man, I may one day (through your Lordships favour) be thought on for some Employment which may not be the most servile under heaven. Pardon my Lord the expression, and Commiserat my Condition, who have now no lesse than 15 severall places full of sick-men, where they 1 Henry Bennet; see Letters 258 and 259.

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put me to unspeakable trouble; the Magistrates and Justices, who should farther us in our exigencies, hindring the people to give us quarters, jealous of the Contagion, and causing them to shut their doore at our approch: My Lord I have plainely and honestly represented the state of our Condition to your honor because I would not surprize your Lordship with my necessity of appearing at Oxford with the rest of the Commissioners who I feare (had they no other Occasions) will be constrain’d to come with resolutions very different from the Zeale in which they heartily engag’d, and I wish they were able to go through: What has been Sir William Doilys share, I believe your Lordship is no stranger to: Mine cannot be worse then it is; because it is intollerable: And I beseech your Lordship to believe me, that I have not in the least accumulateed any thing of mine owne Sufferings, to magnifie the poore Service I have hitherto been able to do (as by little arts we are prone) but that your Lordship will reguard me as a Person who desires to serve his Majestie in the province I am assign’d, to the best of my forces; and which I shall be sure to improve, if your Lordship still allow me a part of your Esteeme, who cannot Eclipse the brightnesse of your Example, from My Lord Your etc. Says-Court: 2: October 1665:

The Vice-Admirall of the Phoenix2 (that rich East Indian-Prize) I have (by order of his Grace the Duke of Albermarle)3 taken £500 bond for, of a Sufficient Citizen, to whose house I have confind, a Wounded, Unfortunate but certainely a very brave-man. He has lost a vast Estate that he had been 20 Yeare in amassing:

George Monck Letter 261 [259] October 20, 1665 ff 148v–9

Epistle CCLIX To the Duke of Albemarle:

May it please your Grace, Our Prisoners are marching in very good order, and greate alacrity towards Leeds,1 and quarter this night at Mauling,2 which is about halfe way to Leeds Castle, which I have hired 2 Jacob Burckhorst, vice-admiral of The Golden Phoenix, a Dutch ship, was confined to the Marshalsea prison. See Diary III.420 and Letter 258. 3 George Monck 1 Leeds Castle near Maidstone, Kent. On 17 October, Evelyn notes: “I went to Gravesend, next day to Chattam, thence to Maidstone, in order to the march of 500 Prisoners to Leeds-Castle which I had hired of my Lord Culpeper” (Diary III.422). 2 Malling, Kent

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of my Lord Culpeper;3 but there are so many sick, that I have been faine to leave neere an hundred of them on board, which will necessitate us to keepe one of the Fly-boates before Graves-End: This morning I met your Graces letter, in behalfe of Maidstone, for which I thanke your Grace; The Sir Roger Twisden4 and the rest of the Deputy Lieutennants and Justices of that County making their joint request to me, that I would if possible spare that Towne, it being the usuall meeting place of the Judges at the Assizes, and general Rendizvous of the whole Circle: I hope I shall neede but few of Sir Edward Bretts5 horse to scoure about, and bring up our reare; because I am carefull that our Guards keepe them from straggling, and that my Provost-Martial is a very carefull person: I am now causing them to flow6 the moate; which will drowne neere 11 Akers of ground, so as if possible to secure all attempts: What they have don at Dover concerning the escape of some of our Prisoners I believe your Grace has heard; and it is not the first time that dissafected Towne has abus’d us in this nature, by helping them away: and if there be not some severe reprofe from your Grace, it will not be the last: What other particulars there may have been in this misscarriage, I send my Deputy to informe your Grace, but it will be very necessary (if your Grace so please) that for the future the Maior and Jurates7 there should be ordered for to to secure such Prisoners as are put on shore there till we can get them into the Castle, or otherwise provide. I am now accoumpting with my Officers here, and do assure your Grace, that my present Weekely Charge amounts to above £400 a Weeke, what with my debt to Graves End, and the mony I have sent to pacifie those at Deale and Dover dos not leave me £500 to maintaine those at Leeds, which computed with my necessary provisions for Chelsey, and the London Hospitals reduces me to the uttmost: So that I must earnestly, and passionatly supplicate your Graces favour for the poore Prisoners of Warr remaining on board, that your Grace will continue to give order they may be kept alive with petty-Warrant ’til I am put into a possibility of taking them into my charge, and totaly clearing the shipps of them; but which I have no hopes to do, before I have better, and more regular supplies from Oxford whither I will certainely hast the next weeke, after I have (according to my Duty) received your Graces Commands, and am arm’d with your favourable representation of my miserable condition: There is nothing I am lesse delighted in, than the trouble which I perpetualy multiplie upon your Grace by my continuall complaints: I am perfectly asham’d with the indecency of it; but I know it is not your pleasure that our owne poore sicke-men should starve, which they must necessarily do, if I undertake any more of the Prisoners: Wherefore I beseech your Grace to acquaint my Lord Brouncker,8 and the rest of Principall Officers, that your Graces pleasure is the Prisoners shall live; and that it will be to little end to remove them lower

3 Thomas Colepeper 4 Sir Roger Twysden, 2nd baronet (1597–1672; ODNB). 5 Sir Edward Brett (c.1609–84; Diary). Brett was captain of a troop of Oxford’s Blues (1661–c.1674). Presumably these were the “horse to bring up the rere” (Diary III.422) provided to Evelyn to assist in the march. 6 flood 7 mayor and sworn officials (of the Cinque Ports) 8 William Brouncker

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till I have mony to feede, and march away with them: Yet if they please, for the benefit of the sick (because I have Physitians and Chirurgions at Gravesend) they may moore the Vessells before that Towne; All which I humbly leave to your Graces disposure who am May it please your Grace etc. Chatham: 20: October 1665.

John Griffith Letter 262 [260] October 20, 1665 f 149

Epistle CCLX To Sir John Griffith Governor of Gravesend:

Sir I perceive by Mr. Conny1 that you resolve to march with the Prisoners: I dispatch you this that I may receive your Commands as to your encounter with Sir Edward Brett’s Company of Horse; because the designe of meeting here will be altered, he being Orderd not to stirr himselfe from Maidstone whiles the Dutch are hovering upon our Coasts, and so bold as of late: Be pleasd to signifie your pleasure by this bearer, and present my most humble service to your Lady, who am Sir, Your etc.

Rochester: 20: October 1665

1 John Conny was a surgeon and mayor of Rochester in Kent in 1676, 1696, and 1699. Evelyn refers to him as “an Officer of mine for the Sick & Wounded” (Diary IV.79 and n. 2). See Add 78321: f 10 (8.10.1665) and f 53 (23.1.1666).

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Anthony Ashley Cooper1 Letter 263 [261] October 26, 1665 ff 149v–50

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Epistle CCLXI To my Lord Ashley, Chancellor of his Majesties Exchequer

[LM: afterward Lord Chancellor of England] My Lord I had not given your Lordship this trouble, after the volumes of Letters I have dispatch’d to Oxford to represent the miseries which our want of due, and certaine Supplies reduce us to; if the failing of £2000 promis’d me this Weeke by Mr. Kingdome2 your Lordships Deputy (but otherwise it seemes diverted) had not put me to the uttmost of extremities, and expos’d his Majestie to a greate deale of Dishonour, not to say, Contempt, amongst those whose lives depend upon what they expect from us, and has beene indede very long due to them: I doubt not but your Lordship has seene what I have been lately compell’d to write to my Lord Arlington,3 Mr. Vice-Chamberlaine,4 Sir William Coventry and Sir Philip Warwick concerning the state of the Poore sick Creatures under our Inspection; their perishing and sad Condition; divers of them expos’d for want of quarters, and, to say truth, plainely starving in places where our debt is some thousands, and where we have no longer credit: But I will not afflict your Lordship with such unwelcome Instances, as I could add to these after I have by this, acquainted your honor how much it lies in your Lordships power to vindicate, and reconcile what his Majestie will be pleas’d with, his honor, and a usefull sort of People in this conjuncture of time: Be pleased therefore my Lord, to put us into a Capacity, by reserving for us such a portion out of the Prizes which they are now breaking bulke of,5 as may support the Charge of the Sick and Wounded (whose necessities are altogether incompatible with delays) ’till there may some certaine Assignation be made us on the Royal-Ayde since without this expedient his Majestie will endanger the loosing both of the lives and Affections of a greate many men this Winter, and in this crazy season: My Lord I beseech you seriously to lay this to heart: I have no interest to serve in it but my duty and common charity; and therefore use no Artifice in my expressions: I am frequently upon the place, converse with them, and know their Condition: It is highly necessary we deale well with them: As for the 2000, if my Lord of Albermarle6 do not tomorrow, some way or other supplie it (though it be none of his 1 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83; ODNB), at this time a member of the Privy Council (1660) and chancellor of the Exchequer (1661). 2 Richard Kingdon (Pepys Diary), commissioner at the Prize Office (1665–7) 3 Henry Bennet 4 Sir George Carteret 5 selling 6 George Monck

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buisinesse) I shall run a very greate hazard of a Confusion at Chatham, Rochester and Gravesend, where I have 2000 sick-men threatned to be turned out of doores; which I would not should happen for ten times that Summ: My Lord I was indebted more then that summ £5000 before I touch’d the first peny, and therefore I beseech your Lordship not onely to gratifie my Quarters with this, but to assigne me some more with all expedition, that I may not be driven to importune your Lordship and so many greate Persons, with the continual alarms of our necessities, and dangers, and which I beg of your Lordship now to excuse, from My Lord Yours etc. Says-Court 26: October 1665

My Lord if we might have an Assignment of 20 or £30000 it would be but little enough to carry on this service till the Royal Ayde begins to operate:

Henry Bennet Letter 264 [262] October 26, 1665 f 150

Epistle CCLXII To My Lord Arlington Principal Secretary of State to his Majestie at *Oxford

[RM: *The Parliament being then at Oxford, by reason of the Contagion at London] My Lord Permit me to give your Lordship this trouble in a Conjuncture wherein your Lordships honors kindnesse and interest may relieve innumerable people from greate Extremities, and vindicate his Majesties honor, and princely care for their Preservation: I shall not repeate what your Lordship must needes have heard with astonishment, how miserable the Condition of the poore sea-men has been for want of supplies from some who ought to have been more tender of them: but Supplicate that your Lordship will now put in your Claime for us, that we may depend upon some portion of the East-India Prizes they are now breaking bulke of, before it be too late, and which may carry on this Service ’till we may have more regular Assignements upon the Royall-Ayde; since without this expedient we shall be immediately reduc’d to intollerable straites: I have written passionately, but with all sincerity, to my Lord Ashley,1 and on which I would be glad your Lordship should cast your Eye: It is allways necessary to speake truth, though not always expedient to say all the truth: Your Lordship would be heartily displeas’d to heare that, in the many sad Circumstances of our wants; and what an influence this unlucky interruption 1 Anthony Ashley Cooper; see Letter 263.

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of Supplies (in which the sick, the Wounded, the Prisoners of Warr and the poore are concern’d) has upon his Majesties Service: I have made bold to reccommend our Cause to your honors favour and addresse, and therefore shall no farther importune your Lordship at present, from My Lord Your honors etc. Says-Court 26 October, 1665.

William Morice1 Letter 265 [263] November 1, 1665 f 150v

Epistle CCLXIII To Sir William Morise Principal Secretary of State:2

Right Honorable Being informed by Sir William Coventry, that I am shortly to expect notice from your honor when we are to withdraw his Majesties allowance from the Dutch Prisoners of Warr, in pursuance of the stipulation lately made with the Holland Ambassador3 I presume to mind your honor how necessary it were (if already it be not provided for) that the maintenance of our Chirurgions (who attend their sick) should be likewise included; because the charge is very considerable: I would also suggest, that our Provost-Martials who have the immediate custody of them, have contracted for very considerable proportions of Provisions to furnish the Suttlers, which would prove an insupportable losse and discouragement to them, if when the Dutch are to maintaine these men, they should introduce others: But the greate inconvenience would accrue to his Majestie for severall reasons, which I make bold to lay before you in the Paper inclosed, and which I desire may be read in Councill, before this transaction with the Ambassador is concluded: If the Maior of Rochester,4 together with his Breathren move his Majestie from for an exemption of their Citty from the quartering of our sick-men it is what I am oblig’d to oppose in behalfe of the charges under the Care of Your honors etc. Says-Court 1 November 1665

1 Sir William Morice (1602–76; ODNB), secretary of state (1660–8) 2 Morice replied to this letter on 5 November (Add 15858: f 87 [5.11.1665]). 3 Michiel van Goch. The ambassador agreed to take financial responsibility for the maintenance of the Dutch prisoners. 4 Robert Fowler; see Diary III.395.

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Francis Carter1 Letter 266 [264] November 27, 1665#2 f 151

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXIV To Mr. Francis Carter etc.

Sir, You are inquisitive of me to know how I would advise you to employ your intended Travells in Italy:3 If I may suite my wishes according to my owne Genius, and as I conceive not averse to your particular inclinations: I would reccommend to your notice whatsoever you thinke may hereafter be of use and for Ornament in your owne Country at your returne: In particular for the propagation of Gardning and Agriculture, be it in governing Flowers, Fruites, Plants etc. Learne by some faithfull and ocular Processe how they extract their Essences of Orange, Jassmine, Hyacinths, Violets and other esteemed perfumes: To make their Mantega4 etc. Keepe Memoires of all these Experiments in a booke; learne all rare Medicinal Receipts, Antidotes, Fucus’s and Cosmetics you thinke exquisite, and that you can procure. To perfume leather after the Frangipani manner: Pomambers, Pastillos di Bocca: Conserving dry Fruites, as they do them at Genoä; Refreshing Beveriges etc. Also to make Cements, artificial marbles, stone, Pasts; the red floores of Venice, To make Vernishes, Colours, dies and tinctures for stone, wood, leather, haire: Liquors, Metalles etc. Keepe a Register of things of Art for the decoration of houses studies, etc. Designe the Plotts and Landskips of delicious places, Fountaines, Vasas, Aviaries, Country houses and Villas; noble pieces of Architecture. Visite the Mechanics, and Manufactures; Collect all Curious Bookes upon any of these Subjects: In Summ, looke into everything in Citty and Country to the very Paesani and Fermors, how they plough, sow, make Cheese (Especialy Parmegiana) butter, Wine etc. Enrich their grounds and Pastures, Elevate and Cure their Cattell and horses; dresse meate, dishes and salads: Draw models of all useful Engines for raising of water, caryng burthens, suspending weights etc. Be curious even to Pragmatical, in asking questions of every body; descend to the meanest, let nothing escape you. Procure some excellent songs, especially Recitativi: Intaglios, Medails, Drawings and Prints: But above all be studious of your health, and let nothing steale your heart from God, and the love of your Country to whom you owe all your industry; and so I committ you to his Almighty Protection Your most etc. Says-Court 24: November 1665

1 Francis Carter was in Genoa in 1659–60 and corresponded with Evelyn (Add 78316) and Mary Evelyn from there (Add 15948: f 101 [27.10.1659]; f 102 [1.6.1660]). In Sculptura (112), Evelyn praises him as a print-maker. 2 In view of the dates of the surviving correspondence, this letter may be misdated by up to six years. 3 This letter refers to many of the processes that would have been included by Evelyn in his unfinished “History of Trades” and were partly dealt with in “Elysium Britannicum.” 4 a kind of butter

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Francis Clerke Letter 267 [265] December 12, 1665 ff 151v–2

401

Epistle CCXV To Sir Francis Cleark, and the rest of the Justices of Peace in Rochester etc.

Honorable Gentlemen: It was not ’til Thursday the day you Commanded me to return you an answer, that I receiv’d your letter and that very late too; so as it was impossible for me to comply with the tyme against the Sessions. I have had notice indeede of the trouble Mr. Maior of Rochester1 did put himselfe and Brethren to for the removal of our Sick and Wounded Sea-men etc. and I have since sufficiently vindicated our persisting to continue our quarters as formerly; but if there be any such considerable Summs due to the Victualers of the Citty, retain’d by any of my Officers, You do me but justice in believing it cannot be by any order of mine, as I am very confident there will upon due examination be no cause to complaine of any whom I employ, for their unjust dispensation: In the meane time, it would be a very greate Service to his Majestie as well as an extraordinary obligation to me, that any oblique wayes of either my Deputies or Chirurgions were detected; I having no imaginable respect for any of them farther then they performe their duty, and as they ought: But as I have no reason yet, from any particulars of their misscariages, to suspect either their dilligence, or integrity; so I assure my selfe they shall not receive the discouragement of being reproved (if such a Debt indeede be owing) for not being able to pay Mony faster then I can send it; or, I, for not sending it, faster then I can procure it: and if you shall please to thinke ther is any Collusion in this answer, or that I have not don mine Uttmost to get monys to expedite all Payments; you will do me a very signal favour to represent to his Majestie and to his Grace, the necessitys of the Place for want of it; because I doubt not, but such an addresse comming from You, may produce an Effect answerable to your Expectation; and, I assure you, to my very greate desires. But, Gentlemen I am not ignorant of Mr. Maiors late attempt to bannish the poore Sick-Creatures from all reliefe at Rochester: doubtlesse out of a tender reguard of the Inhabitans this crazy-time; but how seasonably in this decline of the Contagion, and their miserable Condition, let others judge; I must not say it was any other animosity of his which has produc’d his Letter to my Lord Chancellor;2 and made him so zealous in behalfe of the Victualers; but since the Sprinkling of 7, or £8000 in one Yeare amongst that sort of People is esteemed so greate an injury; because a Debt contracted but of Yesterday, and upon occasion of an Extraordinary and suddaine number of People is not satisfied, faster then our Receiver (who has likewise many other places to provide for) can get mony (though he be continualy issuing) I will Gentlemen do my hearty endeavor to remove this Burthen, by possessing his Majestie how little thankfull 1 Robert Fowler 2 Edward Hyde; see Letter 260.

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they are for that, which I am sure he believed would have ben a greate reliefe to them this Calamitous tyme, and when other places (that I might name) accknowledge they had perish’d, had not Providence cast it on them: for I assure you it is no delight to the Commissioners who have don all they are able, and adventur’d themselves hithertoo in this uncomfortable service, to see his Majesties justice and charity brought into suspect, which has hitherto been so amply manifest amongst those People, by the due and constant payments which have ben made them; because whoever else has ben distress’d during this Calamity and interruption of publique affaires, his Majestie was resolv’d the Sick and Wounded Sea-men should not suffer: And to give you an Instance of this (which amounts to little lesse then a Demonstration), be pleasd to cast your Eye on what Rochester and Chatham have alone receiv’d since August last = 400 August 5 September = 700 7 – = 800 16 October = 700 30 November = 900 and now this very day 12 December = 800 more, and more every Weeke will follow as fast as we can get it, which will be almost as fast as it can be divided among the Creditors, by that time their accoumpts are adjusted: so let you see what cause there is of this Crye: And if any of all this has been perverted unfaithfully, you will infinitely oblige the Commissioners, and your Servant in particular, to summon in our Clearks, and to Inspect their Bookes, and what they have to justifie their Accoumpts: In the meane time, that you will be pleas’d to superadd likewise this Favour; that in your returne to my Lord Chancellors letter this Expostulation of mine in reply to the Victualers Clamor may accompany it: For, I desire nothing more, then to submitt all that I have written to his Lordships equal justice and Candor who is already sufficiently sensible of the difficulties we have hitherto passed, and I hope of the integrity, and real affection by which we act: I speake in behalfe of all my absent Brethren, as well as of my selfe upon this Occasion, (because we all have our shares in these Complaints) who am honorable Gentlemen Your etc. Says-Court 12: December 1665

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Elizabeth Carteret1 Letter 268 [266] December 14, 1665 ff 152v–3

403

Epistle CCLXVI To the Right Honorable my Lady Carteret:

[LM: Wife the Mr. Vice Chamberlaine Treasurer of the Navy, and one of the Privy Councill]2 Madame, and my deare Mother, A Lady who was affrighted at the Passing of a fine payre of Lac’d Slippers new from London, through a Chamber, where she did me the honor of a Visite some 3 or 4 monethes since,3 would have ben fuming, perfuming, censing, and chafing at a Letter however elegantly made up, and submissively address’d that should have come from hence when they dyed 9 or 10 thousand a Weeke about us: Madame, that Lady [LM: her selfe] might haply be knowne to you; she is a wondrous circumspect, and excellent person, sometimes my very neere Neighbour:4 But do not let her example concerne your Ladyship: I dare assure you, there is no danger in this paper; for it was ayr’d at least threescore-miles before it arived at Scotts-Hall;5 and if you will commande it but to be pinn’d up at the farther end of the long Gallery, and stand at the other, holding a bunch of fresh rue at your nose, and one of Mr. Philips6 Perspectives at your Eye, you may securely reade it, and never come neere it. But Raillery apart, Madame, your poore Sonne7 is still here a monument of Gods extraordinary mercy and goodnesse to him in the middst of of our daily losses of neighbours and accquaintance[:] Two of my very next Tennants having been shut up, and one of their children sick at present; and notwithstanding the multitudes I have ben oblig’d to converse with (some of them with Swellings and Sores on them) at my dores, and even in my very house, so as I have pay’d Dr. Breton8 neere £20 for the burials of Sea-men

1 Elizabeth Carteret (d. 1698? Diary). The daughter of Sir Philip Carteret she was a first cousin of her husband, Sir George Carteret. She frequently dined with Evelyn in the 1660s. 2 Sir George Carteret 3 The only record in the diary of Elizabeth Carteret’s staying at Sayes Court is on 3 October 1663 (III.364). The reference to slippers from London is about plague. 4 The Carterets lived at Deptford near Sayes Court while Sir George was treasurer of the navy. 5 Scotts Hall was the home of Elizabeth Carteret’s son-in-law, Sir Thomas Scott, in Smeeth in Kent. 6 The reference is to a telescope belonging to her son, Sir Philip Carteret (c.1641–72; Diary). The son of Sir George (who was related to Evelyn’s correspondent Philip Dumaresq), Carteret was a sailor who married in 1665 Jemima Mountagu, the daughter of the earl of Sandwich. In the same year he became a fellow of the Royal Society and was knighted in 1667. He was also an amateur of watch-making and painting. He was killed at the battle of Solebay. 7 i.e., son-in-law, Sir Thomas Scott (c.1643–c.1688; Diary) 8 Robert Breton

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onely, who have perish’d by this sad Calamity in this Parish, and ben compell’d to unexpressable hazards, I have not yet deserted my Station: All which I repeate to magnifie Gods Graciousnesse to me, and not in the least to justifie my Courage, which, I assure your ­Ladyship has frequently threaten’d to faile me, upon some encounters very uncomfortable. To this I might add, the absence of my Family and Relations, whose Society had been some diversion, and consolation to me; but they have abandon’d me now ever since August last, and are not yet return’d; nor have I ever since ben able to give them a visite but one fortnight since their departure: And should I say, that the losse of your Neighbourhod has not prov’d one of my least mortifications, it were but to consummate the expression of my solitary, and deplorable condition. It has indeed pleased God of late to give us hopes that the malignity of the Contagion is spent;9 but the Season consider’d, and the numbers yet Weekely perishing, gives us greate apprehensions that it may kindle againe at Spring; and if it should continue another Yeare, what could be added to our Calamity? Madame, my Wife, has (since she had the honor to kisse your hands) enrich’d our Family with one of your Sex;10 and now having no more expectations of a Seaventh Sonn, I lay aside all thoughts of doing Miracles: She often charges me in her Letters to make oblation of her most humble Service to you, and to the Ladys with you: Sir Richard Browne has been long at Oxford: I am designing to refresh my selfe a little in the Country with them this approching Christmas, if my buisinesse will permit me; and, where ever I am, and in all Conditions, I beg of your Ladyship to esteeme me as perfectly, and sincerely Madame, my deare Mother Your etc. Says-Court 14th December 1665

Madame, Be pleas’d to make my Services acceptable to the three Graces (your Lady Daughters) my Seraphic, my Lady Scot,11 and Madam Would-be: I have not the honor to be knowne to the Starr of the East, [RM: Jemima,12 my Lord of Sandwichs daughter.] by Interpretation: but I am an humble Servant to all that call you Mother; and therefore, I must beg of Mr. Philip, that he will permitt me the honor to kisse her hands.

9 Evelyn noted on 23 November that “I went home, the contagion beginning now to decrease considerably” (Diary III.423). At the end of the year he reported that 406 had died in his parish (426). 10 Mary Evelyn Jr 11 Caroline Carteret married Thomas Scott in 1663; Anne married Sir Nicholas Slaning, 1st baronet, of Maristow, Devon, in the same year; Louisa-Margueretta married Robert Atkins the topographer in 1669. 12 Jemima Mountagu was married to Sir Philip Carteret

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Craven1 Letter 269 [267] December 16, 1665 f 153

405

Epistle CCLXVII To my Lord Craven:

My Lord, Your Lordship was pleas’d at Mr. Sheriffs2 (the other day) to mention to me the Clamor of some Sick-Persons3 about the suburbs of this also his Citty etc., who make their complaints that there is no care taken for them by the Commissioners: Although that side of the Water (your Lordship spoke of  ) be totaly out of my Jurisdiction (which is confin’d to Kent onely) yet I am bold to transmitt your Lordship an expedient, which I make use of my selfe, in those places on the opposite side, where I have sometymes sick-men put on shore; which your honor may please to reserve by you (as you desird) and cause a Copy thereoff to be read in the respective Churches of those Parishes, for the better Information of the Inhabitans and Victualers, who are used to receive them into quarters; that so neither his Majesties Charity be abused (who has made so ample provision for them) or his Commissioners blamed for neglecting their Duty, and in particular My Lord, Your etc. Says-Court 16th: December–1665

1 William Craven, earl of Craven (1608–97; ODNB). As master of Trinity House, Deptford Strond, he was concerned with naval affairs and an early member of the Royal Society. He became a member of the Privy Council in 1666. 2 William Hooker (d.1682; Diary, L). Sheriff of London in 1665–6, Hooker knew Pepys as one of the drafters of the regulations for dealing with the plague. Hooker was knighted in 1666 (Diary III.429, n. 3) and became lord mayor in 1673–4. 3 Because of the plague, the Corporation of Trinity House at Deptford, of which Craven was head, did not meet until June 1666.

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Matthew Wren1 Letter 270 [268] December 22, 1665 f 153v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXVIII To Mathew Wrene Esquire

[LM: One of my Lord Chancellors2 Secretarys for Church affairs. afterwards Secretary to the Duke of York] Sir, There is now an opportunity by which we may oblige Seargeant Knight;3 but it must be with some dexterity: The affaire is thus: Dr. Hoare4 being lately dead at Ports-mouth (to which Circle he was design’d by the Commissioners my Brethren, as Dr. Clarke5 is to mine etc.) he has a just pretence, both by what he has deserved of us all, on many occasions, since this employment; and for his personal abilities, to put in for that service: But in reguard Collonel Remys6 may have an intention to gratifie some other to his prejudice, and who cannot be of equal merit: One favourable and auspicious word of my Lord Chancellors to him, would certainely secure it: Be pleas’d to move it therefore in his behalfe: Mr. Knight himselfe knows nothing of this kind stratagemme of mine; but I would be very glad to serve him, and which I shall not despaire of effecting through your mediation and addresse: Sir, I am Your etc. Says-Court 22d: December–1665

1 Matthew Wren (1629–72; ODNB, H). Secretary to Edward Hyde, MP, and a member of the Council of the Royal Society (1662–3 and 1666), he succeeded Sir William Coventry as secretary to the duke of York in 1667. 2 Edward Hyde 3 John Knight (1622–80; ODNB). In 1664 he was appointed surgeon-general to the English military. He was recommended by the king for an MD from Cambridge in 1669, and was a lecturer in the Royal College of Physicians in 1676. On 17 June 1665 he wrote to Evelyn as a member of the Commission for the Sick and Wounded about the problems with a delinquent surgeon (Add 78317: f 50 [17.6.1665]). 4 William Hoare 5 Timothy Clarke 6 Bullen Reymes

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Francis Clerke Letter 271 [268] December 23, 1665* ff 153v–4

407

Epistle CCLXVIII To Sir Francis Clearke

Sir, I acknowlege your very civil letter from Dover; and his Grace1 was pleas’d to shew me your reply to his, which I wish had come accompanied with my Apology; but I have transmitted it to Oxford for, whilst I am in this Station, I can by no meanes suffer any suggestion to the prejudice of either my integrity or industry in his Majesties service; and you will not inculpate me for so just an assoilement. We have sent you towards Rochester neere £900 more since the accoumpt I render’d you; not because we are at all al’Arm’d with the Victualers, but as we did allways designe it, and are able to raise it; nor could they have been thus importunate (not to say troublesome) on the suddaine, who (when we have been much more indebted) were never thus diffident, if some body had not incited them very inoportunely: Sir, I could easily divine to whom we are obliged for this favour, and resent it where I could be heard and where I have the some little reputation; but I will not retalliate, nor is it my costome. But I am greately dispos’d to gratifie that Citty (in which we have spent £5000 these last 6 moneths) and I doubt not of prevailing with his Majestie for an expedient to rid them totaly of this insignificant burthen (for so it seemes those ungratefull men interpret it) till they see their Error: And Sir, if you shall be pleased in the meane tyme to addresse those clamourous Persons to Mr. Steephens2 my Deputy, I will give him particular charge to satisfie them in the first place: As to empty-houses how sedulously I have enquir’d after them is sufficiently knowne; but why upon my most earnest search importunities, we have not long since obtaind Hospital Vessels for the Pestiferous, dos not lie at my doore, nor do I know how an Order which I procur’d of his Grace now 4 moneths past for that necessary accommodation came not to operate: I deliver’d it to the Principall Officers of the Navy, with many arguments of my care; but nothing was don, after many promises: But Sir, I hope we shall prevent these unkind intercourses for the future; especialy, since you are pleas’d to interpose your mediation with so greate Civility, and which I shall ever accknowledge as becomes Sir, Your, etc. Says-Court 23: December–1665/6

1 George Monck 2 Anthony Stevens. Evelyn’s deputy on the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen, and probably the same man who was cashier to the navy treasurer and appears several times in Pepys’s diary.

408

Henry Hyde Letter 272 [269] January 20, 1666 f 154r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXIX To my Lord Vicount Cornberry.1

My Lord, Ubi amor, ibi Oculus,2 excuses the glaunces we cast upon desireable objects; my hand cannot containe it selfe from this presumption when I have anything to write which affords me the least pretense; and though you should not answer my Letters yet, ’till you forbid me writing, I please my selfe that you vouchsafe to reade them: Greate Persons pay deare for such Addresses, who afford them that honor; and especialy, those, that (like your Lordship) know so well to value their tyme. One Period more, my Lord and beso los manos3– – Upon Wednesday last I went to London and spent the whole Afternoone in viewing my Lord Chancellors4 new House [LM: Clarendon-house built by Mr. Prat:5 Since quite demolish’d by Sir Thomas Bond6 etc. who purchased it to build a streete of Tenements to his undoing:] if it be not a solaccisme to give a Palace so vulgar a name: My uncessant buisinesse had ’till that moment prevented my passionate desires of seing it; since it was one storie advance’d: But I was plainely astonish’d when I beheld what a progresse was made: Let me speake ingenuously, I went with prejudice, and a critical spirit; incident to those who fantsy they know any thing in Art: I accknowledge to your Lordship that I have never seene a nobler Pile: My old Friend, and fellow Traveller (cohabitants, and contemporaries at Rome) has perfectly acquitted himselfe: It is without Hyperbolies, the best contriv’d, the most usefull, gracefull, and magnificent house in England: I except not Audly-end;7 which, though larger, and full of gaudy and barbarous ornaments, dos not gratifie judicious Spectators. As I sayd, my Lord here is state, and use, solidity and beauty most symmetricaly combin’d together: Seriously there is nothing abroad pleases me better; nothing at home approches it: I have no designe my Lord to gratifie the Architect beyond what I am oblig’d, as a profess’d honorer of Virtue wheresoever ’tis con

1 2 3 4

Hyde responded on 24 January (Add 78658: f 78 [24.1.1666]). “Where love is, there is the eye.” “I kiss your hands.” Clarendon House, Edward Hyde’s palace, built in 1664–5, was demolished in 1683. See the engraving by William Skillman (c.1680), reproduced in Griffiths, The Print in Stuart Britain, cat. 187. 5 Roger Pratt (1620–85; ODNB). He was an architect and was knighted in 1668. As well as Clarendon House (1664–7), he was also responsible for Kingston Lacy, Dorset (1663–5), and Horseheath Hall, Cambridgeshire (1663–5). Evelyn met him in Rome in 1644. 6 Sir Thomas Bond (d. 1685). Created a baronet in 1659, Bond bought the manor of Camberwell (Peckham) and built a house there (c.1672) that Evelyn describes in 1676 (Diary IV.93). Bond was the principal purchaser in a consortium of what Evelyn calls “certaine inferior people, rich bankers & Mechanics” (Diary IV.339) who pulled down Clarendon House to build Bond St. 7 Built for Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Suffolk (1561–1626), probably by John Thorpe (c.1603–16). Audley End is in Cambridgeshire.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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spicuous; but when I had seriously contemplated every roome (for I went into ’em all, from the Cellar, to the Plat-forme on the roofe) seene how well, and judiciously the Wales were erected, the Arches cut and turn’d, the timber braced, their Scantlings and Contignations dispos’d: I was incredibly satisfied, and do accknowledge myselfe to have much improved by what I observed: What shall I add more? rumpatur Invidia,8 I pronounce it the first Palace of England, deserving all I have say’d of it, and a better Encomiast. May that greate and illustrious Person whose large and ample heart has honor’d his Country with so glorious a structure, and by an Example Worthy of himselfe, shew’d our Nobility how they ought indeede to build, and value their Qualities, live many LongYeares to enjoy it; and when he shall be pass’d to that upper building, not made with hands; may his Posterity (as you my Lord) inherite his goodnesse, this Palace, and all other circumstances of his Grandure to consummate their felicity; with which happy Augure, permitt me in all faithfullnesse, and sincerity to subscribe my selfe My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 20th January 1665/6

Samuel Pepys1 Letter 273 [270] January 3, 1666 f 155

Epistle CCLXX2 To Samuel Pepys Esquire Clearke of the Acts,3 and one of the Principall Officers of his Majesties Navy etc.

Sir, I have according to your commands sent you an hasty draught of the Infirmary, and Project for Chatham,4 the reasons, and advantages of it; which challenges your promise of

8 “may envy be destroyed.” 1 Samuel Pepys (1633–1703; ODNB and Pepys Diary). Evelyn and Pepys had corresponded since 27 April 1665, and had met on 9 September (Pepys Diary VI.217–18). In the Evelyn archive, Pepys’s letters are in Add 78314 (ff 54–84). They are printed in de la Bédoyère, ed., Particular Friends, and are identified according to its census and pagination. 2 Particular Friends, A19, 52. The original version of this letter is PRO S.P. 29/146 f 73 (dated 31 January). This is the first letter to Pepys in the letterbooks. 3 clerk of the Admiralty. 4 On 6 February, Evelyn records describing to the king “my project for an Infirmarie, which I read to him with greate approbation” and on 13 March 1666 going to Chatham “to take order and view a place design’d to erect an Infirmarie” (Diary III.430, 432).

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promoting it to the use design’d: I am my selfe convinc’d of the exceeding benefit it will every-way afford us: If upon examination of the Particulars, and your intercession, it shall merit a recommendation from the rest of the Principall Officers, I am very confident the effects will be correspondent to the pretence of the Papers which I transmit to accompany it: In all events, I have don mine endeavour; and, if upon what appeares demonstrable to me (not without some considerable experience, and collation with our Officers, discreete and sober Persons) I persist in my fondnesse to it, from a prospect of the singular advantages would be reaped by setting it on foote, I beseech you to pardon my honest endeavors, with the errors of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 3: January 1665/6

William Swan1 Letter 274 [271] February 8, 1666 f 155

Epistle CCLXXI To Sir William Swan, and the rest of the Deputy Lieutennants of the County of Kent etc.

Sir, My promptnesse upon the last occasion to serve his Majestie and obey your summons, will, I hope justifie this addressse; which pretends not in the least, to repine at what you have been pleas’d to impose on me; but to signifie how ready I am still to appeare so I may be joyn’d with a competent person, who (as I am sure ’tis your intention) should help to aleviate the common burthen[.] This Gentleman Mr. – conceiving himselfe surcharg’d, renders it impossible for me to send in my halfe-horse,2 as I was ready to do, and shall still be upon the least notice how you are pleas’d to determine concerning him: So that I beg you will not receive this Apologie of mine for a Contempt, who esteemes nothing more just and reasonable than to serve his Majestie and Country, according to my proportion, and which I humbly submit to your disposures, as becomes Sir Your etc. Says-Court February 8: –1665/6

1 Sir William Swan (1631–80; Particular Friends). One of the deputy-lieutenants of Kent during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Swan’s chief connection with Evelyn was through his marriage to the daughter of Sir John Ogle (1569–1640; ODNB) of Pinchbeck. 2 Evelyn should have shared the levy being made on property-owners for defence with Sir John Cutler (1608–93), an alderman who was the patron of the living of St Nicholas Deptford.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Wilkins Letter 275 [272] March 12, 1666 ff 155v–6

411

Epistle CCLXXII To the Deane of Rippon:

[LM: afterwards Lord Bishop of Chester] Sir, I have read Mr. Tillotsons Rule of Faith,1 and am oblig’d to render him thankes for the benefit I accknowledge to have receiv’d by it: Never in my life did I see a thing more illustrated, more convincing, unlesse men will be blind because they will be so: I am infinitely pleasd with his equal style, dispassionate treatment, and christian temper to that importunat Adversary: For my part, I looke upon that Buisinesse as dispatch’d, and expect onely the Grimaces and agonies of dying and desperate men for the future: plainely, the Wound is mortal. Sir, that I presume to send you the Consequence of what I formerly publish’d in En­ glish, in the Controversy ’twixt the Jesuites and Jansenists:2 speakes rather my obedience to a Command from that greate Person [LM: My Lord Chancellor],3 than my abilities to have undertaken, or acquitted my selfe of it as I ought: I have annext an Epistolary Præface, not to instruct such as you are in any thing which you do not know; but for their sakes, who reading the Booke, might possibly conceive the French Kings to have ben the onely persons in danger; and because I hope it may receive your suffrage as to the pertinence of it pro hic et nunc. I am heartily sorry that some indispensable occasion avocations frequently deprive me of the meetings at Gressham-Colledge, and particularly that I cannot be there on Wednesday; his Majestie having enjoyn’d me to repaire to morrow to Chatham, for the taking order about erecting an Infirmary capable to entertaine 500 sick Persons and all to be finishd, against the next occasion:4 If Almighty God do not vouchsafe to accept this Service, as well as the King my Master; I shall be an intollerable looser, by being so long diverted from a Conversation so profitable, and so desirable: But Warrs will once have a period; and I now and then get a baite at Philosophy; but it is so little and jejune, as I despaire of satisfaction ’till I am againe restored to the Society, where even your very fragments are enough to enrich any man that has the honor to approch you: 1 John Tillotson, The Rule of Faith: or an Answer to the treatise of Mr. J S (1666; in the 1687 catalogue and Eve.a.35), includes an appendix by Edward Stillingfleet. It was an answer to the treatises of Father John Sergeant (1622–1707), a Roman Catholic convert whose mother had been Evelyn’s godmother. See Letter 253. Tillotson (1630–94; ODNB) was preacher to the Society at Lincoln’s Inn (1663). He became dean of Canterbury (1672–89) and canon of St Paul’s (1675) and dean in 1680, when he exercised archiepiscopal authority during Sancroft’s suspension in 1689–90. In 1691 he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. Wilkins was at this time vicar of St Lawrence and was an important influence on Tillotson. 2 The Pernicious Consequences of the New Heresie of the Jesuites (1666). See Diary III.431. 3 Edward Hyde 4 On 13 March Evelyn notes: “I went to Chattham to take order and view a place design’d to erect an Infirmarie” (Diary III.432). He was able to attend the meeting on 22 March (432–3).

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Sir, I thinke I have at last procurd the Mummies which you desired: be pleas’d in the name and with authority of the Royal Society, to challenge it of the injurious detaining therein using the addresse of Mr. Fox:5 Sir Samuel Tuke having most effectively written in our behalfe, who deserves (together with the honorable Mr. Henry Howard6 of Norfolke) a place among the benefactors. Sir, I am Your etc. Says-Court 12: March 1665/6

Thomas Colepeper Letter 276 [273] March 31, 1666 f 156

Epistle CCLXXIII To my Lord Culpeper:

My Lord I had before your Lordships Letter came,1 given order to Mr. Conny for the Rent for the Castle,2 and do now againe deliver a note to this Gentleman by which he will infallibly receive the monye at Chatham: Our greate distresses for monye has hitherto hindred my intended journey to Leedes; but I purpose shortly to go expressly to survey the repaires, and shall in all things be ready to comply with whatsoever is reasonable for his Majestie to do there, that you may receive no prejudice from us, and in accknowledement of all Civilities to My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 31 March. 1666

5 Sir Stephen Fox (1627–1716; ODNB, H). Fox had managed Charles II’s household in exile and was made paymaster-general in 1661, in which post he amassed a large fortune. He became an MP, was knighted in 1665, and was made a commissioner of the treasury in 1679. 6 Henry Howard, 6th duke. In 1660 Parliament revived the dukedom, and Henry Howard succeeded from his brother Thomas in 1677. 1 See Add 78678: f 114 (31.3.1666) 2 John Conny; Leeds Castle in Kent had been rented by the commissioners for the sick and wounded.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Monck Letter 277 [274] May 29, 1666 f 156r–v

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Epistle CCLXXIV To the Duke of Albemarle Lord Generall of the Fleete

May it please your Grace, The Bearer hereof Captain Anthony Young,1 my very good Neighbour, going to the Fleete to kisse your Graces hands, I could not omit the opportunity of presenting my most humble duty to your Grace by him, as well in accknowlegement of your Graces many favours to me, as to bespeake the influence of them upon the Captain who comes on purpose to offer his Service to his Majestie (at this tyme of neede) in such a Capacity, as your Grace shall esteeme him most worthy, to whom both his merits and abilities are well known; He having upon all occasions approved himselfe a Prudent and a valiant man, and One who has the repute of being perfectly qualified for some handsome Employment: My Lord, I could not but give him this testimony, because I am confident he will make it good, if your Grace shall thinke meete to Command him. I may not omit to informe your Grace that there having lately ben 25 of the best men of our Guards at Leeds pick’d out to go to sea, our strength there is so greately impair’d, that without a suddaine recruit, and, indeede, a stronger Guard, it will be impossible to secure our Prisoners; the Place Castle being so wide, and the Walles so much ruin’d: We have ben forc’d to greate Severities of late, to preserve them from attempts, in which two have ben shot, and one of them since dead of his Wound; Yet there brake ten away at once the other night; and with all our Officers dilligence, we could not recover above five of them againe: I remember your Grace recommended me to his Royall Highnesse for redresse of this defect in our Guards, when I was with you at the Buy in the Nore,2 at (the late Rendizvous of the Fleete) nor have I been wanting in my applications: But if your Grace would be pleased to intimate the necessity of reinforcing our Garison, upon this diminution of it, it would infinitely contribute to a more speedy, and effectual supply, and prepare the Place to receive such numbers of Prisoners as we are to expect and hope for upon the first successes of your Grace; since without it be put into a better Posture, the present Guard will not be sufficient to secure them: I am bold to minute this Particular to your Grace, that future accidents may not be imputed to my want of representing the state of what is comitted to the trust of May it please your Grace Your Graces etc. Sayes-Court 29: May: 1666:

1 Anthony Young (c.1616–93). As a naval captain he was a near neighbour at Deptford of Evelyn who describes him as distinguished in the Cromwellian war against Spain and in the First Anglo-Dutch War and calls him “a sober man & excellent sea man” (Diary V.158). 2 The fleet was anchored at the Buoy of the Nore, at the mouth of the Medway River in Kent, for a large part of 1664–6.

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George Evelyn Letter 278 [275] July 18, 1666 f 157r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXXV To George Evelyn Esquire

Deare Brother I had long ’ere this repeated the usual trouble of my Letters, had any thing worthy your notice passed the Gazetts, and common reports; and indeede I promis’d my selfe the honor of waiting on you at Wotton; but you are Wittnesse how frequently I was wont to be disturb’d, when I thought of giving my selfe that happinesse; and I believe you will imagine me now as little master of opportunities, ’till this next Conflict of our Fleetes shall be ended, and then I may hope for some relaxation: In the meane time this comes an introductor upon another account: Brother You know I have ever borne a particular kindnesse and respect for my deare Niepce and God-daughter,1 and how to expresse it better, I cannot tell, than in wishing her a good Husband, and such a Person as might prove a Solid Comfort to you, as well as to your Daughter, after all your late afflictions: To be briefe, There is one Mr. Tyrell:2 Eldest sonne of Sir T. T----- who designes a Visite to Wotton onely as a stranger for an houre or two some day the next Weeke: He is willing both you and my Neepce should see him before he makes his addresses,3 and then if you thinke fit to give him encouragement, he will endeavor by winning her favour to prosecute his suite with you both: This I thought fit to prevent [sic] you with, that you may consider of the Circumstances; but for this first Visite, take no kind of notice of the Designe farther than by giving your usual good Countenance to all persons of his quality, who are drawne to your sweete habitation from the fame of it and your noble reception of them. He is a religious, learned, sober, well fashon’d young Person, furnish’d with many excellent accomplishments beyond mine expectation: In a Word, there will be nothing wanting as to his Person, if the Circumstances of his fortune do as well comport with your designes for my Niepce as they intruth would do with mine were I in our Conditions alike: 1200 per annum I am assur’d he is heire to; cleare, and without the least incombrance: 5, or, if you require it. £600 per yeare will be forthwith settled for present maintenance: His stock is no wayes despicable; as you well know: and though I confesse all this do by no meanes reach what you may reasonably promise your self in proportion to the faire blessing, I understand, you designe her: Yet Brother I beseech you consider, that, ’tis not aboundance which renders us happy; that such a Father, as you are will derive little joy by Sacrificing her to a fortune (as they the Market now adayes) unlesse with all the accomplishments I have enumerated in this Gentleman, did accompany it: My Niepce has had so greate a losse of her deare Mother,4 at 1 Mary Wyche, née Evelyn, niece (1648–1723). The daughter of George Evelyn, Mary married Sir Cyril Wyche (c.1632–1707; ODNB) in 1692. John Evelyn Jr, who saw much of her in Dublin, wrote, “I look on her as a weak, foolish, if not half-craz’d woman” (Add 78301: f 51 [23.10.1693]). Her correspondence is in Add 78295. 2 James Tyrrell (1642–1718; ODNB). Evelyn had travelled with his father Sir Timothy Tyrrell from Paris in 1652 (Letter 46). 3 Mary Evelyn did not marry him; she married Sir Cyril Wyche in 1692. 4 Mary Cotton Evelyn

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the very period and finishing of her education; and her owne Inclinations are so particular, and tender, that to gratifie them in a person who shall have besides his owne good nature, the obligation to consider it, will be infinitely to her felicity; And if it should be this Young Gentlemans good hap to be what I realy wish him, and that you should thinke fit to have him with you for some time; You would be the hapiest person in the World in his Conversation; not onely as to your owne particular reguard, who could not but take extraordinary satisfaction in his Vertues and sweete disposition, but in his behaviour and Example to my Cousen your Sonne George5 upon whom it might be an Occasion of Working an advantagious Emulation: In summ, he is resolvd I do not tell you of his resolution to proceede in the study of the Lawes, in which he is already a very considerable proficient; because you will soone find it: In summ, he is resolv’d to be totaly governed by You, and I am confident would make you happy by all the respects and deferences which may become him towards a Father in Law, and a Wife: Brother If I were suborn’d, I could say no more; but, as I assure you I have no other designe in it, than to serve you and my Niepce with all sincerity; so in justice, and as mine owne experience and enquiry have made it out, I can say no lesse: In all events, I beg that you will take it in good part from me, and that when you have well considerd the Circumstances, and acquainted your selfe concerning the Person, you will allow me to I may heare from you, what farther encouragement you will allow me to give him, who am by infinite favours, as well as inclination Your etc. White-hall 18: July:–1666.

Abraham Cowley Letter 279 [276] August 24, 1666 ff 157v–9

Epistle CCLXXVI To Abraham Cowley Esquire

[LM: In reply to his Pindarique Ode on me after the dedication to him of my Calendarium Hortense]1 Sir, I did never in the least designe to put you to so greate an Expense, as you have realy ben at upon the Trifle I lately presented you:2 Heaven, and Immortality are indeede the mighty Guerdons of our imperfect Graces; but I never thought there were such a largesse 5 George Evelyn, nephew 1 Evelyn’s Pindaric is also included in the manuscript collection of his occasional and miscellaneous verse (Add 78357: 27v–8v). He later also sent it to Flower Hyde and Anne Spencer (Letter 629 and Add 78309: f 69 [4.8.1690]). Evelyn also composed an elegy on the occasion of Cowley’s death (Add 78357: ff 29v–31). 2 Kalendarium hortense … The second edition, with many useful additions (London, 1666). This second edition of Evelyn’s Kalendarium Hortense (1666) was dedicated to Cowley. Evelyn’s presentation copy to Henry Bennet is BL G.2299.

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on Earth, ’til I had read your Pindariques, and seene the Names you have consecrated to Eternity; and then concluded, Such Honors onely due to Heroics.3 What shall I returne you for this excesse of bounty? and the honor you have don the Mistrisse I serve and Cultivate? She indeede is worthy of all that can be said (and after what you have sayd, what can be added?) to celebrate her; because she is Yours, as well as Mine, and suffers Rivals, and may be possess’d by infinite adorers, without Jealosie, or Diminution: As to my owne felicity, I must gratefully accknowledge, that it is infinitely exceedingly improved by the assurance you give me of your esteeme: But it is not so perfectly Consummate as I easily imagine yours to be; who have neither given hostages to Fortune, nor obliged your selfe to the formes and impertinences of my manner of living life: Sir, I pronounce it to you from my heart as oft as I consider it, that I looke on your fruitions with unexpressable Emulation, And 3  4  1  2





should thinke my selfe more happy far, And borne under a luckier star, Than crowned-heads, and Princes are, Were I as You, the Arbiter Of mine owne life And could at once breake from those gilded toyes, To tast your well describ’d, and solid joyes With such a Wife, And such a Friend, whose Conversation were a blisse That dos transcend all the mistaken World calls happinesse

2

Who could indeed with your divine Art plant, Might of that celebrated Science vaunt, Which You ascribe to me; Who scarce the Names of Herbs alone do know: You skill the Vertues of their juice, And how they in their Causes grow; And can prescribe their Sovraigne Use, And mutual Sympathie:

3 Cowley had replied to Evelyn’s dedication with an essay called “The Garden” that included a long Pindaric poem (see his letter of 17 August [Alice Bemis Taylor Collection, Ms 0145, Colorado College] and the manuscript of the text [Beal, Index, CoA 206]). It was not printed until collected with Cowley’s works in The Works of Mr Abraham Cowley. Consisting of those which were formerly printed: and those which he design’d for the press, now published out of the authors original copies (London, 1668; Eve.b.28). Evelyn also printed it in the third edition of Sylva (London, 1679) and the eighth edition of Kalendarium hortense (London, 1691).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn Let Men with n’ere such industry their Plot, For various simples dig, and sow, Unlesse the Meale into’t some Prophet throw (Poëts are Prophets too) 2: Regum 4: Death still is in the Pot. Unlesse to Art, Experience also joyne Arts’ but Imposture, how so ’ere it shine: Experience Art, and Nature can refine, And Wonders can produce, and things divine: Thus Chirons skill, and Orpheus in you meete, And every point you hit, who Usefull mix with Sweete.







417

2: Regum 4:

3

Should the Almighty now cause to descend      Some seate Paradise Those bless’d Aboads againe      above the Moone And Man to cultivate them without paine; Whilst He were destitute of such a Friend, As well could counsil him his time Thoughts to spend, Upon that Wonderous Creation, And profitable [insert: wisely improve the] Speculation He would be tempted, as before To Tast, and to Know something more: And he ag’in Would sinne: For ’tis not Trees, or Plants, make Paradise, But Prudence, how on these, well to Philosophise.

4

O blessed Shades! when they (as You) did teach Wisdome in Gardens, and in Gardens preach! When to Cephisian4 Walkes the Ladys came vide Agellium: Invited by Learn’d Mantinicas name, Who in th’Umbrif’rous Academy Taught men low pleasures to defy: If they did presse, To see that faire Pythagoresse How would t’have ran to heare you Speake, Who are a walking Bibliotheque? Whose very learned Conversation can Make any place a Tusculan; Eternal Spring There never wants, And all the Flowers are Amaranths: 4 from Cephisia, the fashionable resort made famous by Aulus Gellius in his Noctes Atticae

vide Porphyr: in Vita Procli

418



The Letterbooks of John Evelyn Which You, for your owne Temples weave; Such honors You alone receive; Such honors onely You can give; Where every Grove, and every shade Is of a Tree of Knowledge made, Which Men may Touch, and Tast without offence, Secur’d by Your exemplar Innocence.

5

Gardens Our Poëts do inspire, Thalia5 is the Gardiners Muse; To Gardens Lovers oft’ retire; O, Who would not the Garden Choose? Where the first Friendship in the World was knit, And Where, (if any still on Earth remaine) ’tis yet.



2 Genesis

6

I’d rather sup upon a Leafe, I sweare, Alone with You Than Feast amongst all the Apician6 fare And roaring Crue, Who surfeit on our healfull toyle, And a Whole Garden at one a Collation Spoile Who can the tyme of a long Dinner sit, Without one Graine of Sense or Wit, That Salt of Life, as well as Health, Though they had all the World can boast of Cheere and Wealth.

7

These are the Sweetes for which I Gardens love, To which even Gods themselves, made their recesse; Earths Heaven, if in lesse Than Heaven it selfe, there be an happinesse, ’Tis here; ’tis here where Virtuous pleasures move The Senses, which (unguarded) Traytors prove, And Natures gifts betray, and we polute The Sweetest Flowers, poyson the Wholsom’st Fruite. A Garden is a Consecrated place, Where the first Covenant of Grace

5 the muse of comedy 6 luxurious in reference to food, usually derived from M. Govius Apicius of the 1st century AD

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Was with our Father made, ’till Sin did chase Him thence; And There it is againe Man emulates that bless’d state to regaine, When wisely he with you dos choose Ægypt, for Canäan to loose: If ever Sweetes of life he then would seeke Let him his Barke steere towards thy happy Creeke: If ever Traveller found rest, Twas There: Ô how should I esteeme Me bless’t Might Could I at last attaine, to Live, and Dye in Cowleys-Nest!

But Sir, I will no longer prophane your divine, and, alone, peculiar Talent: Pardon me this Sally: I do not hope by it to render you the least expression of my sense of your favours to me, because it is indeede beyond all I can expresse: But if, with your permission, I may fix those perennial lines of Yours, before that other Worke on this Argument, (and in which I have travel’d some Yeares to render it, I hope, no Ungratefull Worke)7 I shall receive it as a particular Grace, and ever remaine Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 24th: August 1666.

Samuel Tuke Letter 280 [277] September 27, 1666 ff 159v–60

Epistle CCLXXVII To Sir Samuel Tuke Knight and Baronet

Sir, It was some foure dayes before the most fatal conflagration of the (quondam) Citty of London1 that I addressed a few lines to you, little thinking I should so soone have had two such dissolutions to deplore: The burning of the best Towne in the World, and the discease of the best Friend in the World; Your excellent Lady:2 Sir, You know they are but small afflictions, that are loquacious; greate ones are silent; and if ever, greate ones there were, mine eyes have beheld, and mine Eares heard them, with an heart so possess’d with 7 “Elysium Britannicum” 1 The Great Fire began on 2 September 1666; see Pepys’s description of the fire in Pepys Diary VII.267– 82, and Porter, The Great Fire of London (see Plate 16). 2 Mary Tuke, née Guldeford (d. 1666). Her father, Edward, was a first cousin of Henry Arundell, Lord Arundell of Wardour. She became the first wife of Sir Samuel Tuke in 1664 and went to France with him, where she died.

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sorrow, that it is not easily expressed; because the Instances have ben altogether stupendious and unparalleld: But it were in vaine to entertaine you with those formal topics, which are wont to be applied to persons of lesse fortitude, and Christian resignation; though I cannot but exhort you to what, I know, you do: Looke upon all things in this World as transitory, and perishing: Lent us upon condition of quitting them cherefully, when God please to take them from us: This consideration alone, (with the rest of those Graces which God has furnish’d you withall) will be able to alevieate your passion and to preserve you from succumbing under the pressures, which I confesse are weighty; but not insupportable: Live therefore I conjure you, and helpe to restore your deare Country, and to consolate your Friends: There is none alive wishes you more sincere happinesse then my poore family. I suppose you may I should have heard ’ere this from you of all your concernements; but impute your silence to some possible miscarriage of your Letters since the usual place of addresse my Cousen S.3 is reduc with the rest reduc’d to ashes and made an heape of ruines: I would give you a more particular relation of this Calamitous accident;4 but I should oppresse you with sad stories, and I question not, but they are come too soone amongst you at Paris with all accuratenesse, and (were it possible) Hyperbolies: There is this yet of losse deplorable in it: That, as it pleased God to order it, little Effects of any greate Consequence have ben lost, besides the houses: That our Merchands at the same instant, in which it was permitted that the tidings should flie over seas, had so settled all their affaires, as they complyd with their forraine Correspondence as punctually, as if no disaster at all had happned; nor do we heare of so much as one that has fail’d: The Exchang is now at Gressham Colledge. The rest of the Citty (which may consist of neere a 7th part) and suburbs, peopled with new shopps; the same noyse, buisinesse and commerce, not to say vanity: Onely the poore booke-sellers have ben indeede ill treated by Vulcan, so many noble impressions consum’d, by their trusting them to the Churches, as their losse is estimated neere two-hundred thousand pounds:5 which will be an extraordinary detriment to the whole Republique of Learning: In the meane time, the King and Parliament are infinitely zealous for the rebuilding of our ruines; and I believe it will universaly be the employment of the next Spring: They are now buisid with adjusting the claimes of each proprietor, that so they may dispose things for the building after the 3 James Stephens; his house seems to have been Evelyn’s poste restante in London in the mid-1660s. 4 Evelyn’s account of the Great Fire is in Diary III.450–61. 5 Evelyn describes visiting the ruins of St Paul’s on 7 September: “It was astonishing to see what imense stones the heate had in a manner Calcin’d, so as all the ornaments, Columns, freezes, Capitels & projetures of massie Portland stone flew off, even to the very roofe, where a Sheete of Leade covering no lesse than 6 akers by measure, being totaly mealted, the ruines of the Vaulted roofe, falling brake into St. Faithes, which being filled with the magazines of bookes, belonging to the Stationer, & carried thither for safty, they were all consumed burning for a weeke following” (Diary III.459). Apart from the destruction of the retail centre of the book trade (Paul’s Cross Yard), the fire had also destroyed the Stationers’ Hall and many of the printing houses. See Blagden, The Stationers’ Company, 215–20, and Blayney, The Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard. [Simon Ford], The conflagration of London poetically delineated and directed to the most noble and deserving citizen Sir J.L. Knight and Baronet (London, 1667), 14 writes: With sacred Flames a learned Blaze doth rise: (For Twins, they say, Twin-Fates do oft surprize)

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noblest Model: Every body brings in his Ideä, amongst the rest, I presented his Majestie my owne Conceptions with a discourse annex’d.6 It was the second that was seene, within 2 dayes after the Conflagration: But Dr. Wren7 had got the start of me: both of us did coincidere8 so frequently, that his Majestie was not displeased with it; and it causd divers alterations and truely, there was never a more glorious Phœnix upon Earth, if it do at last emerge out of those cinders, and as the designe is layd, with the present fervour of the undertakers: But these things are yet immature; and I pray God we may enjoy peace to encourage those faire dispositions: The miracle is, I have never in my life observ’d a more universal resignation, lesse repining amongst sufferers: Which makes me hope, that God has yet thoughts of mercy towards us: Judgements do not alwayes end where they begin; and therefore let none insult over our Calamities: We know not whose turne it may be next: But Sir, I forbeare to entertaine you longer on these sad reflections; but persist to beg of you not to suffer any transportations unbecoming a man of Virtue; resolve to preserve your selfe, if it be possible, for better times, the good and restauration of your Country, and the comfort of your friends and Relations, and amongst them of Sir Your etc. Sayes Court 27th September 1666

Sir, I did this yesterday speake with his Grace the Duke of Albemarle9 about our affaire, and doubt not but we shall deale: his being in the Fleete this Summer has ben the sole interruption of our progresse.



6 7 8 9

The labours of the teeming Press and Brain, (An off-spring Ages can’t restore again) One Howr destroys: St. Faiths betrusted Cell, (For publick Faith it was) turn’d Infidel. See Evelyn, “London Revived” (see Plate 17). Sir Christopher Wren; see Reddaway, The Rebuilding of London after the Great Fire come together, agree George Monck

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 16 © Trustees of the British Museum

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Edward Hyde Letter 281 [278] November 27, 1666 ff 160v–1

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Epistle CCLXXVIII To my Lord High-Chancelor:

My Lord I did the other day in Westminster Hall give my Lord Cornbery1 your Lordships sonne, my thoughts briefely concerning a most needefull reformation for the transmitting a clearer streame for the future from the Presse, by directing to imaculate Copys of such Bookes as being vended in greate proportions do for want of good Editions amongst us, export extraordinary sums of mony, to our no lesse detriment than shame:2 And I am so well satisfied of the honor which a redresse in this kind will procure even to posteritiy (however small the present instance may appeare to some in a superficial view) that I thinke my selfe obliged to wish that your Lordship may not conceive it unworthy of your patronage.3 The affaire is this: Since the late deplorable Conflagration, in which the stationers have been exceedingly ruin’d, there is like to be an extraordinary penury and scarcity of Classic Authors etc. us’d in our Grammar scholes; so as of necessity they must suddainely be reprinted. My Lord may please to understand, that our Book-Sellers follow their owne judgement in printing the antient Authors according to such Text, as they found extant when first they entred their Copy: Whereas, out of manuscripts collated by the industry of later Critics, those Authors are exceedingly improved: For Instance, about 30 yeares

1 Henry Hyde 2 The English scholarly book-trade was part of an international market, characterized by the common use of Latin. See Roberts, “The Latin Trade”; Rostenberg, The Library of Robert Hooke: The Scientific Book Trade of Restoration London; and Maclean, Scholarship, Commerce, Religion, and Learning and the Market Place, 9–24. 3 The Stationers’ Company and its members had suffered greatly as a result of Great Fire. The retail centre of the trade (Paul’s Cross Churchyard) had been destroyed, as had the Stationers’ Hall, warehouses, and print shops. The Company Treasurer’s Stock Book refers to it as “the sad and neuer to be forgotten Judgment by the ffire” (cited in Blagden, The Stationer’s Company, 216). See also Letter 280, note 5, and the discussion of the impact of the fire on the book trade and the Royal Society in Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 337–44. In his discussion “Works or Acts of merit towards learning” in The Advancement of Learning, Bacon had called for “Newe Editions of Authors, with more correct impressions, more faithfull translations, more profitable glosses, more diligent annotations, and the like.” Advancement of Learning, 56–7. For the larger context of the Stationers’ Company and its privileges in the relation to the Royal Society and its activities, see Johns, The Nature of the Book, 58–186.

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since, Justine was corrected by Isaac Vossius4 in many hundreds of places most material to sense, and Elegancy; and has since ben frequently reprinted in Holland after the purer Copy. But, with us, still according to the old Reading: The like has Florus, Senecas Tragedys5 and neere all the rest: which have in the meane time been castigated abroad by severall learned hands, which, besides that it makes ours to be rejected, and dishonors our nation; so dos it no lesse detriment to Learning, and to the treasure of the nation in proportion. The Cause of this is, principaly the Stationar driving as hard and cruel a bargain with the Printer as he can;6 and the Printer taking up any Smatterer in the Tongues, to be the lesse looser; an exactnesse in this no wayes importing the stipulation;7 by which meanes Errors repeate and multiply in every Edition, and that most notoriously in some 4 Evelyn’s library made him well-equipped to comment on the quality of English editions and their continental analogues, and grounds this argument in his larger interests in philology and bibliography. The editions of Justinus (an epitome of the Historiae Philippicae of Trogus Pompeius) in the 1687 library catalogue were Trogi Pompeii externae historiae in compendium (Amsterdam, 1621); Justini ex trogi pompeii historiis externis (Saumur,1671); and a more recent text which incorporated the work of a large group of textual scholars including Vossius, Justini Historiae Philippicae ex recensione Joannis Georgii Graevii cum ejusdem castigationibus: his accedunt integrae notae Jacobi Bongarsii, Francisci Modii, Matthiae Bernecceri, Isaaci Vossii, Tanaquilli Fabri, Joannis Vorstii, & Joannis Schefferi (Leiden, 1683); as well as an English translation, The history of Justin, taken out of the four and forty books of Trogus Pompeius, trans Robert Codrington (London 1664) and a French text, L’histoire universelle de Trogue Pompée (Saumur, 1672). The selection underscores Evelyn’s view of his library as akin to a garden in its growth and pruning. There seems to be little interest in acquiring or retaining texts which he considered superseded. 5 Evelyn’s 1687 catalogue lists three editions of Florus (Oberursel, 1619; Amsterdam, 1635; Strasburg, 1636) as well as a 1636 English translation. Seneca plays a prominent role in his commonplace books and is cited frequently in his correspondence. The catalogue records many editions. Of Seneca’s tragedies, he listed two copies of the Amsterdam editions of Farnaby’s text (n.d. and 1678; see below) as well as other texts printed in Amsterdam (1619) and by Plantin in Antwerp (1612). His collection of Seneca’s philosophical works is also extensive: he lists Latin texts from Leiden (n.d.), Geneva (1626), and Amsterdam (1672), as well as Malherbe’s and Du Ryer’s French translations and Roger L’Estrange’s Seneca’s morals by way of abstract (London, 1682). In addition, Eve.b.33 is a copy of the 1620 edition of Lodge’s translation inscribed “Richard Hoare demeurant Paris, 1651” (III, 150). 6 a common complaint. Roger L’Estrange charges: “both Printers, and Stationers, under Colour of Offering a Service to the Publique, do Effectually but Design One upon another. The Printers would beat down the Book-selling Trade, by Menaging the Press as Themselves please, and by working upon their own Copies: The Stationers, on the other side, They would Subject the Printers to be absolutely Their Slaves; which they have Effected in a Large Measure already, by so increasing the Number, that the One Half must either play the Knaves, or Starve.” Considerations and Proposals In Order to the Regulation of the Press (London, 1663), 27. The subtitle of L’Estrange’s pamphlet, Diverse Instances of Treasonous, and Seditious Pamphlets, Proving the Necessity thereof, suggests the political context for such demands for stricter regulation of the press. 7 Evelyn’s concern over the quality of proofreading was long-standing. He often complained about the errors introduced into his edition of Lucretius (see Diary III.173 and Letter 100). A letter from Henry Oldenburg of 18 June 1668 (Oldenburg, Correspondence, IV, 469; No. 890) suggests that he had supervised the printing of Evelyn’s An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (London, 1668); one from Edward Phillips (Add 78318: f 86 [7.8.1694]) implies his involvement in Numismata (London, 1697), a project in which Richard Bentley was also involved (see Bentley, Correspondence, 1695–7). For the larger context of these concerns see Simpson, Proof-reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 110–68; and Grafton, The Culture of Correction in Renaissance Europe.

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most necessary schole-bookes of Value, which they obtrude upon the Buyer, unlesse men will be at unreasonable rates for forraine Editions. Your Lordship dos by this perceive the mischievous Effects of this avarice, and negligence in them: And now towards the removing those Causes of the decay of Typograyphy not onely as to this particular, but in Generall: It is humbly propos’d to consider, whither it might not be expedient: First, that inspection be had, What Text of the Greeke and Latine Authors should be follow’d in future Impressions. Secondly, That a Censor be established to take care and Caution of all Presses in London, that they be provided with able Correctors, principaly for scholebookes, which are of larger and iterated impressions. Thirdly, that the Charge thereof be advanc’d by the Company; which is but just, and will easily be reimbursed upon an allowance arising from better and more durable valuable copys; since ’tis but reason that whoever builds an house be at the Charges of Surveing; and if it stand in relation to the publique (as this dos) that he be obliged to it. My Lord these reflections are not crudely represented, but upon mature advise, and conference with learned Persons with whom I now and then converse; and they are highly worthy your Lordships investing your power and authority to reforme it, and will be inserted into the glorious things of your story, and adorne your memory: Greate Persons heretofore did take care of those matters, and it has consecrated their names. The Season is also now most proper for it, that this sad Calamity has mortified a Company which was exceedingly hauty, and difficult to manage to any usefull reformation;8 and therefore (well knowing the benefit which would acrue to the publique by so noble an attempt) I could not but recommend it to your Lordship out of the pure sense of gratitude I have, to wish your Lordship all the happy occasions of increasing your honor, for the favours you always show me, and the obligations I have to your Lordships particular friendship and kindnesse. My Lord, If this Paper find acceptance, I would be bold to add some other farther hints for the Carying it on to some perfection. For beside all I have sayd, there will neede paines in reading, consulting manuscripts and conferences with learned men; good Indexes, apt divisions, Chapters and Verses as the Dutch Variorum,9 Embellishment of Roman and Italique letters to separate inserted Speeches; especialy in Historians and Sententious Authors, which adds to the use, lustre, choyce of Succinct Notes, as difficult so the profitable, after more terse and profitable Copy, etc. For ’tis a shame, that even such as our owne Country-man Farnaby10 has publish’d, should be sold us from other Countries; because our owne Editions are so much inferior to them: If your Lordship would set your heart upon other particulars, concerning that reformation of our English presse,

8 Complaints about the power of the Stationers’ Company were commonplace. See Johns, The Nature of the Book, 145–50 and passim. 9 “the Dutch Variorum”: Evelyn refers to the editions of classical authors printed in Holland containing extensive textual apparatuses, with commentary and notes on variants etc. 10 Thomas Farnaby (1574/5–1647; ODNB) produced editions of major Latin authors (Juvenal and Persius, Lucan, Martial, and Ovid) intended for school use. Although some were printed in England (e.g., L. & M. Annæi Senecae atque aliorum tragoediæ [London, 1613]), there were many more continental editions. His edition of Seneca, for example, was printed in Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam.

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I could give instance in some of high reputation, and no meane advantage. But I would rejoice to see but this take effect: My Lord I kisse your Lordships hands etc. Says-Court 27: November 1666.

George Douglas1 Letter 282 [279] December 7, 1666 f 161v

Epistle CCLXXIX To my Lord Dowglas:

My Lord I have don all I can to accommodate your Lordships Regiment, at least so many of them as attend upon our Guards at Leeds-Castle; and do assure you, their allowance is more then double, as to fire, candles and other necessaries, what is spent in any other of our Guards, even in the most expensive places: However, the Commissioners are desirous (upon my suggestion) That your Lordship will your selfe please to consider what you conceive reasonable for them, as well officers as others, that so we may comply with your Lordship as farr as is permitted us: I have already given command concerning the Guard bed, and shall in all things endeavor to approve my selfe My Lord your etc. Starr-Chamber 7: December 1666

Philippe Dumaresq1 Letter 283 [280] December 17, 1666 f 161v

Epistle CCLXXX To Monsieur Des Maresque of Jarsey:

Sir, I know not upon what score you bestow so many obliging lines2 on a Person that has yet neither never merited the least of them; but I wish with all my heart it lay in my power 1 George Douglas, 1st earl of Dumbarton (c.1636–92; ODNB, Pepys Diary). He was colonel of the Régiment de Douglas, which returned to Britain from France in 1666. On 30 June 1667, Pepys met him in Rochester and mentions seeing his Regiment (Pepys Diary VIII.306–11). He gives a scathing account of the “eternal disgrace” of his troops, in the wake of the Dutch attack on the fleet. 1 Philippe Dumaresq, sieur de Samares (1637–90; ODNB) 2 Dumaresq wrote to Evelyn on 12 November 1666 to thank him for “that Excellent and usefull piece of yours, of planting and gardening,” presumably a copy of Kalendarium Hortense (1664) which had been

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to be usefull to your excellent Genius in something more sublime and worthy it, then those meane rusticities which you are pleased to take notice off: I am sorry to understand that the danger which menaces your Iland, necessitates your aboade there, when you had thoughts of giving your selfe the diversion of visiting England and seeing your Friends; because I hoped thereby for an opportunity of testifing the greate Esteeme I have for you: Though at present I am not sorry your resolutions are to stay, because I know your presence will be so highly requisite for the conservation of that Country and his Majesties Service – Sir, I beseech you believe me to be Your etc. Says-Court 17: December 1666.

Henry Oldenburg1 Letter 284 [281] December 22, 1666 f 162

Epistle CCLXXXI To Mr. Oldenburg:2

Sir, I do a thousand tymes beg your pardon for no sooner complying with your desires, in transmiting to you what were my reflections3 about the reëdifing of London, some few dayes after that prodigious Conflagration: It is true (as you heard) I did then present them to his Majestie in Writing;4 but the want of a more exact Plot, wherein I might have marked what the fire had spared, and accommodated my designe to the remaining parts, made me take it as a rasa tabula, and to forme mine Ideä thereof accordingly: I have since lent to him by Messervy whom Evelyn had recommended to be a judge advocate in Jersey in 1660 (Diary III.251). Dumaresq also mentions the danger of “an invasion,” presumably from France which had declared war on England in the previous January (Add 15857: f 227 [12.11.1666]). 1 Henry Oldenburg (c.1619–77; ODNB, R). Oldenburg was secretary of the Royal Society and edited Philosophical Transactions. 2 See No. 590, Oldenburg, Correspondence, III, 299–300. This edition reprints a selection from the letter published in Bray’s edition of Evelyn’s diary, and notes that the original could not be located. Evelyn and Oldenburg corresponded again about his plans for the reconstruction in a letter of 25 February 1668 (no 795; Correspondence, IV, 203–4). 3 See “London Revived,” printed from Guildhall Library, Ms 94 (5) (Beal, Index, EvJ 116). In his commonplace books Evelyn complains: “London since the Conflagration might so have ben made the most beautiful, uniforme and usefull and stately Citty in Europ, had K. Chas. II taken any care about it: But the Women and his love of ease broke up all his Thoughts; so as he minded nothing” (Add 78333: f 5). 4 Charles II. On 13 September Evelyn notes: “I presented his Majestie with a Survey of the ruines, and a Plot for a new Citty, with a discourse on it, whereupon, after dinner his Majestie sent for me into the Queenes Bed-Chamber, her Majestie & the Duke onely present, where they examind each particular, & discoursd upon them for neere a full houre, seeming to be extreamly pleasd with what I had so early thought on” (Diary III.462–3). For the history of Evelyn’s proposals see Darley, John Evelyn, 219–26. See Plate 17 from “Londinum Redivivum” (1748).

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lighted upon Mr. Hollars late Plan,5 which looking upon as the most accurate hitherto extant, has caus’d me something somewhat to alter what I had so crudely don; though for the most part, I still persist in my former discourse, and which I heare send you as compleate as an imperfect Copy will give me leave, and the suppliment of an ill memory: for since that tyme I hardly ever look’d on it, and it was finish’d within two or 3 dayes after the Incendium;6 on which consideration, I doubt not but his gracious Majestie has forgiven its infirmities; as I shall beg of you to do those of this second attempt; because it is onely to obey your Commands that I durst expose them to you. Sir, I remayne Your etc. Sayes-Court 22: December 1666.

5 Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77; ODNB). Hollar’s Map or Groundplot of the Citty of London (John Overton, 1666) (Plate 16). Evelyn had known Hollar at the time of his first excursion in England through Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel and his curator, Hendrick van der Borcht. In October 1666 Hollar had petitioned Charles II for the “Honour & Tittle of your Majesties Scenographer; or Designer of Prospects” (ODNB). 6 about 10 September 1666

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Plate 17 © Trustees of the British Museum

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Samuel Tuke Letter 285 [282] December 24, 1666 f 162v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXXXII To Sir Samuel Tuke etc.

Sir, I have propos’d Sir Kenelme Digbys Library to the Society,1 but I feare our present Stock is hardly strong enough to make such an Addition to our small beginings; though (unlesse the Collection be much improv’d) I do not remember (by that Catalogue which I have some yeares since perus’d) that the Authors were very Considerable; or any Science compleate: The Binding indeede is extraordinary, and for that fitter some noble Person who loves ornament and out-side, or to furnish a Library by the Yard, as you know here they do: I would yet be glad to know what the price may be; because I may recommend them to another who seekes for a penyworth. I heartily accknowledge the favour you did me, though I have not as yet receiv’d the Effects of it: But I must not omit to acquaint you, that the Society too received Mr. Howards2 Visite so honorably, that they besides their Election of him without previous scrutiny, they also chose him one of the Council for the Yeare ensuing, amongst divers other Persons of great quality at our late Anniversary, when his Majestie regal’d us with Venison, and that there was an august appearance of Ingeniosi.

1 Many of Digby’s manuscripts had been given to the Bodleian. Some of his library was sold at several auctions in Paris. See Tuke’s account of the auction in Add 78306: f 143 (12.2.1667). What remained in England was later sold together with the library of his cousin, George Digby, earl of Bristol on 19 April 1680. On that occasion Evelyn told Sir Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (1632–1712; ODNB) that “it was a very broken Collection, consisting much in books of Judicial Astrologie, Romances and trifles” (Diary IV.126). See Letters 389 and 619. 2 The Royal Society met at Arundel House from January 1667 until the end of 1673. Henry Howard was elected and admitted to the Society on 28 November (Birch, The History of the Royal Society, II, 128) and elected to its Council on 30 November (131). On 2 January, Howard “presented the society with the library of Arundel-house, to be disposed thereof by them as their property” (136), and on 4 January the Council ordered that “Mr. Hoskyns, Dr. Balle, Mr. Oldenburg, and Mr. Hooke be a committee for causing a catalogue to be made of the library of Arundel-house” (138). Evelyn notes Howard’s donation on 9 January 1667 (Diary III.472), on the occasion of the first meeting at Arundel House. The library remained at Arundel House until 1678, when it was transferred to Gresham College. In 1668, at the request of John Fell, Evelyn asked Howard for permission to exchange some of the manuscripts with the Bodleian (see Letter 318 and Diary [1887], III, 216–18). In 1830, most of the remaining manuscripts were sold to the British Museum (Diary III.472, n. 3). The library was catalogued by W.P. (William Perry), Bibliotheca Norfolciana: sive Catalogus libb. manuscriptorum & impressorum in omni arte & lingua, quos ... Henricus Dux Norfolciæ, &c. Regiæ Societati Londinensi pro scientia naturali promovenda donavit (London, 1681; in the 1687 library catalogue). See also the discussion of Howard’s library and the Royal Society in Jardine, Ingenious Pursuits, 343–7.

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To our more particular Concernes; We have had the ill fortune to be abandon’d by the Duke of Albemarle3 just as we came to the Conclusive Article: some ill Office was certainely don by defaming the Title, which not onely puts us to incredible trouble, but has expos’d it to the Heyres of Audley4 who preferr a Bill in Chancery against the Executors for the Mony lent, or the Land, and which there is no way to evade without allowance of tyme to sell, or a Resignation and forfaiture. Miss Rebecca5 is married to one Paravicini6 an Italian, but how the Portion will be satisfied remaines difficult. I am much concern’d for your reguard in the Buisinesse7 my Lord Arundel of Wardour8 so earnestly presses, and shall do all I am able to serve you in it, till your owne presence and influence ­interpose. I have no more to add, but to acquaint you with the total defeate of the Scotish Covenanters, now lately forming a conspiracy, and the quite Extinction of the Pestilence for both which God be praised: Monsieur Colberts Agent9 here has of late refreshed the Prisoners at Warr under my Care in Kent, which I pray encourage him to continue, but the Dutch miserably neglect their Countrymen. You will do a charitable office to acquaint their Embassador10 with it. I am Your etc. Sir Says-Court 24: December 1666

3 George Monck 4 Lord Suffolk sold Audley End to Charles II in 1666 but the conveyance of the property was not completed until 1669. 5 Rebecca Paravicini, née Fountaine. She was a daughter of Peter Fountaine and hence a step-daughter of George Tuke and a niece of Sir Samuel Tuke. On 24 April 1668, Evelyn who was the executor for her mother, Mary Tuke, “transferred 500 pounds to Signor Palavicini in the East India Comp: as part of his Wifes Portion’” (Diary III.508). 6 Peter Paravicini (c.1637–97; L). An alderman of London (1683–7) who was knighted in 1687, Paravicini was later a member of the committee of the East India Company (1694–6). 7 Tuke’s first wife (1664) was Mary Tuke, née Guldeford, who died in 1666 (see Letter 280). Her father, Edward Guldeford, who was a first cousin of Henry Arundell, was presumably petitioning for return of some of the dowry. 8 Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour (1608–94; ODNB) 9 Jean-Baptiste Colbert, marquis of Seignelay (1619–83), was Louis XIV’s controller-general of finances from 1665–83. In the diary Evelyn mistakes him for his brother, Colbert de Croissy, who came as ambassador the following year (Diary III.468). 10 i.e., the Dutch ambassador in Paris

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Ralph Bathurst1 Letter 286 [283] January 20, 1667 f 163

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Epistle CCLXXXIII To Dr. Batthurst President of Trinity Colledg in Oxford.

Sir Your Nephew Mr. Bohune,2 summon’d (as he informes us) to an undispensable attendance for some tyme in his Colledg,3 and now preparing for his Journey, had more easily inclin’d us to send his Scholar along with him (so well we have cause to be satisfied with the Progresse he has made under his tuition, and so greately apprehensive of his losse of tyme) but for the trouble, and inconveniency which an accidental Infirmity in his Leggs (arm’d as they yet are) might we feare put him to; the Boy being yet very Young, and requiring now and then, the assistance of a Mayde, to do some little things about him: But all this has not prevail’d with the good nature of your Nephew; who rather then leave his Scholar behind him, may, we suspect, have attempted to engage your Lady to admitt a trouble into your family, without the least incouragement, or intention from us, who can no wayes pretend to so greate a Civility; and therefore, you will be pleas’d to impute it to the extraordinary kindnesse of Mr. Bohune towards us, who dare not offer the obtruding so greate a trouble on your Lady upon so slender an obligation as that of our deserved respects to your Nephew, ’till some farther merite shall render us more capable of this favour, and generous Offer, to Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 20: January 1666.7

1 Ralph Bathurst (1619/20–1704; ODNB). He was president of Trinity College (1664) and dean of Wells (1670). Evelyn also knew him as an early fellow of the Royal Society (1663). 2 Ralph Bohun (1639–1716; ODNB). Bohun was a nephew of Ralph Bathurst. A fellow of New College (1658), he was also tutor to John Evelyn Jr and accompanied him to Oxford. He was also an active correspondent of Mary Evelyn and was appointed to the living at Wotton in 1701. 3 New College, Oxford. John Evelyn Jr, however, went to Trinity, Ralph Bathurst’s college at the age of 12. Bohun had married in 1664 Mary Palmer, widow of Dr J. Palmer, warden of All Souls.

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Richard Evelyn Letter 287 [284] February 8, 1667 f 163r–v

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Epistle CCLXXXIV To my Brother Richard Evelyn:

Deare Brother When I have congratulated the recovery of your health, which I now heare God has mercifully restor’d to you, I am to entertaine you with an affaire, which more by the Importunity of others, than my owne Inclination, and, almost resolutions, I am urged unto. Some dayes since my Lord of Carlisle1 (whom I presume you know) after a greate many kind expressions of the value and respect he had for our Family, and particularly for you and my sister,2 conjur’d me to make you an Overture of a Match3 betweene the Young Lord his Eldest Sonn4 and my Niepce your Daughter:5 I replied to my Lord, that, though I had lately several Proposals made to me of that Nature from others, I had industriously avoyded the engaging my selfe, upon the ill Effects which unsuccesfull attempts did usualy produce. That above all, I should be very tender of interposing upon any such occasion, wherin a misscarriage could be but once committed, and that irrevocable: That both You, and my Sister were Persons whose eyes were so inlightned, that you could not be impos’d upon; and that therefore, if his Lordship would persist to enjoyne me any Commands of this Nature, I should desire to know upon what termes I was to treate with you: Besides, I told him my Niepce was yet Young, not altogether arived to her mature stature; though by the Prudent care of her Parents, beyond her Yeares accomplish’d, and the Inheritrix as well of your Vertues, as of your Fortune. To this my Lord made Answer; That he intended nothing but honorable and equal with you: That he would leave his Sonn an Estate of full £5000 per Annum and for the present, settle on him £1500 a Yeare; besides such other Circumstances of his Family, as though possibly, might not weigh much with You, were not to be despised: I told my Lord, This was very honorable, and that I could not refuse to obey his Commands in acquainting you with his proposal: My Lord did likewise suggest, that some ready mony would be necessary, which he believed you would not refuse him, towards the Advancement of his other Children, that the rest of his fortune might come the more entire to yours: In summ, That if inequality of Yeares,6 or groth might prove any obstacle, and require some time for the Young persons to Cohabite together; You should totaly dispose of his, as of your owne. And now Brother, You have what I find my selfe oblig’d to acquaint you with all from my Lord of Carlile; but upon which I shall not presume to make any Reflections, whatever my Judgement may be;

1 Charles Howard, 1st earl of Carlisle (1628–85; ODNB) 2 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn 3 See Diary III.475. 4 Edward Howard, 2nd earl of Carlisle (1646–92; P) 5 Anne Montagu, née Evelyn was 14. 6 Edward Howard was thirty.

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because I have ben sufficiently caution’d (you know where)7 from perswading any of my Brothers to marry their Children to Characters:8 I shall onely desire this favour of you, that you will please to take notice of this Letter to me by the first Opportunity, in such a manner as I may decently shew it to my Lord, and with your wonted Candor and Discretion. I have not inform’d my selfe of any particulars as to the Person of the Young Lord; because I knew not how you will relish the Proposal of what (according to the course of the World Virtus post nummos)9 is offer’d as to the Estate. I do therefore againe intreate you, to returne me such a Reply, as may become me to shew to his Lordship; that however you shall thinke fit to resent his Lordships Proposition, it may appeare you are highly sensible of the honor he would do your Family; that so I may acquitt my selfe of a Command which I could not handsomely resist; and indeede, it must be accknowledg’d, that the Instances are full of respect and very obligingly noble. In this, you know best what is fit to do, and I leave it to you, for I would not be thought Officious, much lesse, presume to direct your Choyce, whose greate prudence and care, is not likely to leave any place for my poore advice, though for the successe, you shall allways have the Prayers of Deare Brother Your etc. Sayes Court 8: February 1666/7

Abraham Cowley Letter 288 [285] March 12, 1667 f 164r–v

Epistle CCLXXXV To Abraham Cowley Esquire

[RM: To incite him to write some verses before the History of Royall Society1 which he did:] Sir You had reason to be astonish’d at the presumption, not to name it affront; that I, who have so highly celebrated Recesse, and envied it in others, should become an Advocate for the 7 probably by his brother George about the proposal that had been made to George’s daughter by James Tyrrell the previous July (Letter 278) 8 “types” or “ciphers” 9 “virtue after money.” Horace, Epistulae 1.1.53 1 Thomas Sprat, The history of the Royal-Society of London (London, 1667). See Plate 18; frontispiece designed by Evelyn. Sprat also edited Cowley’s works. Cowley responded to Evelyn on 13 May, expressing regret that “I could not comprehend in it many of those excellent hints wch yow were pleased to give mee, nor descend to the praises of particular persons, becaus those things affoord too much matter for one copy of verses, and enough for a Poem, or the History itself” Diary (1818), II, 177.

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Enemie, which of all others it abhors and flies from: I conjure you to believe that I am still of the same mind, and that there is no Person alive, who dos more honor and breath-after the life and repose you so happily cultivate, and adorne by Your Example. But as those who promis’d prays’d Dirt, a Flea and the Gowte; so have I publique Employment in that trifling Essay,2 and that in so weake a style, compar’d to my Antagonists,3 as by that alone, it will appeare, I neither was, nor could be serious; and I hope you believe I speake my very soule to you. – sunt enim Musis sua Ludicra mista Camænis Otia sunt4 – But Sir, I have yet a greate deale more to say, which will bespeake require your kindnesse. Suppose our good Friend were Publishing some Elogies on the Royal Society, and by deducing the Original, Progresse and Advantages of their Designe, would bespeake it some Veneration in the World? Has Mr. Cowley no Inspirations for it? Would it not hang the most Heroic Wreath about his Temples? Or can he desire a nobler, or a fuller Argument, either for the softest aires, or the loudest Echo’s; for the smoothest, or briskest stroke of his Pindaric Lyre? Sir, suffer not Mr. Sprat to fall into an everlasting sleepe Olli dura quies Oculos, et ferreus urget Somnus, in æternam clauduntur lumina noctem.5

The Heavens, the Seas, and the Whole globe of Earth (from the variously adorned Surface, to the most hidden Treasures in her bowels) all Gods visible workes, are the your Subject; as their buisinesse to unlock the abstrusest things, and to transforme the whole face and entrailes of Nature into all accomodations of Art etc. There be who aske, What have they don? Where their Colledge?6 The scurrilous Bouffoons make other malicious Enquiries: I neede not instruct you how to Answer, or confound these Wretches; who are able to make even these informe Blocks and Stones daunce into Order and Charme them into better Sense. Or, if their Insolence presse, you You are capable to shew how They have lay’d solid foundations to perfect all noble Arts to reforme all imperfect Sciences: How the thrice-noble Boyle7 has unfolded all the i­ ntricacys 2 Publick Employment and an Active Life … Prefer’d to Solitude, and all its Appanages (London, 1667). Evelyn alludes here to the mock encomium. His examples can be documented: of the flea, thirteen examples in Dornavius (see below); of the gout, Willibald Pirckheimer, Apologia seu Podagrae laus; of dirt, Marco Antonio Majoragio, Luti encomium. See Caspar Dornavius, Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Jocoseriæ; hoc est, Encomia et Commentaria Autorum, qua veterum, qua recentiorum ... quibus res, aut pro vilibus vulgo aut damnosis habitæ, styli patrocinio vindicantur, exornantur, etc. (Hanover, 1619) and Miller, “The Paradoxical Encomium with Special Reference to Its Vogue in England, 1600–1800.” 3 Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh (1636/8–91; ODNB). Mackenzie’s A moral essay, preferring solitude to publick employment (Edinburgh, 1665) prompted Evelyn’s Publick Employment (1667). Evelyn corresponded with Mackenzie but did not meet him until 1689 (Diary IV.613–14). 4 “The Muses also have their own sports: hours of ease find place among the Camenae.” Ausonius, “Ad nepotem Ausonium” 1–2 (White, trans). 5 “stern repose and iron slumber press upon his eyes, and their orbs close in everlasting night.” Virgil, Aeneid 10.745–6 (Fairclough, trans) 6 See Hunter, “A ‘College’ for the Royal Society.” 7 Robert Boyle, and possibly a glance towards the “thrice-noble” duchess of Newcastle, whose biography of her husband, The life of the thrice noble, high and puissant prince William Cavendishe, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle appeared in 1667 (in the 1687 library catalogue; see Letter 368)

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and seacret motions of nature, not in general and loose Representations; but in all her various Processes and Mæanders: How our Telescopes have multiplied the very Starrs, and discover’d whole hosts that were Invisible (from their Creation) to mortal Eyes, and apprehended by none but God and the Intelligences; numbred the rolling Globes, measur’d the Rocks, Mountaines and Vales; stated the Periods of their Revolutions and Librations of their attending Moones, for a perfect new model of Astronomie. You Sir, can describe how they have chased the late giddy Comets,8 and detected their Wandrings and recesses: How Micrography has shewd the World a new Surface, and pierced into the bowels of the habitable Globe, and all her Inhabitants:9 How learned Willis10 un-vayled the Domicile and refuges of Sense, Animation and Reason: The Frame of their Organs, and the Mechanisme of their stupendious operations; their feavorous excesses; the treacheries of Urine, and Serous undulations, and universal ferments: How subtily Wren, Clarke and Lower11 have transfus’d the Vehicles and Assistances of Life; that by a fortified transanimation old Æson may be renew’d without the delusion of vicious Magic. How Geometry is facilitated; Geography and Hydrography rectified by a considerable progresse towards the ascertaining of Longitudes: In Summ, who can recount all their generous, and noble Undertakings and Performances but such an hand, and such a Genius as Yours, who can create Argument, and adorne a Caus? for thus I might add the many mingle things together, that you may separate them: Yet to these I might add, the many taskes now successfuly prosecuted by innumerable hands and associates in several far-distant places: I may truely say even the Antipodes. Upon what solide grounds Chymistrie is made honest and intelligent, how nicely they examine Magnetisms; Sea-fluxes, the Winds, the tenuous bodys of Water and Aire; the purity and penetration of Æther; the Causes of Gravitation and Levity: The Poises, Daunces, Trepudiations and Scales of the Universe: her Systeme, and all her alterations, in the grosser, and Smallest parcells. Sir, It requires an History (a Volume, and not a Letter) to recite onely the Arts, the Inventions and Phænomenas already absolved, improv’d or opened etc. In a Word, our Registers have out-don Pliny and Porta, and Alexis and all the Experimentists, nay the greate and illustrious Verulame12 himselfe, and has made a nobler, and more faithfull Collection 8 Evelyn refers several times to the appearance of a comet in 1664–5. Diary III.392, 393, and to “severall schemes & observations about the Comet” (396) at a meeting of the Royal Society of 18 January. 9 The research of the Royal Society makes visible the macrocosm and (particularly through Robert Hooke and his Micrographia [London, 1665]) the microcosm. 10 Thomas Willis (1621–75; ODNB, R) 11 Sir Christopher Wren, Timothy Clarke (d. 1672; ODNB, R), Richard Lower (1631–91; ODNB, R). Lower’s account of a blood transfusion between animals in 1665 is in Philosophical Transactions 1666 (London 1700, III.226). Although Christiaan Huygens had published a book on longitude in 1665, this is probably a reference to Robert Hooke who believed that Huygens had stolen his discovery. Similarly, although Kepler may have had some notion of gravity, the reference to gravitation is probably also to Hooke. 12 The 1687 library catalogue lists Pliny’s Historia Naturalis in Latin (Cologne, 1615; Leiden, 1669) and English (London, 1631). Alexis is the author known as Alessio Piemontese (or Alexius Pedemontanus) (possibly Girolamo Ruscelli) whose De’ secreti first appeared in 1557, in multiple Italian editions, and was immediately translated into Latin and French. It was already in English by the next year as The secretes of the reuerende Maister Alexis of Piemount (London, 1558). Giovanni Battista della Porta

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of real Seacrets, Usefull and Instructive, than the World has ben able to shew us these 5000 Yeares; and I omitt innumerable particulars which the two Volumes of Philosophical Transactions do monethly scatter about. We have a Library, a Repository, and an Assembly of as worthy and greate Persons as the World has any; and yet we are sometimes the Subject of Satyr, and the Songs of Drunkards; and must Have a King to our Founder and yet want a Mecænas, and above all a spirit like Yours, to raise us up Benefactors, and to compell them to thinke the Designe of the Royal Society as worthy their regaurds, and as capable to embalme their Names, as the most heroic Enterprise, or any thing Antiquity has celebrated; and I am even amaz’d at the wretchednesse of this Age, that accknowledges it no more. But the Devil, who was ever an Enemy to Truth, and to such as discover his Præstigious Effects, will never suffer the promotion of a designe so destructive to his Dominion, which is to fill the World with Imposture, and keepe it in Ignorance, without the utmost of his malice and contradiction. But you have Numbers and charmes that can bind even these Spirits of Darknesse, and render their Instruments Obsequious; and we know you have a divine Hymne for us, the luster of the Royal Society calls for an Ode from the best of Poëts upon the noblest Argument. To conclude, Here you have field to celebrate the Greate and the Good, who either do, or should favour the most august and worthy designe that ever was set on foot in the World, for use and real knowledge and those who are our real Patrons and Friends you can eternise, those who are not you can conciliate and inspire to do gallant things. But, Sir, I will add no more, when I have told you with very greate truth that I am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 12: March 1666/7

was the author of De humana physiognomonia (Vico Equense, 1586) and Magiae naturalis, libri IIII (Naples, 1558) also widely reprinted, and translated as Natural magick by John Baptista Porta, a Neapolitane: in twenty books (London, 1658). The number of “books” in della Porta’s work had jumped from four to twenty by 1584. Both Alessius (Paris, 1606; in French) and della Porta’s Magia (Frankfurt, 1607) are listed in the 1687 library catalogue, while della Porta’s De Humana (Hanover, 1593) is Eve.a.57. Verulam is Sir Francis Bacon, well represented in the 1687 catalogue and in the BL: Of the Advancement and Proficience of Learning (Oxford, 1640; Eve.b.16) and Sylva Sylvarum (London, 1651; Eve.b.30). See Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature.

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Plate 18 © Trustees of the British Museum

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George Mackenzie Letter 289 [286] March 15, 1667 f 165

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Epistle CCLXXXVI To Sir George Mackenzie.

Sir, I had often repented me of the faults you have forgiven, that is of my whole Book, ’till this most civil Letter which I lately receiv’d from you by the favour of Sir Robert Morray,1 because I find, that but for that attempt, I had not obtaind the honour you have don me, by the notice you are pleas’d to take of your Servant; nor ben so fully assur’d that my hand did not Erre, when to describe your Character, it asserted all those Perfections which make-up a consummat Vertue. Sir, upon this account I do justifie a Victory, and triumph too; with no meane ambition: but it is to see the Acquisition I have made, and to assure you, that I will use it with all the modestie and deference which becomes me to a Person so infinitely obliging as you are to Sir, Your etc. London 15: March 1666/7

P.S: Sir, I beg the favour, that you will impower some friend of yours to Reprint your most excellent Piece; because the late Conflagration has, amongst other mischiefes, depriv’d the Publique of it, and made it now so rare to find, that I cannot gratifie the Curious with a sight of what they so earnestly desire: If Royston2 therefore, who printed an Edition here, will not reparie our losse, why should you not transfer the power to some other?

1 Sir Robert Moray (1608/9?–73; ODNB, R). A founder of the Royal Society and deputy secretary of state for Scotland (1663). 2 Richard Royston published the first edition of Mackenzie’s A moral essay, preferring solitude to publick employment, and all it’s appanages (Edinburgh [sic], 1665). Evelyn’s Publick Employment and an Active Life Prefer’d to Solitude, and all its Appanages (London, 1667; Eve.a.15) was a response. See Vickers, Public and Private Life in the Seventeenth Century.

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Edward Hyde Letter 290 [287] March 18, 1667 f 165

Epistle CCLXXXVII To my Lord High Chancellor of England

My Lord, Your Lordship enquires of me what Pictures might be added to the assembly of the Learned and Heroic Persons of England,1 which your Lordship has already collected; the designe of which I do infinitely more magnifie, than the most famous heads of forrainers, which dos not concerne the glory of our Country: And it is in my opinion the most honorable ornament, the most becoming and obliging which your Lordship can thinke of to adorne your Palace withall: Such therefore as seeme to be Wanting, I shall range under those three heads: The Learned:2

Polititians3

Souldiers4

Sir Francis Drake Mr. Philips:

Sir Francis Walsingham

Sir Francis Drake

Sir Henry Savell, Roger Bacon:

Earl of Licester

Sir J. Hawkins

Arch Bishop of Armagh, George Ripley:

Sir Walter Raleigh

Martin Forbisher

Dr. Harvey, William of Occam;

Cardinal Wolsey

Thomas Cavendish

1 This letter foreshadows a much longer letter to Pepys in 1689 (Letter 619). Hyde was by no means the first to assemble such a collection. Lord Lumley, for example, had a large collection of portraits in his gallery as well as a “greate booke” of Holbein portraits later owned by Charles I, Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke and Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, before coming to a final (?) destination at Windsor Castle. See Cust, “The Lumley Inventories,” 21–6, and Hervey, “A Lumley Inventory,” 39. After Hyde’s departure from England, Evelyn reports on a visit of 20 December 1668: “I dined with my Lord Cornbury at Clarendon house, now bravely furnish’d; especialy with the Pictures of most of our Antient & Modern Witts, Poets, Philosophers famous & learned English-men, which Collection of my L: Chancelors, I much comended, and gave his Lordship a Catalogue of more to be added” (Diary III.520). 2 Edward Phillips (1630–96); Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622); Roger Bacon (c.1214–92?); James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh (1581–1656); George Ripley (d. c.1490); William Harvey (1578–1657); William of Ockham (c.1287–1347); Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639); Pope Adrian IV (d. 1159); Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613); Alexander of Hales (c.1185–1245); George Buchanan (1506–82); Bede (673/4– 735); Edmund Spenser (1552?–99); Duns Scotus (c.1265–1308); William Lily (1468?–1522/3); Alcuin (c.740–804); Nicholas Ridley (c.1502–55); Hugh Latimer (c.1485–1555); Richard Hooker (1554–1600); William Sanderson (1586–1676); Roger Ascham (1514/15–68); William Oughtred (1575–1660); Sir John Cheke (1514–57); Elizabeth Weston (1581?–1612); Jane Grey (1537–54). 3 Sir Francis Walsingham (c.1532–90); Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester (1532/3–88); Sir Walter Raleigh (1554–1618); Cardinal Thomas Wolsey (1470/1–1530); Sir Thomas Smith (1513–77); Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–58) 4 Sir Francis Drake (1540–96); Sir John Hawkins (1532–95); Sir Martin Frobisher (1535?–94); Thomas Cavendish (1560–92); Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86); Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex (1565–1601); Sir John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury (c.1387–1453); Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke of Beauchamps Court (1554–1628); Horace Vere, baron Vere of Tilbury (1565–1635)

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Sir H. Wotton, Hadrian 4:

Sir T. Smith

Sir Philip Sidney

Sir T. Bodley, Alex: of Ales

Cardinal Poole

Earl of Essex

G. Buchanon, Venerable Bede

Talbot

Edmund Spencer, Jo: Duns Scotus

Sir F. Grevill

William Lilley, Alcuinus

Honorable Earl of Oxford

Latimer



Ridley          

Martyrs

William Hooker, Dr. Sanderson, Ascam W. Oughtred, Sir J. Cheke ----------------Ladys Elizabeth Weston Jane Grey,

Some of which, though difficult to procure Originals of, yet happly Copys might be found out, upon dilligent Enquiry: The rest I thinke your Lordship already has in good proportion. I remaine your Lordship etc. London 18: March 1666/7

Ezerel Tonge1 Letter 291 [288] April 25, 1667 f 165v

Epistle CCLXXXVIII To Dr. Tongue

Sir, I am too far obliged to you and Sir Robert Morray, not to take notice of the infinite favours received from You: All that I can say, is, that I have no meanes to requite them, but by publishing your Remarks, that the benefit which the World shall receive from your Charity, may be your reward: I have the like engagement to that noble Person Sir Edward Harley,2 to whom I beseech you present my most humble Services.

1 Ezerel (Israel) Tonge (1621–80; ODNB). Before his role in the Popish Plot, Tonge had been a chaplain to the garrison at Dunkirk and rector of St Mary Stayning in London. His book, The Jesuits Morals (London, 1670) was plainly indebted to Evelyn’s two works on the Jesuits. 2 Sir Edward Harley (1624–1700; ODNB). Harley was a patron of Tonge.

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As to my Booke,3 I am heartily sorry you met with so corrupt a Copy, as you must needes do in the Country: That intire Impression being so very wretchedly printed, that I am displeas’d any of my Friends should see what I had not ben able to draw my hand over; some hundreds having quite tired me: I am indeede preparing another Edition, but I fore-see, it will be neere Autumne ’ere I shall be ready, so many other avocations importuning me; but I also find by this delay, how greately your generous Contributions improve the Designe of, Sir Your etc. Says Court 25: Aprill –1667

William Penn1 Letter 292 [289] July 11, 1667 f 165v

Epistle CCLXXXIX To Sir William Pen, One of the Commissioners of his Majesties Navy etc.

[LM: Father to the famous Quaker] Sir, Being lately upon another Occasion with the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, Sir William Coventry was pleas’d to tell me, that he feared it would appeare, some of those Men who charge us with their Cures and Quarters, were by the fraud of our Officers but Supposititious Persons, and that never any such men were in his Majesties Service: I was therefore commanded to addresse my selfe to you for farther light herein, and being now very intent on the finishing my Accompts, do humbly intreate you, that if you suspect any real Cause for this Suggestion, you will please to signifie the names of such as may be thus obtruded on us, that so we may be inable’d to encounter the iniquity of our Officers, before it be too late. I remaine Sir Your etc.

Starr-Chamber 11: July: 1667.

3 Although both Tonge and Evelyn wrote books against the Jesuits, this is a reference to the 1666 edition of Evelyn’s Kalendarium Hortense. Tonge was also a gardener, and Evelyn had corresponded with Harley on this subject in 1666. Some of Tonge’s publications about the circulation of sap in the Royal Society’s Transactions (1716) II, 673–91, 752, were indebted to John Beale who objected to Tonge’s publication of “unfinish’d Papers with Dr. Tongs ... very officious descants upon them” (Add 15948: f 138 [14.6.1669]). 1 William Penn (1621–70; ODNB). Penn distinguished himself at the battle of Lowestoft as chief of staff to the duke of York in the Royal Charles. As a commissioner of the Navy Board (and Pepys’s superior)

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John Langham1 Letter 293 [290] July 31, 1667 f 166

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Epistle CCLXXXX To Sir James Langley2 etc.

Sir, It is from the aboundance of your Civilities that you loade me with Elogies, and because you are not acquainted with my Imperfections, which are so much the greater, by my not having had the honor to be better known to so eminent a Person: I can say nothing to the dissadvantage of Mr. Philips,3 which might not fairely recommend him to your good intentions for him; except it be that I did not observe in him any extraordinary promptnesse of so readily speaking Latine, as I perceive you insist on as a principal Talent. But it was not for that, or indeede, any other Defect, which made us part; but the Passion he had to Travell and See the World (which he was made believe he should do) with a Sonn4 of my Lord of Pembrock, who has now ben these two yeares under his Tuition, without satisfing that curiosity, as to that particular, and as I believed he would find: So as I thinke Mr. Philips is yet at Wilton, where my Lord5 makes use of, or abuses rather, his incredible Patience in interpreting some of the late Teutonique Philosophers to whose Mystic Theology his Lordship (you know) is not a little addicted. As to Mr. Philips more expresse Character: He is a sober, silent, and most innocent Person, a little Versatile in his Studies, but infinitely Industrious; Understands many Languages, especialy the modern; and is master of an English pen (when he will) not inferiour to any I know, and that I take to be the quality most conspicuous in him. This, Sir, is what I hold my selfe oblig’d to say concering Mr. Philips (in the manner you require it) and I hope it shall not abate of your value for him, or the honor which I promise my selfe in receiving your farther Commands, to Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 31 July:–1667

he appears extensively in Pepys’s diary, and he was involved in breaking up the Dutch prize ships from which Evelyn got some of the funds for the sick and wounded. 1 Sir John Langham (1584–1671; H, L) had been a London alderman and MP for London and Southwark. 2 Langham wrote to Evelyn on 10 July 1667. That letter and Evelyn’s draft of this letter are in Add 15948: ff 127–8 (30.7.1667). Langham’s letter is also in Diary (1887) III.196–7. 3 Edward Phillips went to Wilton in 1665 as tutor to Philip Herbert who became the 7th earl in 1674. 4 Philip Herbert, 7th earl of Pembroke (1653–83; ODNB) 5 Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke (1621–69; P). Evelyn records visiting Herbert’s estates at Ramsbury and Wilton in Wiltshire on his itinerary with his wife in 1654 (Diary III.100, 113).

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Henry Howard, 6th duke Letter 294 [291] August 4, 1667 f 166r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXXXXI To Henry Howard etc. of Norfolk Heire apparent of that Dukedome.

[RM: This letter procur’d All the Marmora Arundelliana Greeke and Latine Inscriptions, Urnes, Altars, Tables, etc. now at Oxford of inestimable Value:] Sir, It is not without much regret, and more concernement, as it reguards your honorable and illustrious Family, that I have now so long a time beheld some of the noblest Antiquities in the World, and which your Grandfather (of glorious memory) purchas’d with so much cost and difficulty, lye abandon’d, broken, and defac’d in divers corners about Arundel House and the Gardens belonging to it. I know your honor cannot but have thoughts and resolutions of repairing and collecting them together one day: But there are in the meane tyme certaine broken Inscriptions, now almost obliterated with age, and the ill effects of the weather, which will in a short time utterly be lost, and perish, unlesse they be speedily removed to a more benigne and lesse corrosive ayre: For these it is, I should be an humble Suitor, that your honor would think fit to make a Present of them to the University of Oxford, where they might be of greate Use and Ornament, and remaine a more lasting Record to Posterity of your Munificence, than by any other application of them whatsoever; and the University would thinke themselves oblig’d to inscribe your name, and that of your Illustrious Family to all significations of gratitude.1 I have long since suggested also to your honor that you would cause the best of your Statues, Baserelievos and other noble Antiquities standing in your Gallery at ArundellHouse, to be exquisitely design’d by some learned skillfull hand, and engraven in Copie, as Monsieur Lioncourt did those at Rome by Perrier, and long ago before him, Raphael himselfe, Sadeler etc and other incomparable Sculptors: Because by this meanes, they would be communicated to the world; and divers greate and learned Persons, studious of Antiquity, might be benefited by them; and if such a thing were added to the Impression of the Marmora Arundeliana2 (which I heare the University of Oxford, are now preparing for a second Impression) how greately would it adorne that admirable Work, and do

1 Evelyn met with Howard at Arundel House on 19 September, and “obtained the gift of his Arundelian Marbles” (Diary III.495). After Howard had assented, Evelyn wrote Ralph Bathurst, president of Trinity College, who responded on 24 September and contacted the vice-chancellor, John Fell (Add 78683: f 32 [24.9.1667]). 2 John Selden had published Marmora Arundelliana; siue Saxa Græcè incisa ex venerandis priscæ Orientis gloriæ ruderibus, auspicijs & impensis herois illustriss. Thomæ Comitis Arundelliæ & Surriæ, Comitis Marescalli Angliæ, pridèm vindicata & in ædibus eius hortisque cognominibus, ad Thamesis ripam,

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new honors to your illustrious name and family, as it has formerly, and yet dos to divers noble Italians, and others, who have not ben able to produce such a collection, as you are furnish’d with; but which perish in obscurity, and yeild not that to the publique, who would be oblig’d to celebrate you, for want of a small expence? Mithinkes, whilst they remaine thus obscur’d, and neglected, the very Marbles are become Vocal, and cry to you for pitty, and that you would even breath life into them. Sir, You will easily see, I have no other Designe in this than to expresse the honour I have for your Person, and for your illustrious Family; and because I find this would be one of the most glorious Instances to augment and perpetuat it, I cannot but wish it might take Effect. I have no more to add, but that I am Your Honors etc. Sayes-Court 4: August 1667

Ralph Bathurst Letter 295 [292] September 9, 1667 ff 166v–7

Epistle CCLXXXXII Dr. Bathurst President of Mr. Obadiah Walker B.D. Fellow of University Trinity College Oxford:

Sir, I heartily wish I had the good fortune to be as serviceable to you in particular, for the many favours I have received, as I doubt not but I shall be to a place, which for your sake, as well as my owne, I have so much reason to honour; I meane, the University; if at least it may be esteemed a Service to have obtained of Mr. Henry Howard of Norfolk,1 the freely bestowing upon you all those learned Monuments, which passe under the famous names of Marmora Arundeliana. This Sir, the Interest which that Illustrious Person has allow’d me in his Friendship, has wrought for you; and I dare pronounce it highly worthy your Acceptance. For you shall not onely be masters of some few, but of all; and there d­ isposita. Accedunt inscriptiones aliquot veteris Latij, ex locupletissimo eiusdem vetustatis thesauro selectæ, auctariolum item aliundè sumtum (London, 1628) when Howard first acquired the marbles. The revision of this catalogue, to which Evelyn refers, appeared as Henry Prideaux, Marmora Oxoniensia, ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis, aliisque conflate (Oxford, 1676; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1215 [presentation copy from Oxford]). Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue also lists Icones et Segmenta, é marmore Tabularum quae Roma adhuc extant ... A Fran. Perrier delineata (Paris, 1645; Eve.c.27) and Sacrae Historiae Acta A Raphael Urbin in Vaticanis, drawn and engraved by Nicholas Chapron (Rome, 1649). See Angelicoussis, “The Collection of Classical Sculptures of the Earl of Arundel.” 1 Henry Howard, 6th duke

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is nothing more to be don, than after you have taken notice of his Munificence, (which I desire, and wish may be speedily don in a publique Addresse as from the body of the University) to take order for their transportation to you; for which effect, I conceive it would be worth your while to delegate Mr. Obadiah Walker, or Dr. Wren,2 (Persons that I much honor) who may take care, and consult about the best expedients for their removall; for they being marble and some of them Bass-relievos rarely cutt, will deserve to be guarded from injuries: And when they are at Oxford, I conceive they can nowhere be more fittly placed than in some part about the new Theater;3 except, you should think fit, to protect some of the more curious and small ones, as Urnes etc; in the Galleries next the Library: where they may remaine secure. I have assur’d Mr. Howard, that the University will not faile in their sense of this noble Gift and Munificence, by decreeing him a publique, and conspicuous Inscription which shall consecrate his Memory; And if I have hinted it more particularly to Mr. Walker (to whom I have now likewise written)4 it is what I conceive will become your justice and gratitude and such gratefull Beneficiaries: Sir, I shall intreate you to acquaint Mr. Vice Chancellor5 acquainted with what I have don, as also Dr. Barlow and Dr. Pierce6 the worthy Warden and Præsident of Queenes and Magdalen College, my worthy friends, and beg that through your deference addresse this service of mine may be acceptable to the University from Sir, Your etc. London 9th: September 1667

Obadiah Walker Letter 296 [293] September 9, 1667 f 167r–v

Epistle CCLXXXXIII To Mr. Obadiah Walker B.D: Senior Fellow of University Colledge Oxford.

Sir, When you have seene what I have written to Dr. Bathurst, you will find I have not ben un-mindfull of what I lately told you I design’d the University: For, I have at last (though not without an extraordinary addresse, and making use of my best interest in that noble Person) procurd not onely those two noble Inscriptions which you know of, and which

2 3 4 5

Sir Christopher Wren Wren’s newly built Sheldonian Theatre See Letter 296 John Fell (1625–86; ODNB). Fell was dean of Christ Church (1660–86), bishop of Oxford (1676–86), and vice-chancellor of the University (1666–9). In 1667 he established a new type foundry, and in 1669 obtained permission to establish a print shop in the new Sheldonian Theatre. 6 Thomas Barlow, Thomas Pierce

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indeede are the most antient knowne to be extant in the World;1 but likewise all the rest, even to those which are incrusted, and inserted into the very Walles of the Garden, as well as those which are preserved in the Repository and Gallery of Statues, Bassrelievos, Urnes, Altars etc. You that know the inestimable value of these precious things can therefore best suggest to the Vice-Chancelor2 and the University what a treasure I shall possesse them of; and with how greate care and cost they were collected, and brought into England; as well from Greece as Rome etc. by the industry, and sacred thirst after Antiquities, of that illustrious Heroe Thomas Earle of Arundell and Surry, Earle Marshal of England; to the regrett of all Italy and France, who would have given immense summs for many of them; and therefore, you are likewise (with Dr. Wren)3 the fittest Persons to come up to London, and to take what care is necessary for their Transportation: And when you designe your journey, if you acquaint me with your comming, I shall not faile of waiting on you to Mr. Howard4 your noble Benefactor, and to assist you in delivering you the possession of what I have already ranged and marked out for you; It being totaly in my power to extend his Munificence to what degree I thinke good, in order to which he has ben pleas’d to deliver me the Keys of all this Collection treasure; and you may be assur’d, I shall endeavor to render his bounty as full, and as ample as I can:5 But I have other particulars to acquaint you with when we meete, and in the interim, thinke convenient that you make no noyse of what I have don, till the Marbles are all safe at Oxford: for I assure you, there be some in the World who will envy us. But, Verbum Sat:6 And if you by my addresse become once Possessor of this Treasure, I shall without imputation of much Vanity (though I confesse, not without some Ambition) thinke I have perform’d a Duty and Respect to my Mother the University, not altogether unacceptable Service: which is all the returne which I will hope for, who am Sir, Your etc. London 9: September –1667

1 The most ancient inscription was the so-called Parian Marble (Marmor Parium), a 3rd century BC chronological table which deals with Greek history from the 17th century BC. See Humphrey Prideaux, Marmora Oxoniensia, ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflate (Oxford, 1676), Pt.2. 2 John Fell 3 Christopher Wren 4 Henry Howard, 6th duke 5 When Evelyn visited Howard on 19 September, he “now gave me the Key of the Gallery, with leave to marke all those stones, Urnes, Altars &c: & whatever I found had Inscriptions on them that were not Status” (Diary III.495–6). Evelyn’s dating of either the diary entry or the letters to Bathurst and Walker must be mistaken. Walker responded to Evelyn on 24 September (Bodleian Ms Ballard 9: f 9). 6 a word is sufficient

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John Fell Letter 297 [294] September 11, 1667 f 167v

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Epistle CCLXXXXIV To Dr. Fell, Deane of Christ-Church, and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford:

Sir, This noble Person, the Marques d’Olivola,1 Prince of a Sovraigne-House in Italy, coming Incognito to Oxford that is without the usual circumstances of his Quality, is recommended to you by Mr. Henry Howard2 of Norfolck, who has desired me to bespeake him your particular favour and respect; and that you will please to do him the honors of the University, whose fame has tempted him to this curiosity and Journey to you: And, Sir, I was glad I had this opportunity of giving you an occasion of gratif[y]ing Mr. Howard in a thing which your innate Civility to illustrious strangers, would have led you to, without any instance of mine; because it is from that noble Person, from whom you will shortly receive a munificence becoming your Acceptance, in some other Expression, and a Gift that will highly deserve his being plac’d amongst your most glorious Benefactors: In a Word, he is designing to bestow upon you the University the Marmora Arundeliana, than which the World containes not a more learned, and precious Treasure of Antiquitys: But Sir, I give you onely a hint of it here, having written more at large concerning the particulars, to my worthy friend Dr. Bathurst etc. who (with Mr. Walker)3 will speedily render you an Account of it from Sir, Your etc. London 11: September 1667.

1 A letter from John Fell to Evelyn of 29 September in lieu of one from Bathurst refers to Fell’s showing the Marquis d’Olivola Oxford during “his very short stay in this place” (Add 15948: f 131 [29.9.1667]). He was probably the son-in-law of Gaspar de Guzmán, Count-Duke of Olivares (1587–1645), Ramiro Núñez de Guzmán, 1st duke of Medina (1612?-68), who inherited the title. The count-duke’s natural son, whom he had recognised and made heir, died in 1646. 2 Henry Howard, 6th duke 3 Letters 295 and 295. Walker wrote to Evelyn about this on 24 September (Add 15948: f 129 [4.9.1667]).

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Samuel Tuke Letter 298 [295] September 26, 1667 f 168r–v

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Epistle CCLXXXXV To Sir Samuel Tuke Knight and Baronet

Deare Sir, I beg your pardon that this1 kisses your hands no sooner; I could hardly obtaine a single Copy in all London, the whole Impression being sold, and it was upon a meere chance that I lighted on this: When you have seriously read it, I doubt not but you will allow us poore Christians of the Church of England to be Catholiques at least, for I know no definition of that notion, besides integrity of Doctrine, and Sanctity of life, which I am undoubtedly assurd our Church, of all the Professions now under Heaven, dos fully, and most solidly teach: When you allow us this (as allow us you must) I shall communicate to you what remaines, and which I purposely reserve till our meeting at Arundel-House; where I long to enjoy you in a better state of bodily health, than that in which I left you with regrett: Sir, I returne you a thousand thankes for my noble reception at Albury,2 and for your continu’d, and constant kindnesses to me and mine, which I am confident is reciprocaly founded in a right Christian Charity (betweene us at least) setting a side frailties, Speculative Disputes, and some different apprehensions of things about the Doctrines and Traditions of Men, who (God knows) preferr their little, and their begerly rudiments, before evident and pure Truths, and the real Interest of Soules; which is onely to be found in the plainest Scriptures of God, declared perspicuous to all capacities, and aboundantly sufficient to bring Soules to Heaven, and to conduct us to the wayes of life without halfe the difficulties, the bug-bares and Romançes which some have superadded; teaching for truth the fancys of men, and adulterating the chast Spouse of our Blessed Lord: But so long as this Tyrannie over Consciences is not to be maintain’d in an Age so illuminated, without all the artifices of implicit Beliefes etc, the Mysterie is to be supported against all evidence of Sense, Reason, Scripture, and primitive Usage: I say, truly primitive, and genuinely so; when Christians could direct their Spiritual, and devout Addresses to God without Wood, and Paint, and Scandalizing their Breathren; Receiv’d the Blessed Sacraments intire, and were jealous of evacuating any part of their Saviours Meritorious Passion and Intercession, by Images, Purgatories, Advocatesses, and a thousand more inventions of Interest, Secular Pomp, low, and unworthy so excellent and sublime an Institution. This, Sir, is my Sense of the present state of things, as they concerne Religion, upon my uttmost, and un-prejudicate endeavor in search of Truth, for which I have neither spared my Eyes, nor my best faculties, to enquire, as far as I was able, at the Fountaines themselves; and not from the quotations of Others, much lesse, the account of Education, or 1 probably John Tillotson, The rule of faith: or an answer to the treatise of Mr. I.S. entituled, Sure-footing, &c. (London, 1666; in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.a.35) which was a reply to John Sergeant 2 Evelyn accompanied Howard to Albury on 21–2 August, when he “designed for him the plat for his Canale & Garden, with a Crypta thro the hill &c:” (Diary III.496). See Chambers, “The Tomb in the Landscape: John Evelyn’s Garden at Albury.”

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Secular Engagements; which makes me pronounce for the Church of England; however she may possibly succeede for as to the external circumstances of Splendor, Proselytes, External Zeale, enlargement, and even perpetuity it selfe, without Corruption; since it must needes concerne that lover, and prince of Darknesse and Imposture, to Interrup, and if he can, destroy Her; and (could the Gates of Hell prevaile, as God has promised they never shall) all that professe the name of Christ. And I am so confirm’d in the beliefe of this, that, if my deare Saviour vouchsafe to establish it, I shall constantly adhere to her, as to the most undoubtedly pure, and incontaminate portion of his Catholique Church, dispers’d as she is over the World, amongst the poor, and the humble, and even some of the invincibly Ignorant, who sincerely professe the name of Christ and accept him for their Saviour; be they Roman, Greeke, Calvinists, Jansenist, Lutheran or however nicknam’d, and traduc’d by scoffing, and injurious men; and so long as they hold and practise doctrines that are not repugnant to Obedience, and holy life: And this, Cousen, have I ben taught by our Divines, our Bookes, and our Sermons; and I hold my selfe oblig’d to tell it you; that you may indulge us, when we now and then so earnestly contend for the Truth. I shall allwayes pray for you, and love you, and emulate your Zeale, and blesse God for his Graces in you, and supplicate his encrease of them, with that of your Health and prosperity, who am Sir Your etc. London 26: September 1667

Edward Evelyn1 Letter 299 [296] September 27, 1667 f 168v

Epistle CCLXXXXVI To Edward Evelyn Esquire of Long Ditton.

Cousen, Though I have long since left off the Courtship of the faire sex for my selfe, and have not the honour to be so well known to my Cousen Sophia,2 as I was both to her Father and Grand-father; Yet in Commiseration of a Gentleman (a Stranger likewise to me, though I heare of a very handsom Character, and faire Estate) who lyes languishing at the Ladys feete; I could not resist the importunity of my worthy Friend and Brother in Office ­Collonel 1 Sir Edward Evelyn (1626–92; Diary, H). A first cousin once removed, he was the son of Sir Thomas Evelyn and the last of the Long Ditton branch of the family. He was a justice of the peace in Surrey from 1660 to 1688. Described by John Evelyn as “an honest Gent:” (Diary IV.434), he was knighted in 1676 and given a baronetcy in 1685. He was elected MP in 1685 and became a gentleman of the privy chamber from 1689 until his death. 2 There is no Sophia Evelyn recorded at this date, though she may be one of the eight children of Sir Thomas Evelyn (1587–1659) who died unmarried. Sir Thomas’s son, Sir Edward (the man addressed here) married in 1659 and did have a daughter, Sophia, but de Beer records her as not born until 1676.

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Reymes,3 to bespeake your Interest in her; and that my Kindswoman would at least abate of the rigour he complaines of to the Collonel. Sir, favour his humble Addresses: If I were either better acquainted with the Lady, or the Person who is her Servant, I should apply all the Topics of my natural Pitty to distressed Lovers might suggest; but because I understand you are already a well-wisher to his Pretences it needed not my Intercession; but my Friend would not be satisfied, and therefore my obedience to his commands must plead the Pardon, for which I kisse the Ladys faire hands, and remaine with all respect Sir, Your etc. London 27 September 1667

Thomas Sprat Letter 300 [297] November 12, 1667 f 168v

Epistle CCLXXXXVII To Mr. Sprat etc. Chaplaine to his Grace the Duke of Bouckingame1

[LM: Since Bishop of Rochester] Sir, I should of all men living most feare to put this crude paper into your Hands, who are the onely person I know of to whom our Poët2 has imparted (were it possible) even a double portion of his Spirit: I have seene a Small Volume of Threni3 in memory of our Departed Heroe. I do not transmitt you mine as worthy the honour of being joyn’d with these greate Witts; But since Mr. Heringman4 has desir’d them, I could not adventure on the Crime (for ’tis no lesse to prophane a Sacred Art) ’till you had Animadverted on them. They have realy layne by me ever since the Evening of Mr. Cowleys Obsequies, and were borne in my Coach as I return’d from that Lugubrous Occasion, and they speake the roughnesse of the Way: Do with them as you please, and absolve Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 12 November–1667

3 Bullen Reymes was acting as an intermediary. 1 George Villiers, 2nd duke (1628–87) 2 Abraham Cowley died on 1 August 1667 and was buried on the 3rd (Diary III.489–90). Evelyn’s elegy is included in his verse miscellany (Add 78357: ff 29v–31). 3 Several copies of verses on the death of Mr. Abraham Cowley (London: Henry Herringman, 1667) contained elegies by Roger Boyle, 2nd earl of Orrery, Thomas Higgins, and Sir John Denham. These were also published with Cowley’s Works in 1668 (C* 1–4v), edited by Sprat. 4 Henry Herringman (1628-1704; ODNB, I) had become Cowley’s most important publisher after the death of Humphrey Moseley in 1661.

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Edward Mountagu Letter 301 [298] December 12, 1667 f 169

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCLXXXXVIII To the Earle of Sandwich Lord Ambassador in Spaine, at Madrid:

My Lord, I could hardly obtaine of my selfe to give your Excellency this trouble, or dare to mingle my impertinencies amongst your publique and weighty concernes, ’till reflecting on the greatenesse of your Genius, and how comprehensive and serene it is, I concluded it would neither be disturb’d, nor disdaine my humble Addresses; that confident of your most noble and Communicative Nature, I adventur’d to supplicate your Excellencys favour in behalfe of a Worke of mine upon the Hortulan Subject;1 and in particular, that your Excellency would vouchsafe by the meanest of your servants to give me some short descriptions of the most famous Gardens and Villa’s of Spaine, [RM: which he sent me from Madrid many sheetes of paper written in his owne hand, together with the Sembrador or plough it selfe which I gave to the Royall Society etc. is described in their Transactions]2 and what other singularities of that kind might occurr to the adorning of a Labour wherein I chiefely pretend to gratifie greate, and illustrious Persons, and such, as like your Lordship are the most worthy to cultivat and enjoy these satis these amoenities. The Catalogue which I here presume to send your Excellency and the Paines I have already taken to render it no trifling or un-usefull Speculation, will in some degree commute for this bold addresse; especialy, since I could never hope to receive so much light from any but your Excellency, to whom I am confident, there can be nothing curious in this Argument conceald, how close, and reserv’d soever the Spaniards are. I have heard, that there is lately a German at Madrid, who pretends to a successfull Invention for the Setting of Corne by a peculiar sort of Plow. This, I am sure cannot have escaped your Excellency and it will be due to the Royal Society, the History whereof, now at last publishd here3 with infinite applause, I doubt not is come to your hands, and that you will judge it worthy the most accurate Translation: But, my Lord, I shall leave that to the joynt request of the Society,

1 “Elysium Britannicum.” See also Letter 308 from Mountagu and Add 78343: ff 99–114, a letter from Mountagu of 12 June 1668, which contains materials for this project. 2 Philosophical Transactions 1, no 21 (1665), 390. The “sembrador” was brought back from Spain by Sandwich and given to Evelyn on 25 November 1668 (Diary III.518–19). See also Evelyn’s letters to Brouncker of 23 February 1670 (Royal Society, Letter-Book, Supplement III, 107–30) and Oldenburg of 25 February 1670 (Royal Society EL/L/3 and Royal Society, Letter-Book, Supplement III, 131–2). The catalogue Evelyn is sending is the proposal for “Elysium Britannicum” (see Add 78342: f 1; the printed prospectus for the project). See Harris, “The Manuscripts of John Evelyn’s ‘Elysium Britannicum.’” 3 Thomas Sprat, The history of the Royal-Society of London (London, 1667)

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and accumulate no more to these extravagances of mine, after I have supplicated your Excellencys Pardon, who am may it please your Excellency Your etc.

Says-Court 12: December –1667

Robert Moray Letter 302 [299] December 13, 1667 f 169

Epistle CCLXXXIX To Sir Robert Morray, Secretary of Scotland, and one of the Privy Councill.1

Sir, ’Tis an injurious, and envious distance that has all this this while robb’d me of the conversation of Sir Robert Morray without whose influence, not I alone, but the whole Royal Society plainely withers. Why should we suffer two Winters at once; the absence of her Worthiest Member, and of the Sunn? Can any concerne be so precious to you as Philosophy? Must not Scotland flourish without the Society dye? If it be to make an experiment how we can subsist without you; You are Cruell, and undo us; If out of fondnesse to your Country; remember how [m]any brave Persons abandon’d all for the love of what we pursue: Returne then, and quit the helme of Giddy, and Ungratefull States, to guide that of a more intellectual, and nobler Commonwealth, that of Letters and Philosophy which languish for your Presence, but none that dos more heartily deplore your absence than Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 13th: December–1667

1 Moray replied to Evelyn on 14 January 1668 (Add 15858: f 81 [14.1.1668]; Diary [1887] III.203 [as 14 June]).

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Ralph Bathurst Letter 303 [300] February 20, 16671 f 169v

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Epistle CCC To Dr. Bathurst Præsident of Trinity Colledge Oxford

Sir, Of all the happy adventures of my life, I esteeme it one of the greatest, that by a singular goodnesse of yours, so undeserved of us, My Boy2 is allow’d to participate any share of your Influence and favour: Next to your owne obliging nature, I must, and do accknowledge how much I owe to Mr. Bohunes3 Interest in you, and it is upon him onely that I depend to make an Apologie for all our presumptions; and in particular to returne our thankes for the kindnesses you have lately shew’d in his Admission (which yet I would have frankly extended) and those other accommodations of Lodging and Chamberfellow, and the benefit of your more peculiar reguards, which come under no possibility of being merited by us. Sir, as I commit him intirely to the Care of your Nephew; so I promise my selfe the effects of your good Advise for his Government of him: The very Genius of the Place where you Præside, cannot but have an Influence upon all his studies and Actions; and if he prove not extreamely ungratefull, and wanting to himselfe, he may now lay the foundation of all the good he is ever to hope for, and that he must owe to You. I shall pray to God to render him worthy of it, and that I may ever have in my power to expresse how much I am Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 20: February 1667

1 Evelyn describes the preparations for “my sonns Oxford Journey ... under the tutorage of Mr. Bohune ... but at Oxford, under the inspection of Dr. Bathurst” (Diary III.474) on 29 January 1667. See also Letter 286. 2 John Evelyn Jr 3 Ralph Bohun

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George Mackenzie Letter 304 [301] April 11, 1668 ff 169v–70

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Epistle CCCI To Sir George Mackenzie Knight etc.

Sir, You had long ’ere this receiv’d some account of your Commands in the Jewell which you were pleas’d to entrust to me,1 if I could have obtain’d it from Sir William D’Avenant before his departure to the Elysian Fields;2 But it seemes his long Indisposition (unknowne to me ’till I heard he was dead) frustrated my expectation of receiving his returne to your Letter: though by some providence I reserved your Original, which I have presented to Mr. Waller3 (according to your injunctions) as to the next, and happly, to the more inlightned to judge of things of this sublime pitch, and to deliver you the Lawrells which you so highly deserve: For since you possesse all the Qualifications of the best Poëts; Invention, Witt, and Eloquence, You are most worthy of them, and the sincerity, which I professe to owe you for your greate Civilities, and eminent Vertues, ought to assure you, that if my approbation were valuable, you should not neede an Appeale, or seeke for other suffrages, than those of Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 11: Aprill 1668

William Davenant Letter 305 [302] March 25, 1668 f 170

Epistle CCCII To Sir William D’Avenant Knight

[RM: This letter is misplac’d]1 Sir, This Letter accompanied with some papers of Verses, has ben sent me out of Scotland, by that greate Wit, and learned Advocat Sir George Mackenzie2 with a commande to 1 “Caelia’s Country House and Closet,” included in his Works (1716), a subject that would have appealed both to Davenant and Evelyn. See Ferguson, A Bibliography of Sir George Mackenzie, 48. 2 Davenant died 7 April 1668. See Letter 305. 3 Edmund Waller 1 Davenant died on 7 April 1668. 2 See Letter 304.

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transmit them to You, to whose Censure and Approbation the Author submitts them. The How hapily this Gentleman has succeeded in Prose is universaly knowne; But of this his attempt in Poetry I am no way a competent judge; I presume the Gentleman did not peruse this Copy well before its inclosure; because some Errors in the Writing now and then perplex the sense; and may admit of greate politure; however, it appeares to me worthy of Encouragement, and to receive it from your approbation: I am Sir etc.

Sayes-Court 25: March 1668

Joseph Glanvill1 Letter 306 [303] June 24, 1668 f 170

Epistle CCCIII To Mr. Joseph Glanvill etc.

[RM: Who sent me his Booke intitul’d Plus Ultra]2 Sir, I received so wellcome, and so obliging a Toaken from you by the hands of Mr. Oldenburg,3 that after all I can say in this letter in accknowledgement of that particular favour, I must continue to subscribe my selfe your debtor: For what have you seene in any of my productions, which should make you augure so gloriously of that trifle of mine, upon so trite and humble a Subject; or mention me amongst the Heros whom you so meritoriously celebrat? I cannot find anything to support it, but your most obliging nature, of which the Comely, and Philosophic frame is aboundantly conspicuous, by this worthy Vindication both of your selfe, and all Usefull Learning, against the Science (falsely so called) of your

1 Joseph Glanvill (1636–80; ODNB). In 1661 he published his first attack on scholastic philosophy, The Vanity of Dogmatizing, which provoked the enmity of Thomas White (Evelyn’s correspondent, Kenrick Eyton). See Oldenburg’s letter in commendation of Glanvill: Add 78317: f 110 (8.7.1670). He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1664. As a member of the Society, he produced responses to attacks on it by Robert Crosse and Henry Stubbe (Plus ultra, or, The Progress and Advancement of Knowledge since the Days of Aristotle [London, 1668] and Philosophia pia, or, A discourse of the religious temper and tendencies of the experimental philosophy which is profest by the Royal Society [London, 1671]). Both defences (along with other works by Glanvill) are listed in the 1687 library catalogue. 2 Plus ultra was presented to the Royal Society on 16 June 1668. (Evelyn is praised for his books on trees and for the “Preparations for Elysium Britannicum,” 74.) Glanvill’s book was a reply to Robert Crosse (author of Λογου Ἀλογια, seu, Exercitatio theologica de insipientiâ rationis humanæ, gratiâ Christi destitutæ, in rebus fidei [Oxford, 1655], a defence of Aristotelian philosophy) and was in turn replied to by Henry Stubbe (1632–76; ODNB), the “Snarling Adversary.” 3 Henry Oldenburg

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Snarling Adversary. I do not conceive why the Royal Society should any more concern themselves for the empty, and malicious cavells of these delators, after what you have say’d; but let the Moon-dogs bark on, ’till their throats are drie; the Society every day emerges, and her good Genious will raise-up one or other to judge and defend her; whilst there is nothing which dos more confirme me in the noblenesse of the Designe, than this Spirit of Contradiction which the Devil (who hates all discoveries of those false and præstigious ways, that have hitherto obtained) dos incite to stirr up men against it. But, Sir, You have discours’d this so fully in this excellent Piece of Yours, that I have no more to add, but the suffrage and subscription of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 24: June 1668

Edward Stillingfleet Letter 307 [304] August 4, 1668 ff 170v–1

Epistle CCCIV To Doctor Stillingfleete D.D.1

[LM: Since Bishop of Worcester] Sir, Being the other day casualy ingag’d here at my house with that old Frier Sancta Clara,2 and amongst other matters discoursing of the Invocation of Saints, as having neither place, nor Use in the first publique Offices, farther than by way of Commemoration;3 a Weeke after he sends me this Citation in writing

1 Stillingfleet responded to Evelyn on 13 August. See “Letter to John Evelyn, Esq; about the Invocation of Saints, 1668,” in Miscellaneous Discourses (London, 1735), 291–300. 2 Christopher Davenport (c.1595–1680; ODNB). See also Letter 330. Davenport took a BA from Magdalen Hall, Oxford (1614) and then went to the seminary at Douai before becoming a Franciscan at Ypres in 1617 and assuming the name Franciscus à Sancta Clara. He subsequently studied theology at Douai, becoming a professor there before his return to England. He was attached to the household of Henrietta Maria and later was chaplain to Catherine of Braganza. See Dockery, Christopher Davenport. 3 The question of the invocation of the saints was a major point of controversy between Catholics and theologians of the Church of England. Article 22 of the 39 Articles states that the doctrine is “a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God.” In 1681, after a “long discourse about Religion” with the Spanish ambassador, Evelyn noted, “They have not a weaker tenet in all their Religion, than this error of Invocation of Saints & Adoration” (Diary IV.243). For the larger debates over the history of the early church see Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity.

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Surius Citat: p: 3. T.12 Apud Binnium in Conc: Ephesino, Tomo, ut vocat Sexto.5.2. in Die S. Joanis Evangelistæ. S. Cyrill Alex: In nomine suo, et Concilii, sic Invocat S. Johannem. O beate Joannes, qui tonitrui filius appellatus es etc. Ecce hic tantus pastorum cœtus ad te venit; remove nobis lapidem etc. resera nobis puteum Vitæ: Da ut nunc quoque de Salutis fontibus hauriamus, imo verò tuum fortem appone etc.4

This is pretended to be a very solemn buisinesse, and I expected some wonderfull matter, and was preparing to quarell you for leaving so considerable a passage out of your Vindication of my Lord of Canterbury5 till reading considering the Author he produc’d for it, I calld to mind what an excellent Poet of our Owne, had written of an egregious Stretcher in his tyme, That he did (but which was yet hard to do) Out flatter Favorites, or out-lie either Jovius, or Surius, or both together. Dr. Don Satire 46

The truth is, there is such a kind of passage; but by no meanes as he cites it: For not onely Baronius, but Binnius But Baronius makes the whole buisinesse of Nestorius to be over the day before, viz. 23 June; nor dos Binnius speake of it in the place the Franciscan produces out of Surius but in the 2d Tom: 11: Cap:7 where I find it no more than an 4 “Surius, cited from Volume 12, page 3. According to Binnius (Volume 6, 5.2), during the Council of Ephesus, on the day of St. John the Evangelist, St Cyril of Alexandria, in his name, and in the Council’s, thus invokes St. John: ‘O blessed John, who are called the son of the thunder etc. Behold here such a gathering of priests come to you; take away the stone from us etc.; bring back our purity of life. Give, that now we also may drink from the fountains of salvation; truly put your strength against etc.’” Davenport’s citation refers to the Council of Ephesus in 431. Cyril of Alexandria, it is alleged, had invoked St John in his conflict with the Nestorians. Davenport provides references to works by Catholic scholars: Laurent Surius (1522–78), ed. Tomus primus (-quartus) conciliorum omnium, tum generalium, tum prouincialium atque particularium, quæ iam inde ab Apostolis vsque in præsens habita, obtineri potuerunt, (1st edition, Cologne, 1567); and Severin Binius (1573–1641), Concilia Generalia, et Prouincialia, quotquot reperiri potuerunt. Item Epistolæ Decretales, et Romanor. Pontific. vitæ, omnia studio, et industria R.D. Seuerini Binii ... recognita, aucta, notis illustrata, et historica methodo disposita (1st ed., Cologne, 1606). Evelyn’s response to Davenport seems to have been shaped at least in part by material sent him by Thomas Barlow. See Thomas Barlow, A letter concerning invocations of saints, and adoration of the cross writ ten years since, to John Evelyn of Depthford, esq. (London, 1679; in the 1687 library catalogue) and the manuscript “De Invocatione Sanctorum ... For my honored friend John Evelyn Esquire at Deptford” (The Queen’s College, Ms 289: pp 129–56), and Letter 330. 5 William Laud. Evelyn is alluding to Stillingfleet’s A rational account of the grounds of Protestant religion: being a vindication of the ... Archbishop of Canterbury’s Relation of a conference from the pretended answer by T.C, etc. (London, 1665). 6 Donne, “Satire IV,” ll.47–8. Jovius refers to Paolo Giovio, author of Historiarum sui temporis (Florence: 1550–2), and many other works. 7 Caesar Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici (Cologne, 1609), V, cols 641–5; Binius, “Beati Cyrili Alexandrini oratio, Ephesi dicta in die Sancti Johannis Evangelistae,” Concilia generalia et Prouincialia, I.2, 395.

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Oratorius Apostrophe or Prosopopœia by way of Compellation, familiar amongst Orators, Divines (especially the Greekes) and Poets, upon such Anniversaries:8 And accordingly the Father slides from it into his Homilie, which is wholy spent upon the admirable Incarnation of our Saviour, asserted more particularly by St. John, than by Any of the Apostles Evangelists; but so far from bringing in that which Clara would inferr, as dogmatical and doctrinal; that there is not the least shadow of it; nor has it the any imaginable pretence to its being a Solemn Act of Council, as they would faine insinuate: Nay, so far is it from being intitle’d to any of the first foure General Councils (as He would beare me in hand) that I think the Invocation of Saints in their sense, had nothing to pretend in many after; no not in their Second of Nice, where they bid so faire for it.9 I know faine they would derive their Ora pro nobis as first added to their Devotions to the Blessed Virgin from that occasion of asserting the two Natures of Christ in one Person, where they bestow divers rhetorical Elogies on his glorious Mother: But I am well satisfied, that none of the Antient Fathers have spoken a word to that sense, farther than as you have explain’d it; and that men must be blind, or perverse, or resolv’d to abuse the world, that would now impose it: Sir, I most heartily thanke you for the favour you did me, and should esteeme it a greate good fortune to me, if I might (without prejudice of your more Serious Employments) be allow’d to cultivate this beginning of your kindnesse to me, which I promise you to use modestly, and as becomes Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 4: August 1668

Edward Mountagu Letter 308 [305] August 21, 1668 f 171r–v

Epistle CCCV To the Earle of Sandwich Ambassador Extrordinary in the Court of Spaine, at Madrid.

My Lord, I am plainely astonish’d at your bounty to me, and I am in paine for words to expresse the sense I have of this great obligation. My Lord, it is a compleate History of Spain,1 and not

8 This is one of the major arguments advanced by Thomas Barlow. See note 4. 9 the second council of Nicaea (787 AD) 1 See also Letter 301. Mountagu’s letter of 12 June 1668 describes the gardens of Spain (Add 78343: ff 99–114 [12.9.1668]). See also Mountagu’s Hispania illustrata: or, the Maxims of the Spanish Court ­(London, 1703).

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the descriptions of their Gardens onely which you have sent me; and as I looke upon it, and esteeme it a treasure, so I shall make use of it in my Hortulan Work,2 as absolutely the most shining and cultivated part of it, without daring to alter, or embase the Style, which is natural, and illustrious, and becoming your Lordship nor needed I an Interpreter for the Characters, which are faire, and legible throughout every sheet. And as I have ben exceedingly affected with the Descriptions, so have I ben greately instructed in the other particulars your Lordship mentions; and especialy, rejoice that your Excellency has taken care to have the Draughts of the Places, Fountaines, and Engines for the irrigation and refreshing their Plantations, which may be of singular use to us in En­ gland: And I question not but your Excellency brings with you a collection of Seedes; such especially, as we may not have commonly in our Country: By your Lordships description the Encina should be the Ilex major aculiata,3 a sucker whereoff yet remaines in his Majesties Privie-Gardens at White-hall next the dore that is opposite to the Tennis-Court: I mention it the rather; because it might certainely be propagated with us to good purpose: for the Father of this Small Tree, I remember of a goodly stature; so as it yearely produc’d ripe Acorns; though Clusius4 when he was in England, believ’d it to be barren; and happly it had born none in his tyme: I have sown both the Acorns of this Tree, and the Cork with Successe, though I have now but few of them remaining, through the negligence of my Gardiner; for they require care at the first raising, ’till they are accostom’d to the cold, and then no rigour impeaches them. What your Excellency meanes by the Barva de Joseph,5 I do not comprehend; but the Planta Aloës, which is a monstrous kind of Sedum, will, like it, endure no wett in Winter, but certainely rotts, if but a drop or two falls on it, whereas in Summer, you cannot give it drink enough: I perceive their Culture, of Choyce and tender Plants differs little from ours in England; and as it has ben publish’d by me in my Calendarium Hortense,6 which is now the third time reprinting. Stoves, absolutely destroy our Conservatories; but if they could be lin’d with Cork, I believe it would better secure them from the cold, and moisture of the Walls, than either Matrasses, or Reedes with which we commonly invest them. I thinke I was the first that ever planted Spanish Cardôns7 in our Country for any Culinarie use, as your Excellency has taught the blanching, but I know not whither they serve themseves in Spaine with the purple beards of the Thistle, when it is in flower, for the Curdling of Milk, which it performes much better than Reinet, and is far sweeter in the Dary than that liquor, which is apt to putrifie. Your Excellency has rightly conjectur’d of the Pome-Granat: I have allways kept it expos’d, and the severest of our Winters dos it no prejudice; They will flower plentifully, but beare noŧ Fruit with us, either kept in Cases and in the Repository, or set in the open ayre; at least very trifling, with the greatest Industry of stoves and other artifices: We have Aspargus growing wild both in Lincolnshire, and in other places; but your Lordship observes, they are small and bitter, and not comparable the cultivated and hortensile. The red-pepper I suppose, is what we call Ginny-Peper, of which I have raised many Plants, whose pods resemble in colour the most oriental and polish’d Corall; as a very 2 “Elysium Britannicum” 3 Quercus ilex: Holm oak or Holly oak 4 Carolus Clusius (Charles de l’Écluse) (1526–1609), the greatest botanist of the sixteenth century, was in England in 1581. 5 Anthyllis Barba jovis: Jupiter’s Beard 6 Kalendarium Hortense was most recently published in 1666, its first appearance as a separate volume and with the dedication to Cowley. 7 cardoons

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little will set the Throat in such a flame, as has ben sometimes deadly, and therefore to be Sparingly used in Sauces. I hope your Lordship will furnish your selfe with Melon-Seedes, because they will last good almost 20 yeares; and so will all the sorts of Garavances, Calabazos, and Gourds (what ever Herrera8 affirme) which may be for divers Oeconomical Uses. The Spanish Onion seede is of all other the most excellent; and yet I am not certaine, whither that which we have out of Flanders and St. Omers, be all the Spanish-Seede which we know of: My Lady Clarendon9 (when living) was wont to furnish me with seede that produc’d me prodigious Cropps. Is it not possible for your Excellencey to bring over some of those Quince, and Cherrytrees, which your Lordship so celebrates? I suppose they might be secur’d in Barills, or packed up, as they transport other rarities from far-Countries. But, my Lord, I detaine your Excellency too long in these repetitions,* who ought to have written nothing but my profound acknowledgements for this excesse of favour to: My Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 21: August 1668

* and forget that I am all this while doing injury to the publique, by suspending you a moment from matters of a higher orb, the Interest of States, and reconciling of Kingdomes: And I should think so of another, did I not know withall, how universal your Comprehensions are, and how qualified to support it I remaine.

Richard Stokes1 Letter 309 [306] August 21, 1668 f 172

Epistle CCCVI To Dr. Stokes, at Vienna in Austria

Sir, I did not faile of performing your Commands, in transmitting the Paper you consign’d to my care to my Lord Brouncker2 our President, to be produc’d befor the Society, at their

8 Gabriel Alonso de Herrera, Agricultura general (Madrid, 1646; a presentation copy from Mountagu, Eve.b.35). “Garavances” are probably “garbanzos” (chick peas) and “Calabazos,” gourds or pumpkins. 9 Theodosia Hyde, née Capel (1640–62). The daughter of Arthur Capel, 1st Baron Capel of Tewkesbury, she was the first wife of Henry Hyde, the future 2nd earl of Clarendon. 1 Richard Stokes (b. 1624; Diary, V). Stokes went to King’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA (1654), MA (1658), and MD (1663) and was a fellow of King’s from 1653–7. Evelyn first met Stokes at Dedham near Worcester in 1656 (Diary III.178), probably through the offices Christopher Wase, who was headmaster of the school there, and noted that he was “an excellent Mathematician.” He later went to Vienna with the earl of Castlemaine (Add 78317: f 94 [4.8.1668]), and became best known for his perpetual motion machine (to which Evelyn alludes in this letter). He may also be the mathematician recommended to Evelyn by Croone in Add 78317: f 101 (12.3.1669). 2 William Brouncker

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next meeting, which will not be during this Vaccation; because, the Assembly (being usualy thinn at this Season of the Yeare) is of course dismiss’d, ’till the Tearm begins; and then I shall not faile of reminding them of their obligation to you: In the meane time, I tooke the boldnesse to shew your Diagramm to his Majestie3 who was very much pleas’d with it, and perfectly understood it; and after what he say’d of it, I should be too presumptuous to thinke of adding any weight, by casting in my Symbole. Certainely, it is highly ingenious, though it should happly not so absolutely reach that invidious* Title, [RM: *Perpetual Motion:] when experimented by a competent Model, for reasons your selfe will probably conjecture, from the weight, and poises that comming to be perpendicular; will, if not at first; yet, ’tis fear’d, in a few revolutions præponderate the Swags, and impetus of the flying and moveable Coggs, which are so ingenuously contrived. This, is what has ben objected hitherto; but by no meanes to the prejudice of your Essay, which is extræmely promising, and in my apprehensions likely to succeede beyond any I have yet seene. Sir, This testimony, I held my selfe oblig’d to give it, and to returne you my thankes for the greate favours you offer me; which, I wish I could here in the least requite. It is a noble resolution which you are upon, the viewing those Eastern-Countries: I onely wish that honorable Person, [RM: my Lord of Castle-maine]4 with whom you travell, had some good designer with him, who might draw the true, and real Prospects of those Places in the Holy-Land, and Ægypt, as nature, and their venerable-Ruines present them, and not as the imagination of our Paynters have hitherto publish’d them. The seedes, and kernels of Plants and Flowers will be easily collected in your Peregrination, and so will other natural Curiosities, by which you may both enrich, and oblige your Country. Sir, I whish you a fortunate Voyage, and a successefull returne, and shall esteeme my selfe highly favour’d by receiving your farther Commands to Sir, Your etc. London 21 August 1668

3 Charles II. Evelyn met the king on 14 August. He notes: “I also shew’d his Majestie the Perpetual motion sent me by Dr. Stokes from Collen [Cologne]” (Diary III.512–13). 4 Roger Palmer, earl of Castlemaine (1634–1704; ODNB). He was accompanying Charles II’s ambassador, Sir Daniel Harvey, on his diplomatic mission to the Sublime Porte.

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Joseph Glanvill Letter 310 [307] August 26, 1668 f 172v

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Epistle CCCVII To Mr. Glanvill etc.

Sir, If I had not the Testimonie of our Common, and excellent Friend Dr. Beale to assure you of the infinite Esteeme I have long conceiv’d of your Worth; you had now brib’d me to resent this Obligation in the highest measure, by the most acceptable Present which I lately received, and of which I have made my Brother in Law1 a part, to whom I have sent your Booke.2 Sir, I have read not onely this rare Piece; but some other likewise with which you have inrich’d the World; and I am the better for them, and therefore think my selfe obliged to give you thankes for benefits I have received, in teaching me many new things, and establishing others to which I had inclinations; and above all, I honour you, for that Spirit of real Piety and Vertue which I find illustrates all your Workes, and dos so much the more inflame me to a just esteeme of your Worth: But, Sir, I do not pretend to say this to you in revenge of your greate civilities to me; but because you merite it; though I must confesse, the glorie which accrues to me from you, upon those accounts, have such charmes, as I have no defence against, and therefore I shall eternaly endeavor to preserve their the esteeme which you have for Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 26: August 1668.

John Beale Letter 311 [308] August 27, 1668 ff 172v–4

Epistle CCCVIII To Doctor Beale1

Sir, I happen’d to be with Mr. Oldenburg2 some time since, almost upon the Article of his ­receiving the notice you sent him of your fortunate, and usefull Invention;3 and I 1 William Glanville 2 Plus Ultra. The title is deleted in the margin. See Letter 306. 1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Beale of 15 August (Add 78312: f 82 [15.8.1668]). He transcribes the passage from Scaliger’s letter to Dousa on 84v. 2 Henry Oldenburg 3 Beale had published an anonymous article in Philosophical Transactions reporting on techniques he had devised for modifying eye-glasses. See Philosophical Transactions 3, no 37 (16 July 1668), 727–31. His letter informs Evelyn that he is continuing to work on the topic. See Stubbs, “John Beale, Philosophical Gardener of Herefordshire: The Improvement of Agriculture and Trade in the Royal Society (1663– 1683)” for Beale’s contributions to Philosophical Transactions.

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remember I did first of all incite him, both to insert it into his next Transactions, and to provoke your farther prosecution of it; which I exceedingly rejoyce to find has ben so successfull, that you give us hopes of your farther thoughts upon That, and those other Subjects which you mention: You may happly call to remembrance a Passage of the Jesuite Honorati Fabri,4 who speaking of Perspectives, observes, that an Object looked on through a small hole, appeares magnified; from whence he suggests, the casting of two Plates neately perforated, and fitted to looke through, preferrable to glasses, whose refractions injure the sight: Though I begin to advance in Yeares (being now on the other side of 40) yet the continuance of the perfect use of my Senses (for which I blesse almighty God) has rendred me the lesse solicitous about those artificial aydes; which, yet I foresee I must shortly apply my selfe to; and therefore you can receive but slender hints from me, which will be worth your acceptance upon that Argument: Onely, I well remember, that besides Tiberius of old (whom you seeme to instance in) Joseph Scaliger affirmes the same happned both to his Father Julius, and himselfe, in their Younger yeares. His words are these Oculis fuit (speaking of Julius) cæruleis dilutioribus, quibus interdum noctu videbat, ut in crepusculo solemus; quod et mihi contigit, à pueritia ad vicesimum tertium annum; nam postea, hoc in me, ut alia multa, mutavit:5 [RM: Epistola ad Janum Dousam de vetustata Gentis Scaligera.] And sometimes, mithinkes, I my selfe have fansied to have discern’d things in a very dark place, when the curtaines about my Bed have ben drawne, as my hands, fingers, the sheete and Bed-Clothes etc. but since my too intent pooring upon a famous Eclipse of the Sunn, about 12 yeares since,6 at what time I could as familiarly have star’d with open eyes upon that glorious Planet in its full Lusture, as now upon a glow-worme (comparatively speaking) I have not onely lost that accutenesse of sight; but much impair’d the vigour of it, for such purposes as it then served me. But, besides that, I have treated myne Eyes very ill neere these 20 Yeares, during all which tyme I have rarely put them together, or compos’d them to Sleepe, before One, sometimes later at night, and sometimes much later; that I may in some sort redeeme my losses by day, in which I am continualy importun’d with Visits’ from my Neighbours and Acquaintance, or taken up by other impertinencies of my Life in this place: I am plainely asham’d to tell you this, considering how little I have improv’d my selfe by it: but, I have rarely ben in Bed before 12 a clock as I say’d, in the space of 20 Yeares; and yet, I reade the very least print, even in a jolting Coach, without other assistance, then that I now and then use to rub my shut Eye-lids over, with a spirit of Wine well rectified, in which I distill a few Rose-marie Flowers, much after the Processe of the Queene of Hungaries Water,7 which dos exceedingly fortifie not onely my sight; but the rest of my Senses; especialy, 4 probably Honoré Fabri (c.1607–88), Synopsis optica, in qua illa omnia quæ ad opticam, dioptricam, catoptricam pertinent ... demonstrantur (Lyon, 1667; Evelyn Library, no 558) 5 “He had rather watery blue eyes, with which sometimes he saw by night as we are accustomed [to see] in the twilight; that happened to me too, from my boyhood until my twenty-third year; for after that, this thing changed in me, as many other things [also].” Joseph Scaliger, Letter I to Janus Dousa, in Epistolæ omnes (Leiden, 1627), 45. Evelyn notes the passage in his commonplace books (Add 78330: f 124v). Evelyn also alludes to the biography of Tiberius by Suetonius (68.2). 6 There were four eclipses of the sun in 1656. See von Oppolzer, Canon of Eclipses, 272. 7 an alcohol-based perfume and astringent

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my Hearing, and Smelling; a drop or two being distill’d into the nose, or eares, when they are never so dull; and other κολλουριον8 I never apply. Indeede, in the summer-time, I have found wonderfull benefit in bathing my head with a Decoction of some hott and arromatical herbs, in a Lixivium made of the ashes of Vine-branches, and when my head is well washed with this, I immediately cause aboundance of cold Fountain-Water to be poured upon me stillatim,9 for a good halfe-houre together; which for the present, is not onely one of the most voluptuous and gratefull refreshments imaginable; but an incredible benefit to me the whole yeare after: For I never neede other powdering to my haire, to preserve it bright, and cleane, as the Gallants do; but which dos certainely greately prejudice transpiration, by filling-up, or lying heavy upon the Pores. Those therefore, who (since the use of Perrucques) accustome to wash their heads, instead of powdering, would doubtlesse find the benefit of it; both as to the preventing of Aches in their Head, Teeth, and Eares, if the vicissitude and unconstancy of the Weather, and consequently, the use of their monstrous Perrucques, did not expose them to the danger of catching colds. When I traveld in Italy, and the Southern-Parts, I did sometimes frequent the publique Bathes (as the manner is) but seldome without peril of my Life, ’til I us’d this frigid affusion, or rather profusion of cold-Water, before I put on my Garments, or durst expose my selfe to the ayre; and for this method I was oblig’d to the old, and noble Ranzovius,10 in whose Booke de Valetudine Curanda I had read a Passage to this purpose; though I might have remember’d how the Dutch-men treate their labouring Horses, when they are all over in a froth, which they wash off with severall Bucketts-full of cold Water, as I have frequently observ’d it in the Low-Countries. Concerning other aydes; besides what the Masters of the Catoptrics, Phonocamptics, Otacostics11 etc., have don; something has ben attempted by the Royal Society; and you know the Industrious Kercher12 has so much labourd; or as the rest of those artificial helps are summ’d-up by the Jesuite Scottus:13 I remember that Monsieur Hugens,14 the learned Father of that Incomparable Youth Monsieur de Zulichum (Author of the Pendulum) was us’d to prescribe to me the benefit of his little Wax-taper (a type whereof is, with the history of it in some of our Registers) for Night Elucubrations preferrable to all other Candle or Lamp-lights whatsoever. And because it explods all glaring of the naked-flame, which by no meanes ought to dart upon the Eyes, it seemes very much to establish your happy invention of Tubes, instead of Spectacles, which have not those necessary defences. Touching the sight of Catts in the Night, I am not well satisfied of the Exquisitenesse of that sense in them; I believe their smelling or hearing dos much contribute to their 8 i.e., κολλύρα: eye-salve 9 drop by drop 10 Heinrich Rantzau (1526–98), De conservanda valetudine liber (Leipzig, 1576). 11 catotroptics: relating to optical reflections; phonocamptics: relating to reflections of sound or echoes; otacostics (properly otacoustics): relating to the sense of hearing 12 Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis, sive Ars magna Consoni et Dissoni in x. Libros digesta (Rome, 1650). 13 Gaspar Schott (1608–66), Magia universalis naturæ et artis ... opus quadripartitum (Würzburg: 1657–9; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1316, a presentation copy from Robert Boyle). 14 Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), Lord of Zuylichem, the father of Christiaan Huygens (1629–95), a physician, geometer, and astronomer, who also invented the pendulum clock.

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dexterity in catching Mice, as to all those Animals who are born with those prolix smelling haires. Fish will gather themselves in sholes to any extraordinary Light in the darkest night, and many are best caught by that artifice: But whatever may be say’d of those, and other senses of Fish, You know how much the sagacity of Birds and Beasts excells us, Odorumque Canum Vis How far Eagles, and Vultures, Ravens and other Fowle will smell the Carkass, Odorumque Canum Vis as Lucretius expresses it,15 and we daily find by their drawing after the Game. Gesner16 affirmes that an Otter will wind a Fish 4 miles distance in the Water, and my Lord Verulam Cent: 817 speakes of that Elements being also a medium of Sounds, as well as Ayre: Eeles do manifestly stirr at the Cracking of Thunder, but that may also be attributed to some other tremulous motion; Yet Carps and other Fish are known to come at the call,18 and the Sound of a Bell, as I have ben inform’d: Notorious is the story of Arion, and of Lucullus’s Lamprys which came ad Nomen,* [RM: *and would lick the hand of Cæsar;] and you have formerly minded me of Varros GreekePipe of which Lucian, and Cicero ad Atticum take occasion to speake: Plinys Dolphin is famous, and what is related of the American Manati;19 but to most stupendious Instance that of the Xiphia or Sword-Fish, which the Mamertinos can take by no other stratagemm than a Song of certaine barbarous Words, as the thing is related by Thomas Fazellus.20 It is certaine, that we heare more accurately when we hold our Mouthes a little open, than when we keepe them shut; and I have heard of a Dumb Gentleman in England, who was taught to speake (and therefore certainely brought to heare in some degree) by applying the head of a Base-Viole hard against his Teeth, and striking upon the strings with the Bow: You may remember the late effect of the Drumm extending the Tympanum of a Deafe Person to greate improvement of his hearing, so long as that was plaid beaten upon; all which will come naturaly into your excellent Treatise; and I could at present name a Friend of mine, who though he be exceedingly thick of hearing, by applying a straite stick of what length soever, provided it touch the Instrument, and his Eare, dos perfectly, and with greate pleasure heare any tune that is playd: All which with many more will flow into your excellent Work, whilst the Argument puts me in mind of one Tom Whittal,21 a student of Christ-Church, who would needes maintaine, that if a hole could dextrously be boar’d through the Skull to the Brain in the midst of the Fore-head, a Man might both see, and heare, and smell without the use of any other Organs; But you are to know, that this

15 “the ability of keen-scented dogs” Adapted from Lucretius, De rerum natura 4.681. Evelyn discusses this passage in his commentary on Lucretius (Add 78356: f 65v–6). 16 Conrad Gesner, De quadrupedibus viuiparis (Frankfurt, 1620), 685. 17 Sylva Sylvarum VIII.94, although this subject is dealt with most extensively in Bks. II–III. Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists the 6th edition (1651; Eve.b.30). 18 Stories of magical fish or dolphins are not uncommon in classical literature. Herodotus (1.23–4) recounts Arion’s being brought to Taenarus on a dolphin’s back. And both Pliny (Historia Naturalis 9.172) and Lucian (De Dea Syria 45) write of the Roman affection for lampreys and fish. Columella reports that at Lucullus’s death, the fish from his ponds sold for four hundred thousand sesterces (De Re Rustica 8.16). 19 manatee (tricheus manatus) 20 Thomas Fazellus, Rerum Sicularum scriptores (Frankfurt, 1576), 17, 47. 21 probably Robert Whitehall (d. 1685) who was a student of divinity at Christ Church in 1644 and was ­created bachelor of physic [medicine] in 1657. See Wood, Athenae, IV, 176–8.

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Learned Problematist was Brother to him, who preaching at St. Maries, tooke his Text out of the History of Balaam: Numbers: 22 – Am not I thine Asse! Deare Sir, pardon this Rhapsody of Sir, Your etc.

Sayes-Court 27: August –1668

Obadiah Walker Letter 312 [310] September 20, 1668 f 174r–v

Epistle CCCIX To Mr. Obadiah Walker B.D. Fellow of University Colledge Oxford

Sir, I make bold by this little Bearer, to present you with this little trifle; In which I have had no farther designe, than by making Mr. Howard1 sensible of the honor he has don himselfe, by his Munificence to the University, to provoke him to proceede on that, which you, and I have sometimes wished were don: Namely, the engraving of his Statues, Bass’relievos etc. which might contribute farther to the Use of Learned-men, as well as to the glory of his Name and Country: How it will operate, I divine not, and I have perform’d my part: He was yet pleased, to aske of me (since I sent him this Booke)2 what I conceiv’d it might cost to get them well design’d and cut in brasse; but, withall he told me, that he feared they would be of lesse repute when Publish’d; because, as he added, men usualy conceive greater things of them from the name they have obtain’d, thus conceal’d; than they would be able to preserve when once they shall become more expos’d. I endeavor’d to put off that fansy; and I find he has faire dispositions to do something in it; but I neither can tell you when, nor how; and so it must be left to him. Sir, I presume you have perus’d the learned Palmerius’s Exercitationes3 upon all the Greek Authors, and especialy his ­reflections upon the Arundelian Epocha: I first recommended the Booke to Dr. Christopher Wren, who intended to carry it to Oxford. It may possibly afford you some light to your learned Work – The Author is doubtlesse a Worthy and a discerning man, as well as his Patron, the Duke de Montausier4 a very knowing Gentleman, lately chosen Governor 1 Henry Howard, 6th duke. The bearer is John Evelyn Jr. 2 probably Sculptura (1662), Evelyn’s book on engraving 3 Jacques Le Paulmier de Grentemesnil, Exercitationes in optimos fere auctores Græcos (Leiden, 1668; Eve.a.150) contains commentary on the Arundel marbles. 4 Charles Montausier de Saint Maure (1610–90) was of an old Touraine family. In his early life he was educated by Pierre du Moulin and became an active Protestant and a scholar. After the death of his elder brother he took on a military career in which he was distinguished. He was chosen by Louis XIV as the governor of the dauphin.

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of Dauphine: But whilst I discourse thus of those matters to you γλαũκα εἰς ’Αθήνας5 I am Sir, Your etc.

Sayes-Court 20 September 1668

Thomas Lloyd1 Letter 313 [310] October 16, 1668 f 174v

Epistle CCCX To Thomas Lloyd of Whitmister in Glocester-shire

Sir, I must accknowledg, that a very comprehensive Designe of mine, concerning the improvement of the Hortulan Subject,2 has engaged me for some time, upon a Work exceedingly beyond my forces: But I am now, as I sayd, engag’d too far to retreate with honour, and therefore I am the more solicitous to conciliat the charity, and Assistance of such worthy, and communicative Persons as I heare you are; which makes me (though a stranger to your Person) beg the favour of you to excuse at least this boldnesse of mine, if prompted to it by an Addresse of Sir Edward Harlow,3 and others, I presume to importune you with my impertinences: Sir, I have inclosed the Heads upon which I have blotted so much paper;4 and shall be very just to your merits, and favour for any contributions which you shall please to make, by imparting such curious Experiments and Observations, as you shall think fit to honour me with, who am Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 16: October –1668

5 “as owls to Athens” 1 Thomas Lloyd was the grandson of the George Lloyd who established the family in Gloucestershire (five miles from Stroud) and held a seat and manor there. The work Evelyn refers to is “Elysium Britannicum.” 2 “Elysium Britannicum” 3 possibly Sir Edward Harley (1624–1700; ODNB) 4 the printed prospectus for the project (see Harris, “The Manuscripts of John Evelyn’s ‘Elysium Britannicum,’”).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Joseph Williamson Letter 314 [311] October 17, 1668 ff 174v–5

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Epistle CCCXI To Joseph Williamson Esquire

[LM: afterwards Principal Secretary of State] Sir, I intended long since to bespeake your favour in behalfe of a friend of mine:1 It was told me the Historiographers place was voy’d by the Decease of James Howell:2 For Gods love if there be a Subsistance, or solid honorarie appendant to it, reserve it for the Person I mention’d to you: ’Tis ten thousand pitties his excellent parts should be buried in this miserable obscurity, and where the poore man ploughs for £40 a yeare, which dos not afford him bread: But you require a specimen of his abilities; In the Greeke tongue you have his version of Hugo Grotius’s Catechisme, and happly there is not in this Age his superior in that tongue: Out of Greeke into English, there is Electra of Sophocles; out of Latine into English Grotius’s Gynogeticon or Poëm of Hunting, with his learned notes upon all these 3 Authors, where you have a tast of his Skill in Criticisme: His talent in the Latine tongue and knowledge of universal History, may be seene in a large and incomparable Præface to Dictionarium Minus,3 worthy your perusal; because it containes more good matter in it, than many greater, and enormous Volumes; so as you will be amaz’d at what he there discourses in a few pages: With all these excellent talents, he is of a most innocent, sincere, and humble frame of mind; infinitely modest, and Industrious; His Style is nervous, but quick; and he is able to adorn it with all the advantages of his Learning, which is, I assure you, of the most refined: You will also have one ready to drudge for you in the most herculean labours of the Pen, upon all other occasions of putting things into Latin; and all this, without ever owning his merites, but with the greatest submissions, and deferences imaginable. In one Word, 1 Christopher Wase. Evelyn mentions writing to Henry Bennet about him in the previous March (Diary III.525). Evelyn himself had also hoped for the position. 2 James Howell (1594?–1666; ODNB). Howell was a Royalist polemical writer, who was given the newly created position of historiographer royal in 1661. 3 Wase, Dictionarium Minus: or a compendious dictionary English-Latin and Latin English (London, 1661–2; in the 1687 library catalogue). Wase also edited Hugo Grotius, Baptizatorum puerorum instituto, alterius interrogationibus et reponsionibus (London, 1647) (2nd ed., 1650; Eve.a.31) and Faliscus Gratius, Cynegeticon; or a poem of hunting by Gratius the Faliscian (London, 1654). He had also by this time published Methodi practicæ specimen: An essay of a practical grammar; or an enquiry after a more easie ... help to the construing ... of authors; and to the making and speaking of Latine (London, 1660; in the 1687 library catalogue). Later he would be very active as a translator of classical texts. Evelyn can already point to his translation of Sophocles, Electra of Sophocles: presented to her Highnesse the Lady Elizabeth; with an epilogue, shewing the parallell in two poems. The return, and The restauration (The Hague, 1649; in the 1687 library catalogue). Subsequently, he would also translate Cicero’s Catilinarian orations (1671) and his Tusculan Disputations (1683). Evelyn includes a poem, “Upon Christopher Wase’s History of Languages” in his verse miscellany (Add 78357: f 24).

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I will stand, and fall in your opinion concerning my judgement for ever, if the Person do not make good to the uttmost what I undertake for him; and, I do sweare to you, without his knowledge or seeking: Deare Sir, For all the favours I have hitherto received from you, be once Obliged, ’tis an insolent word, but, I say it againe, be once obliged by Sir, Your etc: London 17 October–1668

Obadiah Walker Letter 315 [312] October 19, 1668* f 175r–v

Epistle CCCXII To Mr. Obadiah Walker B.D. one of the Senior Fellows of University Colledge Oxford

Sir, I came lately to be accidentaly acquainted with a Persian Merchant,1 who pretends to many Languages, but speakes none that I understand, except Italian, and a little wiccked Latine; yet has, in truth, inligh[t]ned me in divers particulars, which I am glad to know of concerning other matters. He has had some buisinesse here with Sir Thomas Bendish2 (lately Ambassador at Constantinople) but is now returning back into his Country; which and being, it seemes, streitned for want of monys, would gladly dispose of some Manuscripts, which he brought into England with him, the Titles whereof, I send you here in his owne hand, and, you may be sure, in his owne Latine too, in which he is no critic. I told him I had little skill in the Arabic, and therefore could not judge of his Bookes; but that I would (upon his importunity) transmit his Catalogue to a learned friend of mine, in our University, who could give him an account of it. Sir, You may please to consult Mr. Pocock3 upon the Titles, and to let me understand what service I may do you farther with this Stranger before his departure. Amongst the rest, he makes greate Account of a cer-

1 Pietro Cisii. The letter is misdated, as its location implies. On 29 September 1668, Evelyn records having “much discourse” with him “about the affaires of Turky to my infinite satisfaction” Diary III.516. He had interested himself in the stories of Padro Ottomano and Mahomed Bei, lives that Evelyn incorporated into his The History of the Three late famous Impostors (1669). 2 Sir Thomas Bendish, 2nd baronet (1607–74; ODNB). He was ambassador to Turkey with credentials from both Charles I and parliament from 1647 to 1660. 3 Edward Pococke (1604–91; ODNB), appointed first professor of Arabic at Oxford in 1636. He translated Grotius’s De veritate religionis Christianae into Arabic and the “philosophical fable” of ibn Tufayl, published with the Arabic text under the title Philosophus autodidactus (Oxford, 1671). See Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning.

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taine Manuscript (which yet I do not find mention’d here) writen by Sergius the Monke,4 containing a penetentiary Discourse of his to another Monke, in which he deplores his ill successe with Mahomet, whom he pretends he never intended to pervert, but to convert from his errour, and project of a Voluptuous Religion etc. It seemes (for he read some of it to me) to be a kind of Historical Confession, etc. with sundry Visions and Prophesies, which my Persian affirmes to be daily fulfill’d both in the Eastern and Western World. This Booke he likewise att says he copied out of a Manuscript belonging to a Learned, and curious Turke at Cairo, who infinitely esteem’d it, both for the wonderfull Antiquity, and subject of it, notwithstanding it was prejudicial to their Faith; to all which I can say little. He tells me, we have no true Geneologie of the Ottoman House in any of our European Histories; but shew’d me one, which he affirmes to be tr exact. The man seemes to be very knowing for one of his Profession (which is a Merchantize) and is to all appearance, modest. He says he formerly went through a whole Course of the liberal studies at Rome, and so it is a signe by his Latine, which he speakes, just as he writes. However I verily believe, the man to be very skillfull in some of the Oriental Tongues, especialy the Arabic. His chiefe Manuscript has this Inscription

‫اضعالا عفانم يف سونيلاج ]ب[اتك نم ىلوالا ةلاقملا‬ ‫ ةنس يرجه خير]ا[ـت يدبعلا قحسا نب نينح‬... 5 etc. which is all but an old Galen, de Usu Partium,6 with a Commentarie of one Honin the Son of Isaac named Abadi, Anno Higiri 186,7 and I believe containes no greate matter in it: Besides the Publique Library8 cannot but be furnish’d with it long since, upon Mr. Pocokes curious research, when he was conversant in those Countries.9 Sir, I pray, present my Service to Mr. Vicechancelor,10 and let me receive your Commands with what speede you may, who am Sir Your etc. London 19: October–1669

4 Bahira, or “Sergius the Monk”: a monk from Bosra alleged to have predicted the prophetic vocation of the young Muhammad. The manuscript offered to Evelyn would refute this long-standing legend. 5 The passage identifies the manuscript as Hunayn ibn-Ishaq’s Galen commentary. Transcription by Walid Saleh. 6 Galen, De Usu Partium Corporis Humani 7 Hunayn ibn-Ishaq (’Abū Zayd h. unayn ibn ’Ish.āq al-‘Ibādī) (aka Johannitius) (808–73) 8 Bodleian Library 9 Pococke arrived in Aleppo in 1630, as chaplain to the Levant Company’s general court. He actively collected manuscripts. In 1631, Laud wrote to Pococke, engaging him to buy Greek coins and Greek and oriental manuscripts on his behalf. Laud subsequently arranged for his appointment as professor of Arabic at Oxford. See ODNB and Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning, 127–46. 10 John Fell

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Thomas Clifford Letter 316 [313] February 1, 1669 f 176r–v

Epistle CCCXIII To the Right Honorable Sir Thomas Clifford, Treasurer of his Majesties Household etc.

[RM: afterwards Lord high Treasurer of England] Right Honorable In my conversation sometimes amongst Bookes to redeeme my tyme from other Impertinences, I think it my duty to give yor Honor notice of Some Pieces which have come to my hands, the Subjects whereof, I cannot but esteeme highly prejudicial to the honor of his Majestie and the whole Nation; Especialy two Bookes; the One written in French, the Other in Latine1 (not inelegantly) both with Approbation of their Superiors the States of Holland, licencing their Publication. The Argument of them is a Remonstrance to all the World of the Occasion, Action, and Sucesse of the late Warr betweene the English and the Dutch; but, with all the Topics of reproch and dishonor as to matter of Fact; every Period being fill’d with the dissembl’d Instances of our Injustice, Ingratitude, Cruelty and Imprudence; and the Persons of divers particular Gallant-Men engag’d in that Action, injuriously treated and accus’d, and in summ, whatever they can else suggest to render his Majestie and People cheap and vile, the Subjects of Derision, and Contempt. I should think in my poore Judgement (under Submission to a better) that there is nothing which ought to be more precious to a Prince, or his People, than their Reputation: Sure I am, it is of more value with a man of honor, than his life; and certainely, the Reputation of a greate Kingdom, which comprehends so many Individuals as have ben one way or other concern’d in the publique Interest, tender of their Fame, and consequently oblig’d to vindicate it, cannot without a Crime be lesse, or without being wanting to themselves in a most necessary Defence. I know it may be say’d, that this is all but a paper Quarell: But your Honor dos consider, what the Effects of such malevolent suggestions do produce, and with what a black and deepe malice contriv’d: how far they flie, and how universaly understood the Latine and French tongues are, the one amongst the grave, and more intelligent sort (not by way of Pamphlet, but of a formal and close Treatise) and the other amongst the Vulgar; to which is also joyn’d, for the better fixing their injurious Ideäs, the Several Types, and Figures 1 The Latin work is probably Theophilus Hogers (Hogerius), Binæ orationes habitæ bello anglico secundo ad senatum populumque Daventriensem (Amsterdam, 1669) in which the author mentions “iniquis Anglorum.” Evelyn cites this book in his notes (Add 78393: ff 27–43). The other is most probably Jean Nicolas de Parival’s Les Délices de la Holland ... augmentés de nouvau par F.S. d’Alquié, lequel y a adjousté tout ce qui s’est passé de plus considérable depuis l’an 1661, jusqu’à l’an 1669 (Amsterdam, 1669; in the 1687 library catalogue) which Evelyn also cites in his notes. On 13 February Evelyn notes that Arlington “began to tempt me about writing the Dutch-Warr” (Diary III.523). It appeared only in part as Navigation and Commerce (1674).

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cut in Brasse, to represent our Misfortunes; as in particular, our want of Conduct (as they terme it) in the first encounter; our basenesse in surprising a few poore Fisher-men, and the firing of Schelling, revenged in the dire Conflagration of London, the Metropolis of our Nation: The Descent they made on Sheere-Nesse, and their glorious exploit at Chatham; where they give out we so ridiculously lost, or betraid the creame of our Fleete, and bullwarks of the Kingdom, by an unparallel’d Supinesse; nor this crudely, or in a trifling way of writing; but so as may best affect the Passions, and præpossesse the Judgement and beliefe of the Reader: I say nothing of some Personal Reflections on my Lord ­Arlington,2 Sir Robert Holmes,3 and even the King himselfe, whom they represent deliberating in a panique consternation of a flight to Windsor etc., nor many other particulars pointed at; nor of a thousand other notorious Indignities plainely insupportable: But I have sayd enough to enflame a Breast Sensible of Honor, and Generous as I know yours to be, to approve, or at least to pardon the proposal which I shall humbly submit to your Consideration and Encouragement, for the Vindication of his Majestie and the Nations honor, and especialy, of an Action in which your Honor bore so greate and so signal a part: And that were doubtlesse by employing an able Pen, not to a formal, or studied Reply to any particular of this egregious Libell (which might now happly be thought unseasonable) but to compose a solid, and use-full History of the Late Warr, according to the truth of Circumstances, and for the Honor of those very many brave Men, who were Actors in it, whose Names deserve as well to be transmitted to Posterity, as our meaner Antagonists; but, which must else dye in obscurity, and, what is worse, with obloquy, and scorn, not of Enemys alone, but of all that shall reade what these men are permitted to scatter abroad the World, whilst there is no care taken amongst us at home, to vindicate them from it. When I have mentioned to your honor the employment of an able Pen, upon this Occasion, I prevented all pretences to it, as relating to myselfe; who have neither the requisite Talents, nor the least presumption for it: But, I would humbly suggest, how worthy, and glorious in your honor it would be, to moove my Lord Arlington, and with him, to provoke his Majestie to impose this Province upon some sober, and well instructed Person, who, dignified with the Character of his Royal Historiographer,4 might be oblig’d to serve, and defend his Majesties honor, and that of the Publique with his Pen; a Thing so carefully, and so industriously observed by the French-King, and all other greate Potentates, who have any reguards or tendernesse to their owne, or their Peoples glory, the encouragement of Gallant men, and prospect of their future stories, as there is nothing more notorious. It is History alone (however the Writers of them may be esteem’d) which renders the Greatest Princes, and the most deserving Persons, what they are to the Present Age; which perfumes their Names to posterity, inspires them to an emulation of their Vertues, and preserves them from being as much forgotten, as the common dust in which 2 Henry Bennet 3 Sir Robert Holmes (c. 1622–92; ODNB). In 1664 he seized Dutch possessions in Africa and North America, and after the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 (in which he was a captain) Evelyn says he was reconciled to Charles II and his brother (Add 78431: f 85 [11.10.1665]) and was knighted and made rear admiral. 4 Evelyn initially hoped to have this post himself but argues in this letter that it should be given to his cousin Christopher Wase. See Letter 314.

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they lie buried mingled. If your Honor thinke this Worthy your Thoughts, (and Worthy of them I pronounce it to be) all that I shall humbly supplicate of you, is, that, through your favour, I may present his Majestie with a Person highly deserving it; as being one, who has not onely ben a Sufferer in his Capacity; but One who is perfectly able, and accomplish’d to serve his Majestie, a Learned, Industrious Person, and who will esteeme himselfe gratified with a very modest Subsistance, to be allwayes at hand, and allways laborious; and not to weare a Title (as some Triflers5 have lately don) to the reproch of it: If there be already a tollerable Honorary appendant to the Place of Historiographer, we have no more to beg, but the Graunt of it; if not, that, through your mediation, some encouragement may be procur’d: It will not be one of the least noble things, for which you will merit a just veneration of your memory. But, I shall add no more at present, because I will beg the Grace of a particular permission to discourse this Affaire to you, and with the joynt request of my worthy Friend Mr. Williamson6 (who will likewise present your Honor with a Specimen of the Persons Abillities) bespeake your honors favourable Encouragement, who remaine your Honours etc. Sayes-Court 1 February–1668/9

John Fell Letter 317 [314] March 12, 1669* f 177

Epistle CCCXIV To Dr. Fell, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford

Reverend Sir, The Letter which Mr. Præsident1 put into my hands, I the next day transmitted to my Lord Brouncker,2 and have so far bespoken his favour to the Contents of it, that he has promis’d me to promote it at the next Council. How it fortun’d to be obstructed the last meeting, were fitter to be whisper’d in your Eare, than conveyd by a Letter.3 There were some who believed the retaining the manuscripts here would be more to the honour of my Lord Howard;4 but I know that Person so perfectly well, that the Compliment will be lost, however it succeede in their disposal of them: For, I dare assure you, my Lord has 5 James Howell 6 Joseph Williamson (see Letter 314) 1 Ralph Bathurst 2 William Brouncker was president of the Royal Society. 3 Evelyn notes that the Royal Society discussed “the disposing of My L: H. Howards Librarie now given to us” on 4 March (Diary III.524). Fell wrote to Ralph Bathurst on 7 March, proposing Evelyn as an intermediary in discussions with Howard (Diary [1887], III, 216). 4 Henry Howard, 6th duke

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made an absolute donation of them, and with that Generosity, that he has not the least reservation, or passion left (as far as I can discerne) to incline us one way or other, which might seeme to prejudice our Liberty in the disposall of them: But it being (as I sayd) to be determind by our Councill, Suffrages carry it, and not allways the best Arguments. I deliverd my Mind plainely, and with some fervour, and am now engaging as many as I can against the next Meeting; and if speaking to his Lordship in particular, may contribute anything to your Cause, I shall be sure to use the Uttmost Perswasions: Sir, I am Your etc. Sayes-Court 12 March 1668

Henry Howard, 6th duke Letter 318 [315] March 14, 1669 f 177r–v

Epistle CCCXV To my Lord Henry Howard of Norfolck:

[RM: now Duke] My Lord, I am not prompted by the Successe of my first Addresses to your Honor when as much for your owne Glory, as that of the Universities, I prævaild with you for the Marbles, which were Inscriptions in stone; to solicit you now on the same account for the Books, which are Inscriptions but in Parchment: But, because I am very confident your Honor cannot consult a nobler expedient to preserve them, and the memory of your Name, and illustrious Family; than by wishing, that the Society (on whom you have so generously bestow’d your Library) might exchang the Manuscripts (such onely, I meane, as concerne the Civile Law, Theologie and other Scholastical Learning) for Mathematical, Philosophical, and such other Books, as may prove most usefull to the Designe and Institution of it: Especialy, since the University do not onely humbly desire it (as I can testifie by divers letters which I have seene from the Vice-Chancellor,1 and other eminent Persons there) but desire it with a designe of owning it yours; and of perpetuating your Munificence, by dignif[y]ing that Appartiment where they would place them, with the Title of Bibliotheca Arundeliana,2 than which, what can be fore more glorious and conspicuous? The Learned Selden,3 Sir Kenelm Digby, Arch-Bishop Lawd (not to mention Sir Thomas Bodley their Founder, and severall others, who are out of all exception) esteem’d This a 1 John Fell. See Letter 317 and Diary [1887] III.216, and Howard’s letter of 11 September 1672 (Add 78317: f 136 [11.9.1672]). 2 See Bibliotheca Norfolciana (London, 1681; in the 1687 library catalogue), compiled by William Perry. For their subsequent history see Diary III.472, n. 3. See also Letter 294 (4 August, 1667) and Letter 619 (12 August, 1689). 3 John Selden

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safer ­Repository, than to have consign’d them to their Mantions and Posterity; and we have seene that when their Persons, Families and most precious Movables have suffer’d (some of them) the uttmost Violences and Dispersion; their Bookes alone have escaped untouch’d in this Sacred Asylum; and preserv’d the Names of the Donors through all vicissitudes: Nor in saying this, do I augure lesse of the Royal Society, should they think fit to keepe them in their owne Library: But, because by thus parting with such as are forraigne to their studies, to the University, Your illustrious Name and Library will be reserv’d in both Places at once with equall Zeale, and no lesse obligation; when as many as shall have recourse to such Bookes at Oxford as are under the Arundelian Title, will have occasion to mention it in their Workes and Labours to your eternal Honour. For my part I speake it with greate sincerity, and due Veneration of your Lordships Bounty; That if I would to the uttmost of my power, consult the advancement of your Lordships Glory in this Gift, it should be by declaring my Suffrage in behalfe of the Universities request. I sayd as much in the late Council, where I must testifie, that even those who were of a Contrary Sense to some others of us, were yet all of them equaly emulous of your Lordships honor. But, since it was the Unanimous Result, to submit this Particular to your Lordships Decision, I cannot, upon most serious reflection on the Reasons which I have aledged, and especialy, that of preserving your Name, and Library by a double Consignation, but implore your Lordships favour, and Indulgence for the Universities, Where your Munificence is already deepely Ingraven in their Hearts, as well as in their Marbles, and will then shine in Letters of a more Refulgent Lustre: For, mi-thinkes I heare their Publique Orator, after he has celebrated your Name amongst the rest of their Glorious Benefactors and Heros, end his Panegyric in the resounding Theater, as once the noble Poet, in the Person of the Young Arcadian

Nunc te Marmoreum pro tempore fecimus –4 Eclogue 7: We yet Greate Howard Thee but in Marble mould, But if our Bookes increase, Thou shalt be Gold.

I am your Lordships etc.

Sayes-Court 14: March–1669

4 “Now we have made thee of marble for the time.” Virgil, Eclogues 7.35 (Fairclough, trans)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Isaac Basire1 Letter 319 [316] May 6, 1669 f 178

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Epistle CCCXVI To Dr. Basiere D.D. one of his Majesties Chaplaines in Ordinary

Reverend Sir, I am most instantly importun’d by a Deare Friend of mine, to use my Interest in your favour for the best Information you can give (and I am sure, no man can do it better give so much) concerning the beliefs of the modern Greekes and Armenians about the Holy Eucharist and the point of Transubstantiation; that thereby Protestants may be furnish’d with materials to answer the Late Pretences of Monsieur Arnold,2 exceedingly boasting the Tenents of the Pontificians and Romish Doctrine as perpetuall in the Eastern Churches; My Friend is a devout, and worthy Person, who frequently corresponds with Monsier Claud,3 and other of the French most eminent Reformed Divines, and they have sent to them him to procure them what light, and assistance can be procur’d obtain’d from hence; and particularly, that by my mediation, you would vouchsafe your ayd, as the onely Person who have travelled amongst the Oriental Churches, convers’d with their Patriarch’s and most learned amongst them, and brought from them such particular Confessions, and other Authentique Instruments under their hands and seales, as would be of infinite use, and conviction to their Adversaries: It is this Gentleman then, who has obliged me to give you this Trouble, which I the rather believe you will pardon and comply with, because it is to furnish towards so laudable a designe, and for the glory of God in vindicating the truth. Sir, What Notes of yours concerning this affaire you shall please to transmit by my hands, shall be gratefully accknowledg’d by the Recipients, and especialy by Sir, Your etc. London: 6: May: 1669

1 Isaac Basire de Preaumont (1608–76; ODNB). Basire had been chaplain extraordinary to Charles I and archdeacon of Northumberland in the diocese of Durham. In 1646, after he was compelled to go abroad by Parliamentarians, he went first to Rome and then to the eastern Mediterranean where he became an ambassador and missionary for Anglicanism while becoming an expert on the Orthodox Church. Basire responded on 22 May (Diary [1887] III, 218–19). 2 Antoine Arnauld. Evelyn’s source is probably A discourse of Monsr. Vigier to the Lord Abbot Goddon ... Concerning the book of Monsr. Arnaud ... entituled, The perpetuity of the faith of the Catholick Church, touching the Eucharist (London, 1670; in the 1687 library catalogue). The controversy over the Eucharist is also the subject of correspondence with Fr. Patrick Maginn in Letter 333. 3 Jean Claude (1619–87) was a French Protestant divine who opposed Antoine Arnauld and Jacques­Bénigne Bossuet in the controversy over the reuniting of Protestants and Catholics in France and was forced to flee to Holland on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His book on the persecution of the Huguenots was ordered destroyed by James II in 1686.

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I thinke Hottinger in his Philologia Sacra4 has written something considerably upon this Argument; and so has our Sir Edwyn Sandys. I pray add your benevolence.

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 320 [317] June 8, 1669 f 178r–v

Epistle CCCXVII To my Deare Sister Evelyn: of Woodcott

My deare Sister, My Brothers1 Indisposition when I was the last Friday to kisse your hands, is the sole occasion of my sending this Expresse, to know how he dos, and what encouragement he has received from the progresse of Sir Richard Lushford:2 For, though I perceive you are not apt to allow our concernements for One another to be much above the rate of kind Brothers, that live decently together; but who, to use your owne expression, would not go much out of the way, to signaliz their tendernesse: Yet, I cannot think you could speak it seriously, and therefore I forgive you; and because I conjecture you did not intend it of me; who yet am sensibly touch’d, as sounding like some omission or indifference in our application, and reguards to you. I have but one greate truth to say on this Chapter, That there lives not in the World a Second Person for whom I have so intire, so perfect, and so sincere a love as for my deare Brother your Husband; nor one whose sufferings I more sensibly deeply commiserate: God alone can testifie, if ever I bend my knee to him, without an ardent supplication for his reliefe; not onely, as being in all appearance and by constitution, obnoxious to the same Infirmitys; but because I am a Christian, and that have solemnly consider’d what my Duty is towards so deare a Relation:3 But, if I have not hitherto thought convenient, to expresse it before you with such Accents of outward passion, as might rather cherish his Melancholy reflections (which would plainely ruine him, and contribute to his farther dejection) than serve to aleviate them; it is because I am 4 probably Johann Heinrich Hottinger (the elder), Dissertationum theologico-philologicarum fasciculus (Heidelberg, 1660); Edwin Sandys’s A Relation of the state of religion; and with what hopes and policies it hath beene framed and is maintained in the severall states of these westerne parts of the world (London, 1637; first published 1605; in the 1687 library catalogue). 1 Richard Evelyn. His suffering is a recurring concern in the diary until his death on 7 March 1670 (Diary III.544). 2 possibly Sir Richard Lechford (or Lachford) (1595–1671), a former gentleman pensioner of Charles I, and distantly related to Evelyn through his mother (Diary III.561, n. 4). He lived near Dorking. 3 On 10 June, Evelyn notes “I went out that evening to Lond: to carry Mr. Pepys to my Bro: (now exceedingly afflicted with the Stone in the bladder) who himself had ben successfully cut; & carried the Stone (which was as big as a tenis-ball) to shew him, and encourage his resolution to go thro the operation” (Diary III.529).

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ignorant of that middle, and more prudent way of governing my selfe on these Occasions, as you hinted to me. But, Deare Sister believe it, this is not the expedient, in my Brothers Case, and that which becomes you, and is comely pitifull in your sex, were not justifiable in Us, nor as my Brothers case requires, who is to be preserv’d from despondency and encourag’d by all the arts and Counsels that can be apply’d; and if you would likewise change your style a little now and then, You would soone find the good effects of it, in his temper and resignation. I conjure you therefore, by all the tyes of Kindnesse, and the Vows I have made forever to honour You, not to believe me indifferent, by any thing you will see in my behaviour to my Brother or that it proceedes from any coldnesse: You know I would cherefully sacrifice what is most deare to me, for his good: Do you apprehend I have any designe upon him? what have you ever observ’d so sordid in me that I should now be thought to flatter? I neither seeke, nor will accept of any thing from you, but that you will be just to this one Profession, that I love You, and your Husband infinitely; and that not from indifferent, and formal motives, of being persons so neerely related, but out of a very greate peculiar esteeme which I have for you in particular? It is onely my infelicity, that now after Twenty Yeares contest, to vindicate that Confidence, and sweete Conversation which there ought to be betweene us, from the Ceremonies and Cautions of I know not what Reserves, we have not yet ben able to shew one another our hearts: Mine, Sister, is too greate to add any more; but, I could be contented you did believe, that you have none of your owne flesh and blood who has more tender reguards for you than my selfe, and that would do more to purchase your Confidence and faire opinion, than Deare Sister Your etc. Sayes-Court 8: June: 1669

Henry Bennet Letter 321 [318] June 11, 1669 f 179

Epistle CCCXVIII To my Lord Arlington Principal Secretary of State1

My Lord I should blush to importune your Lordship in my owne behalfe where the competition was betweene my most worthy friend Mr. Wiliamson2 and my selfe as to all those talents,

1 The original version of this letter was removed from Wotton by Upcott and later sold at auction in 1851 (Catalogue of ... valuable Autograph Letters and Historical Manuscripts, being the well-known collection of ... A. Donnadieu, cat. 323). 2 Joseph Williamson

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which so justly recommend him to his Majestie and your Lordships Service in præference to me: But since the Title which I derive to this resignation of my Father in Law is totaly founded upon your Lordships goodnesse (who not onely moved his Majestie in my behalfe, but obtain’d his gracious assent) I cannot but humbly beg I may not loose the fruite of it,3 because my Father in Law continu’d in his Majesties Service ’till he began to find in himselfe some Infirmities, which moved him to devolve it upon me in February next, as not doubting of his Majesties Grace therein, which he onely sought by your Lordships mediation and goodnesse. That Sir Richard Browne has spent himselfe and whole fortune in his Majesties and his Royal Fathers Service, that there is a very considerable arreare (of many Thousands) due to him; that he has hitherto never yet made one disloyal step in so many yeares of Temptation; that he was a fellow Sufferer with your Lordship and in no inglorious, or cheape Employment; that he purchased his present station at the rate of £1500 without fruite; and that he has waited to the brink of his very Grave to be able to shew some kindnesse to me without prejudice to his Majesties Service, are not things unknown to your Lordship: And though he dos not presume to challenge anything, because he has in all this but perfom’d his duty; yet he humbly conceives, that they maybe some inducement of his Majesties favour to me, who must else despaire of the Occasion I have so long thirsted after, to be plac’d where I might one day show to whom I have my Obligation, and in which, I hope, I should never give your Lordship Cause to repent that you have totaly acquir’d me. And since his Majestie has under his Royall hand and Seale, promis’d, that if ever God should restore him to his Throne, he would set so signal a mark of his favour on Sir Richard. as should testifie to all the World his gratious acceptance of his long, and faithfull Services; he beseeches your Lordship to moove his Majestie that this may be some beginning of his Royal promise, in thinking me worthy to serve him; since he was pleased once to make me hope it, through your Lordships favour, which I shall never faile to cultivat, (however this Succeede) not more out of duty than particular respect and inclination: My Lord I humbly leave my Supplication in your hands: I know you will consider me as a Gentleman, and as one that extreamely honours you; that desires to serve you, and that will spread abroad the sense of the Obligation, as becomes My Lord Your etc. London 11 June 1669

3 Sir Richard Browne had been clerk of the Council, a position which Evelyn hoped to obtain but resigned to Williamson in 1672 “upon consideration of 1000 pounds; and our lease of 500 pounds per ann: ... for 99 yeares” (Diary III.601).

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Obadiah Walker Letter 322 [319] August 21, 1669 f 179v

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Epistle CCCXIX To Mr. Obadiah Walker B.D. Senior Fellow of University Colledge Oxford

Sir, You may well be astonish’d at my Ingratitude, that after so many favours received from you at Oxford, I should come so slowly in with my Accknowledgements to you.1 The truth is, the perpetual trouble I put you to render’d them above my Expression, but would yet leave me lesse excusable, should I be silent any longer, though I have no more to say, then to acquaint you that I this day sent Mr. Vice-Chancellor,2 and The worthy President of Trinity College Dr. Bathurst,3 the Titles of my Lord Howard,4 authenticaly transcribed out of his late Deploma, and Credentials also, with such other reflections and hints, as (it may be) you will not take in ill part. These I shall follow with such directions concerning the Coate of Armes, as I hope shortly to receive from Sir Edward Walker, Garter King at Armes; but which I cannot so confidently presume on at present, ’till his returne to London. You may yet in the interim, prepare the Marbles, Engrave the Letters, and leave space for the rest which you designe for Ornament: I must conjure you to make my humble Service acceptable to Mr. Vice-Chancellor in better termes than I can do for the Honor Dignity the University was pleas’d to conferr upon me; [LM: When they created me Doctor of Laws at the Act: 1669, what time the Theater was Dedicated.]5 and that they design’d it in an expresse Convocation, and with so illustrious an appearance, dos infinitely add to the Obligation. I went on Thursday last to congratulate the Honor you have lately so worthily conferr’d placed upon his Grace the Duke of Ormond;6 [LM: made Chancellor August following] He made me dine with him, and I found him greately pleas’d with this deference of the University. My Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury7 told me the other day, that if God spared his life a few Yeares longer, he would add to his former Munificence, something very Consider-

1 See Evelyn’s account of his visit to Oxford (Diary III.530–6). Ralph Bathurst had written to Evelyn on 12 August, requesting information on Howard’s titles (Add 78683: f 36 [12.8.1669]) in preparation for a monument commemorating Howard’s gift. See Prideaux, Marmora Oxoniensia (Oxford, 1676), a2v. 2 John Fell 3 Ralph Bathurst; see Letter 327 (21 August 1669) for Evelyn’s presentation of Howard’s rank and dignities. 4 Henry Howard, 6th duke 5 Evelyn gives a detailed account of the ceremonies on the occasion of the dedication of the Sheldonian Theatre (8–9 July; Diary III.530–4). The ceremonies accompanying the awarding of his honorary doctorate happened on 14 July (Diary III.534–6). 6 James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond 7 Gilbert Sheldon

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able for the accomplishment of the Presse now setting up under the Theater. I did (you may believe) magnifie the Designe with all the Zeale imaginable. Pray when you next see the Provost of Queenes (Dr. Barlow)8 let him know I kisse his hands a thousand times for his greate civilities to me: But that yet, I do not discharge him of the promise he made me, of giving me an account of a certaine passage which I shew’d him in the Councill of Ephesus.9 Sir, I remaine Your etc.

Sayes-Court 21: August 1669.

Edward Hyde1 Letter 323 [320] September 14, 1669 f 180

Epistle CCCXX To my Lord High Chancelor the Earle of Clarendon

[RM: now at Rouen impeached by the Parliament] My Lord, ’Tis a common saying, Out of sight, out of mind; The Spaniards have yet a prettyer metaphor, That Distance puts Earth ’twixt friends, but Malice the Seas; that is the one buries, the other drownes their memorie: But my Lord, nor Seas nor Earth nor Seas, nor the rage of giddy people can either banish or prejudice your memorie and just esteeme in the minds of those who have had the honor to know you under the greatest Tentations: We are every day more and more sensible of our losse, by your absence. This as to the Publique, that of mine is unspeakeable, and I proclaime it to all the world. Nor is it possible I should in any Circumstances forget your signal kindnesses to me, who never had the least pretence to ’em from any merite of mine, besides the honor of being know[n] to you in evil times, and in adverse fortune, which sometimes we find to indeare generous persons; and I have too-long studied the duty of Gratitude to weaken the Sentiments I shall ever retaine of the many Obligations I have to your Lordship. Nor despaire I even in

8 Thomas Barlow 9 probably the passage alluded to in Letter 307 in Evelyn’s controversy with Christopher Davenport, on which Barlow commented in A letter concerning invocations of saints, and adoration of the cross writ ten years since, to John Evelyn of Depthford, esq., not printed until 1679. 1 Evelyn’s final letter in the letterbooks to Edward Hyde. He last saw him on 9 December 1667, the day before Hyde’s departure from England: “I found him in his Garden at his new built Palace sitting in his Gowt wheele chayre, & seeing the gates towards the North & fields setting up: he looked & spake very disconsolately, after some while deploring his condition to me, I tooke my leave, & the next morning heard he was gon” (Diary III.502).

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this interval, and posture of Affaires, but that my little Interests, and habitudes, amongst some honest and discerning persons, may (with the rest of your more illustrious friends) contribute something to your Service: The poore officious Mouse freed the intangled Lion in the Apologue:2 And your Lordship has seene the time, when the Little Creatures, might have don good offices, or mischiefe to greate Interests, and there are still those honest arts, and insinuations, which may in time produce greate effects, or shew at least that all man-kind is not wholy perverted: Preserve then your selfe in health and vigour, and, as you do, in your assiduous imploring the divine grace to continue that magnanimitie, and virtue, that becomes your Sufferings. Possesse your selfe in the contemplation of your innocency, and the reward of that; whilst it is we alone whom it chiefly imports to deplore our losse, who live in fece Romuli,3 this sink of the universe, and dregs of a vicious age: Things my Lord are mutable, and there is yet a prospect of better Counsels, after all this Cry; I onely wish you had rather made your Recesse at Corneberry, for Confident I am the persecution would have ended in your with-drawing thither, and afforded lesse occasion to traduce, and take advantage:4 This my Lord is the sense of your friends here; and they hope, and bid me tell you, Time, and better natures will restore you to us. My Lord I had it once in my thoughts to have diverted you in quite another style, and entertaind you with such occurrences, as in brighter daies, were wont to be acceptable: But, I know not, how, I find my selfe otherwise concern’d: I cannot for my heart be gay, whilst he that puts it [in] motion (next to him that made it) with is so far off; nor do we realy find anything Genial here since your departure: I am my Lord (as ever) the same (to my worthiest Patron) his most dutifull and most obedient Servant: From our poor Villa 14 September –1669

2 This is a reference to the fable of the lion and the mouse in Aesop which, in the 1692 edition by Sir Roger L’Estrange, was interpreted as showing that the common man respected the greatness of the ruler (Fables, of Æsop and other eminent mythologists: with morals and reflexions. By Sir Roger L’Estrange, Kt., [London, 1692], 16–17). 3 “in Romulus’ cesspool.” Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.1.8 (Bailey, trans). 4 Evelyn was convinced in December 1669 that Hyde could have avoided exile had he retired earlier to his estate in Cornbery: “That which exasperated them [Parliament] was his presuming to stay, & contest the Accusation as long as twas possible” (Diary III.502).

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Meric Casaubon1 Letter 324 [321] January 17, 1670 f 1802

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCXXI To Dr. Meric Casaubon Isaaci Filius Prebend of Canterbery etc.3

Reverend Sir Tho I am a stranger to your Person, yet the name of and the Learning which you derive both from Inheritance as well as acquisition, draws a just veneration to them: Sir, whilst it has ben lately my hap to write something concerning the nature of Forest-Trees, and their Mechanical Uses, in turning over many Books treating of that and other Subjects, I met with divers passages concerning staves, which has in a manner obliged me to say something of them in a Treatise which I am adorning:4 But whilst I was intent on this, I began to doubt whither I should not Actum agere; remembring this passage of your Father (τοῦ μακαριτοῦ)5 in his Comment on Theophrastus p: 172 Edition London, 1638 – Sed hæc hactenus – –Nam de Baculis et eorum forma, multiplicique apud veteres usu, plurima quæ observavimus ad lucem multorum Scriptorum veterum, alibi ἐαν ὁ θεὸς ἐθέλῃ commodius proferremus. 6 That which I now would intreate of you Sir, is to know whither your learned Father did ever publish any expresse Treatise concerning this Subject; and if not, that you’l be pleased to afford me some short hints of what you find noted in his Adversaria about it: By which meanes you will infinitely oblige me, who shall not faile to let the world know, to whose bounty, and assistance I am indebted: Sir, That worthy, and communicative 1 Meric Casaubon (1599–1671; ODNB). The son of Isaac Casaubon, Meric Casaubon was made doctor of divinity at Oxford in 1636. He was ejected from his post as prebendary at Canterbury in 1643, and from his living at Minster in 1644, and spent the years of the Civil War and the Interregnum in London and West Ashling in Sussex. In his last years he divided his time between Canterbury, where his position had been restored, Ickham, where he had been granted a living in 1662, Cambridge, and London. 2 Many of the following letters have been entered out of chronological order. See also Letter 370 to Casaubon, dated by Evelyn to 1674. 3 Casaubon responded to both of Evelyn’s letters (Letters 324, 325). Initially he wrote on 24 January that he had searched his father’s papers, and had found a note, De Baculis, written “as an addition to what he had written on Theophrastus,” and some additional material on plants which he promised to send Evelyn (Add 78683: f 118 [24.1.1670]; Diary [1887] III.224–5). In February, he wrote again, explaining that ill health had delayed his response, and telling Evelyn that he would convey the relevant pages from his father’s “Adversaria” (Add 78683: f 17 [Feb. 1670]). 4 Sylva was republished with Pomona in 1670. “Elysium Britannicum” was to contain Evelyn’s work on staves (see Add 78344: ff 129–35; Add 15950: f 80), but it was never published in his lifetime. 5 of blessed memory 6 “But these things [will go] this far. For regarding staves and their form, and their complex usage amongst the ancients, a great number of things which we have observed in light of many ancient authors, we would more fittingly mention elsewhere, if God wills it.” Isaac Casaubon, ed., Θεοφραστου ἠθικοι Χαρακτηρες. Theophrasti notationes morum. Isaacus Casaubonus recensuit (Lyon, 1638; in the 1687 library catalogue).

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n­ ature of yours, breathing in your excellent writings, prompts me to this greate Confidence; But, however my Request succeedes, be pleas’d to Pardon the Liberty of Reverend Sir, Your most humble, though un-knowne Servant etc.

Sayes Court 17: January 1669/70

Meric Casaubon Letter 325 [322] January 24, 1670* f 180v

Epistle CCCXXII To Dr. Meric Casaubon Isaaci Filius

Reverend Sir, There were no danger I should forget to return you notice of the favour I yesterday receiv’d, where I find my obligations to you so much improv’d, by the Treasure they convey’d me;1 and that it is to you I am to owne the greatest, and best of my Subsidiaries: There are many things in your paper which formerly I had noted; but more which I should never have observ’d; and therefore both for confirming my owne, and adding so many more, and so excellent, I think my selfe sacredly ingag’d to publish my greate Accknowledgements, as becomes a Beneficiarie: As to the crude and hastie putting this trifle of mine abroad into the world, there is no danger; since I should thereby deprive my selfe of those other assistances which your generous bounty has in store for me; nor are those materials which yet lie by me, brought into any tollerable order yet, as not intended for any worke of labour, but refreshment, when I am tired with other more serious studies: Thus Sir, you see me doubly oblig’d, to returne you my Thanks for this greate humanity of yours, and to Implore the divine Goodnesse to restore you to your health, who am Reverend Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court: 24 January 1669

1 The materials written by Isaac Casaubon which were sent to Evelyn. See Letter 324, note 3.

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William Rand Letter 326 [323] March 20, 1669 f 180v

Epistle CCCXXIII To the Learned Dr. Rand etc.

Sir Wisedom is justified of her children, and I should be very ungratefull not to accknowledge the Jewel I lately receiv’d from you:1 I assent with you, that Nature is one, true, simple, integra in suo esse,2 by which she is of neere relation to the Divinity, as some feare not to adore her as such, and as the Cause that first not onely reconcil’d the whole masse of disagreeing principles, but of those very principles themselves, call them Chaos or what you please Hanc Deus, et Melior Natura diremit:3 But this was Natura naturans as Divines distinguish, and is true; for the rest and what the Adepti meane, ’tis onely want of art to elaborate the seede you speake of, in that womb, that it do not prove abortive. You know who will have this sperme of life to consist in the impressive virtue of the Elements: But then the Earth and Water must be pure, which is in their central onely, where they are universal, and there Natura non est nisi una,4 the ignorance whereof, is the reason so many adventurers split, and bulge themselves in this vast and ample Ocean, upon what we see and handle every day, but which are indeede but the Excrements of the other, the Shelves and racks of Unskillful Alchymists: No marvel therefore so many returne as empty, as they set out: But shall we therefore conclude there are no Indies, because in the Passage, so many come short home and suffer wrack? Surely, there is Ophir 5 where is Gold, and the Gold of that land is good, and wisedome, which is more precious: Those foure Principles (which we discours’d of  ) I conclude to be, an heate, a motion, a Matter and a Concoction; because Art, and Nature are to be Married together, and procreate, which they cannot do without the conjunction of every one of these: Natura est Ars Dei,6 and will require extraordinary illumination; nor do I believe that ever any proude ambitious Man attain’d it, because the consequences 1 Rand had dedicated his translation of Pierre Gassendi’s biography of Nicolas Peiresc, The mirrour of true nobility & gentility (Evelyn Library, no 614) to Evelyn in 1657. It is not clear what work Rand had recently sent him, but it may be A sure guide; or, The best and nearest way to physick and chirurgery, his translation of Jean Riolan, Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum (Paris, 1648), which would be printed for the third time in 1671. 2 “to be whole in itself” 3 “God – or kindlier nature – composed this strife.” Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.21 (Miller, trans) 4 “There is no nature but one.” 5 Ophir, associated in the Old Testament with gold (1 Kings 10:11). Milton identified it with Sofala, on the coast of Mozambique (Paradise Lost 10.400). 6 “Nature is the art of God.”

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and effects would have set up an universal Tyrannie: What you call the stone, You may better name the Jewel, Pearle or Union for the preciousnesse, since ’tis neither of all these, but a supreme digestion far excelling them; nor is its vertue to transmute according to the grosse ideä of the vulgar upon a meere contact onely, which were almost to arogate a creation peculiar to God alone; and incomunicable: But here we have a Substance which helps Nature, digests, and opens the pores and recept recesses of Matter, which I call the Philosophers Plow, and the Field prepar’d and dressd for an expected and assured Crop: This to the Wise, for such as obstinately or fondly looke for an harvest whilst they spend their time and labour in grosser matters, are to be pitied, or resign’d to their affected Ignorance, whilst like so many execrable Onans Semina sua in terram effundunt. [RM: Genesis 38:9] Vera enim Natura, sed raro verus Artifex7 Fare well Wotton 20: March 1669

Ralph Bathurst Letter 327 [324] August 21, 1669 f 181

Epistle CCCXXIIII To Dr. Bathurst Præsident of Trinity Colledge Oxford

Sir, I would not have deferred the answering of your Letter1 and that of Mr. Vice Chancellors2 Commands, had Sir Edward Walker3 (from whom I could best have ben resolv’d touching the the [sic] Bearing and Coate of Armes) ben in these parts; but he was gon into the Country, as far as Warwickshire; and though I heare his return is expected within few daies, yet, being asham’d of my design’d delay ’til his uncertaine coming, I thought you might not be displeas’d, that in the first place I acquainted you with my Lord Howards Titles,4 ’til I am more perfectly Instructed, how the Atchivements (as Heralds call them) are to be ordred: Though I cannot think there is (on this new accession) any alteration, or distinction, then what every body knows is proper to the 2d Brother: But of this more punctualy herafter:

7 “Onan spilled his seed upon the ground”; “Nature is true, but the artist truly is rarer.” 1 Bathurst had written Evelyn on 12 August 1669 requesting information on Howard’s titles (Diary [1887] III.219–20), to be inscribed on a monument commemorating the donation of the Arundel Marbles. See Letter 322 and Prideaux, Marmora Oxoniensia (Oxford, 1676), a2v. 2 James Butler, 1st duke of Ormonde 3 the Garter king of arms, and a prominent member of the College of Arms, who had been in the service of Norfolk’s grandfather, Thomas Howard 4 Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk

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His Titles as I transcribe them verbatim out of an authentic Copy of his Late Credentials, which I received from my Lord Arlington5 are Henry, Lord Howard, Baron Howard of Castle Rising: Brother and Heire of Thomas Howard Duke of Norfolke; Prime Duke of England after the Royal Family; Earle of Arundel, and Prime Earle of England; Earle of Surrey: Lord, and Baron of Howard, as also Lord and Baron Moubray, Segrave, Brews of Gower, Fitz Allan, Clun, Oswaldestree, Maltravers and Grey Stock: Ambassador Extraordinary to the most Victorious Prince Muly Urshed Emperor of the Kingdomes of Morocco, Fes, Tafiletta etc.

These are the titles not onely of his Credentials, but likewise of his Patent: and therefore I suppose (though most of them adjuncts to his Brother the present Duke) yet claim’d by my Lord, as heire Apparent, and therefore none of them to be omitted; and besides that they will make a greate Sound, and I believe much oblige, and incite him to all further munificences towards you, as occasion may present: As to the rest of the Inscription, you know best what to do therein, and my advice would be an unpardonable presumption. You will onely be pleas’d to expresse that they were the Sedulous and Laborious Collection of Thomas Earle of Arundell and Surry, Earle Martial of England, that Patron of good Arts etc. and that they were at a greate Price a Græcis, Italia et Gallia ( frustra æmulante) conquesita etc.6 or to that purpose, and famous for their Antiquity amongst the learned world, under the Titles of Marmora Arundeliana, brought from Athens, and other parts of Greece, and fixt Oxoniense: But what do I impertinently to put in my trifling notes. As to your Intention of making mention of my Name in the Inscription, it will be so invidious, that I desire it may be forborn, since I esteeme it honor sufficient to have don but my duty, and to have it accepted. Sir, I beseech you present my most humble service to Mr. Vice Chancellor.7 I have a million of thanks to pay him and You for the greate honor and Civilities I received at my being at Oxford who remaine Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 21 August 1669

5 Henry Bennet 6 “[obtained] from Greece, Italy and Gaul in vain complaining” 7 John Fell

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Paul Neile1 Letter 328 [325] September 21, 1669 f 181

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Epistle CCCXXV To Sir Paule Neile Knight

Sir, The promise I made you of keeping you no longer in suspense, [RM: Concerning a match betweene the Earle of Shaftesburys2 eldest sonn to my Niepce]3 than whilest I could receive a final Answer to the proposal, makes me dispatch this to you by an Expresse: I have discours’d with my Sister,4 where Sir Richard5 left off, and I find her so very reasonable in all that concernes her part, that if the difficulty lay there onely, I am most confident, there would be no Remora in the buisinesse: but my Brothers6 Indisposition not suffering him to discerne so cleerely into the reasonablenesse, the honor and advantage of it, as were to be wish’d, puts in so many Scrupules, and assents to his Wifes Offers, and our proposals, with so much reluctancy, and so ill a grace, that I am afraid will be altogether incompetent with my Lords Generosity, and indeede with the temper of a well compos’d person. Upon this prospect of the whole Afaire, whither you will think it worth the while to pursue it farther, I must leave you to determine: I have don all that is in my power (rebus sic stantibus)7 and had I been to solicit for my owne Child, could not have proceeded with more affection, and desire of successe, sensible of the greate honour which we should have deriv’d on our family, by so worthy an Alyance, and I hope you will so represent it to my Lord from Sir Your etc. Covent-Garden 21 September 1669

1 Sir Paul Neile (1613–before 1686; ODNB, R). During the Protectorate he became involved with the group at Oxford that gathered around Seth Ward, the Savilian professor of astronomy, and John Wilkins. He provided the largest and most powerful telescope (made by Richard Reeve of London) for Ward’s observatory. Subsequently Neile provided a larger telescope to Gresham College and was one of the twelve members of the Royal Society at the foundation meeting in 1660. Evelyn published Neile’s “Discourse on Cider” in the first edition of Sylva (1664). 2 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury 3 Anne Evelyn did not marry Shaftesbury’s son, Anthony Ashley Cooper, who later became the 2nd earl. 4 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn 5 probably Sir Richard Browne 6 Richard Evelyn, who died on 7 March 1670. See also Letter 329. 7 things thus standing

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Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 329 [326] September 12, 1669 f 181v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCXXVI To my Sister Evelyn etc.

Deare Sister, Leaving my Brother1 so ill last friday, and the Season now coming so gently on, I cannot but be solicitous, both to know his present Condition, and what his Resolutions are: It is evident, that he must perish miserably, unlesse he can obtaine of himselfe to go through that one (onely) Remedy,2 and it is contingent what the event of that may prove; which, for my part, totaly with-holds me from Counselling one way or other; though doubtlesse, the Choyce were plaine, which is preferrable to a well considering person; seing to live in perpetual torment, is worse than Death itselfe: I dare not speake this to my Deare Brother but I say it to you, who do best know what his spirit can support, and can therefore best advise for it: If he could master once his anxious thoughts, which utterly discompose the whole frame of his body; I shoud have greate hopes, that even his present paine would be more supportable; but it is not possible he should long Conflict with them both: Sister, you may happly think by the silence, and other Circumstances of my Visites, when I am in Towne, that my reguards for my Brother are indifferent enough:3 But God, who best knows the heart, and is privie to the daily Affliction I undergo before him for my Brothers sake, will justifie me to my owne Conscience. I have not the gift of present Consolation, which some happy persons have (if one may judge by their perpetual talk) unlesse it be entertain’d as kindly as my Expressions meane; and I find my Brother (or rather his Infirmitie) is not patient of any Discourse, but what tends to the increasing of his Melancholy and Distemper, which, realy Sister, is very Uncomfortable, and Discouraging: Interpret therefor I beseech you what I write as proceeding from greate Affection, Sinceritie: If by anything more than my Prayers, I were able, or thought worthy to do you, or my Brother any Service, there is no Relation you have in the World, that should more gladly embrace it: Pray suffer me to know by this Bearer, how my Brother dos, what you seriously think he will do, and in what Capacity I may best assure you that I am Deare Sister Your etc. Sayes Court 12 September 1669

1 Richard Evelyn. Evelyn visited him again on 27 September (Diary III.538). 2 i.e., to be “cut for the stone”: operated on for kidney stones. Evelyn had attempted in June 1669 to persuade him to undergo the procedure, and had brought Pepys, who had been successfully “cut,” to offer support (Diary III.529). 3 Evelyn had responded to these concerns in Letter 320 (8 June 1669).

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My Wife presents her Service to you both, and my Niepce,4 whose hands I likewise kisse, and am hers and her Servants servant.

Thomas Barlow Letter 330 [327] December 12, 1669 ff 181v–2

Epistle CCCXXVII To Dr. Barlow, Provost of Queenes College Oxford

[LM: Since Lord Bishop of Lincoln] Reverend Sir, You cannot imagine me so wickedly ungratefull, as that I should think to have made you a competent returne for the signal favour I receiv’d from you, by that hasty Scribble, which I sent you, upon the receipt of those precious Papers that were convey’d to me by your Friend:1 To acquaint you that I have written them all out with my owne hand, and sent them to Father Sancta Clara (alias Mr. Davenport)2 with all the Cautions, which you enjoin’d me, were but to assure you that he can never be able to open his mouth more upon this Subject, but to his owne Confusion; And though I have little expectation from any-thing of the Ingenuity of that party; Yet this I promise myselfe, that they shall be able to make no farther Impression upon any who shall happen to be arm’d with that Boucler of yours, the Original whereof I preserve amongst my Armes of proofe, and for the use both of my selfe, and of my friends, in the Day of Batell: Sir without Complement, I thought of nothing lesse than the putting you to this greate trouble, when first I suggested the Controversie which I had with this learned Frier: A line of two from your hand had ben a favour to be boasted of; but that you should send me a just Treatise,3 so full, so convincing, so accomplish’d, and to leave nothing to aske or doubt of, redoubles the obligation, and mine admiration of your Learning: You know who they be, who reserve their Difficulties to the coming of Eliah; but I can tell where to quench my thirst, at a fountaine neerer hand, and at an inexhaustible Sourse: But this felicitie of mine from your meere goodnesse, would be deriv’d to others; and seriously I cannot but wish it, and that your greate Charity might sometimes prevaile with your Modestie, and that 4 Anne Evelyn 1 See Letter 307; Evelyn had presumably approached Barlow for assistance in formulating his response to Davenport’s citation of Saint Cyril at the Council of Ephesus. 2 Christopher Davenport 3 A Letter concerning invocation of Saints and adoration of the Cross, writ ... to John Evelyn, etc., which Evelyn had not received in August (see Letter 322), and was not printed until 1679. Evelyn had it in his 1687 library catalogue. See also the manuscript text “De Invocatione Sanctorum ... For my honored friend John Evelyn Esquire at Deptford” (The Queen’s College, Ms 289: pp 129–56).

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you would resolve to spread some more of your excellent things of this nature, because I know the greate advantage they would have above what is yet written, and the infinite good they woud do in this proselyting age, and amongst the unstable minds of men: Nor whilst I say this, do I forget the Charge incumbent on you as to other Capacities; but I looke on you as one Doubly furnish’d, and enabl’d beyond others, and that the doing of a publique good, woud aboundantly recompence your labours and be very acceptable to God: For my owne part, This bounty of yours (which I see has no limites) will henceforth secure you from any of my farther impertincences, because I know not how to merite even the least of your accumulated favour; or what to answer for the Care I have already put you to: But, I could wish that some other of greater Credit, and more force, might sometime prevaile with you: Sir, I am most thankfull to you for this greate Condescention of yours to Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 12: December 1669

Thomas Clifford Letter 331 [328J January 20, 1671*1 f 182r–v

Epistle CCCXXVIII To my Lord High Treasurer of England:

[RM: Clifford ] Right Honorable I should much sooner have made good my Promise of transmitting to your honor the Inclos’d Synopsis (containing the Briefe, or heads of the Work I am travelling on)2 if besides the number of Bookes and Papers that I have bin condemn’d (as it were) to reade over, and dilligently peruse; there had not lately ben put into my hands a Monstrous Folio, writen in *Dutch, [RM: *Saken van Staet en Oorlogh door d’Heer dieuwe Van Aitzema etc.]3 which containes no lesse than 1079 pages, elegantly, and carefully Printed at the Hague this last yeare; and what fills me with Indignation, derogating from his Majestie and our Nation; the Subject of it being principally the Warr with England, not yet brought to a period, which prompts me to believe there is another Volume preparing on the same 1 This letter is almost certainly misdated; it should be 20 January 1671. On that day, Evelyn noted that “His Majestie to me in the Queenes Withdrawing roome, from the Circle of Ladies, to talke with me what advance I had made in the Dutch Historie” (Diary III.568). See de Beer, “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford,” 130. Henry Bennet reiterated the request on 18 June (550). 2 Navigation and Commerce (London, 1674). See also Diary III.562, 568, 573. 3 This must be one of the early volumes of Lieuwe van Aitzema’s Saken van Staet en Oorlogh (The Hague, 1669–72)

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Argument: By the Extraordinary Industrie us’d in this, and the Choice pieces I find they have furnish’d the Author with, his Majestie and your Lordship will see, that to write such an Historie as may not onely deliver Truth, and Matter of Fact, to posterity, but Vindicate our Prince and his People from the præpossessions and disadvantages they lie-under (whilst remaining thus long silent, we in a manner justifie their Reproches) will require more time to finish, than at the first setting out could well have ben imagin’d: My Lord, I dare affirme it, without much vanity; that had I ben Ambitious to present his Majestie with a Specimen onely of my Diligence, since first I received his Commands,4 I could long ere this, have prævented these Gentlemen whom I am told, are already upon the Dutch War: There had nothing ben more easy, than after a florid præamble, to have publish’d a Laudable Description, and Image of the severall Conflicts; and to have gratified aboundance of worthy Persons, who were Actors in them. But, since my Lord Arlington,5 and your Lordship expect from Me a solemn deduction, and true state of all Affaires, and Particulars from his Majesties first entring into Treaty with the States, at his Arival in England, to the Yeare-1667, nay to this instant Period (which will comprehend so greate, and so signal a part of his glorious Reigne) I easily believe, his Majestie will neither believe the time long, nor me altogether Indilligent, if he do not receive this Historie so soone as otherwise he might have expected: All I will add in relation to my-selfe, is this; That as I have not for many moneths don any thing else (taking leave of all my delightfull studies) so by Godshelp, I intend to prosecute what I have begun, with the same fervour and application: Your Lordship will Consider how irksome a taske it is to reade-over such multitudes of Books, Remonstrances, Treatises, Journals, Libells, Pamphlets, Letters, Papers, and Transactions of State, as of necessity, must be don before one can set Pen to Paper: It would affright your Lordship to see the heapes that lie here about me, and yet is this the least part of the drudgerie and peines, which consists in the Judgement to Elect, and Cull out, and then to dispose and place the Material fitly: To Answer many bitter and malicious Objections, and Dextrously, and yet Candidly, to Ward some Unlucky points, that are not seldome made at us: and after all this, the Labour of the Pen will not be inconsiderable. I speake not this to Inhaunce of the Instrument, but rather that I may obtaine Pardon for the lapses I may fall into, notwithstanding all this Zeale and Circumspection; and, that his Majestie will Graciously Accept of my Endeavours, and protect me from the Unkindnesses of such as use to decry all-things of this Nature, for a single Mistake; or because some lesse worthy men find not themselves or Relations flatter’d, and be not satisfied, that (though they deserve not much) they are no where disoblig’d: As to the Method, I have bethought my-selfe of this (if your Lordship Confirme it) namely, to transmit the Papers (as fast as I shall bring them to any competent period) to my Lord Arlington and your Lordship that so being communicated (through both your favours) to his Majestie before they swell into enormous bulke, he may cast his royal Eye over them with lesse trouble, and Animadvert upon them ’til they are refin’d, and fit for his gracious Approbation; since by this meanes, I shall hope to attaine two greate things; The performing of his Majesties Pleasure, and 4 Charles II had asked Evelyn to undertake the history of the Anglo-Dutch War on 13 February 1669 (Diary III.523). 5 Henry Bennet

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that part of a true Historian, which is to deliver Truth; and he (I think) who attaines to this Omne tulit Punctum6 – But my Lord, there are yet divers Considerable Papers and Pieces, which I want; Letters, Treaties, Articles and Instructions to Ambassadors, etc. which I can onely receive from Mr. Secretarie7 and from your Lordship that so I may not be Impos’d on, by such Memoires and Transactions of state as I find to my hand (if I durst adventure on the Coyne) in the Books of our Antagonists publish’d with a Confidence so frontlesse: But since I may not well hope for these, and other personal and living Assistances (as I shall also have neede of  ) ’till the more urgent Affaires of Parliament are over: I do in the meane time employ my selfe in adorning a Præface (of which I here inclose your Lordship a Summarie)8 and go on in Reading and Collection of Materials; that when I shall have recieved those other Desiderates, I may proceede to the Compiling part, and of knitting together what I have made some progresse in. I am my Lord Your honors etc Says-Court. 20 January 1670

John Beale Letter 332 [329] July 27, 1670 ff 182v–3v

Epistle CCCXXIX To Dr. Beale of Yeavill:1

Reverend Doctor I saw so much disingenuity, and so prodigious a Spirit of Malice and Contradiction in Stubbes Specimena2 etc.(as he calls them) that I did hardly think it worth the while to rejoine with any resolution of waiting upon this angry monster, and gratifying his pruriency of dispute, by replying to his petulent Scribble, after he had ben once smartly 6 “He has won every vote.” Horace, Ars Poetica 343 (Fairclough, trans) 7 Sir John Trevor (1624–72; ODNB) 8 This was to become Evelyn’s Navigation and Commerce (1674), the only part of the history to be published. See Keynes, Bibliography, 202–4. 1 In a letter of 11 June, Beale reported receiving a letter from “Mr. G” (probably Joseph Glanvill) responding to the “hasty hints” Beale had provided towards a “character of St:” (Add 78313: f 13 [11.6.1670]). Beale replied to Evelyn’s attack on Stubbe in a letter of 3 August (Add 78313: f 29 [3.8.1670]). 2 Henry Stubbe, A Specimen of some Animadversions upon a Book, entituled, Plus ultra, or, modern improvements of useful knowledge (London, 1670; in the 1687 library catalogue). Although Stubbe’s Specimen deals largely with medicine and the physical sciences, he also mocks “Mechanical Education (recommended with all the advantages that ariseth from Aphorisms of Cider, planting of Orchards ... magnetick and hortulane Curiosities,” 13. See also Henry Oldenburg’s letter to Evelyn of 8 July 1670 (no 1482 in The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, VII, 58–9). Henry Stubbe (1632–76; ODNB) had been a republican Independent, and had been sponsored at Oxford by Sir Henry Vane, and associated with Hobbes. He conformed in 1660, and was appointed king’s physician in Jamaica (1662–4). His subsequent

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r­eprehended: But for once, I could be contented he might [be] taught better manners, and then after a first, or (at most) a second Admonition, to be accounted as an Heathen or Publican: You have informed Me where I shall find my selfe Concern’d, and design’d for Martydome: I sent for the Booke, and do not a little rejoice that I am to suffer in so good Companie: This will not be the way (I perswade my selfe) to build any lasting Triumphs on; nor do I find the noise to have shaken our foundations to that degree he ominates: You have hinted to me that our worthy friend (and to whom I am so infinitely engag’d for many Civilites and favours Convey’d me through your hands) deliberating to represse the folly and impertinence of this malicious Insolent: I know no man, either more concern’d, or more able to encounter him: amongst He has Talents, and a Spirit, and all the prosperous Wishes of many worthy Persons to encourage him, amongst whom, though I reckon my selfe one of the least; yet none of the least zealous; which makes me rejoice, that in this just Vindication, Providence has singl’d him out for our Champion. I looke upon Dr. Glanvill3 as a person every way qualified to meete this Goliath of Gath, (or rather Sir Guy of *Warwick), [LM: *where he practisd Physick:] not with reviling language, and dirty Epithets (such as his Antagonist abounds in) but with a smoth stone out of the brook, a solid and discreete Reply; flung by the hand of a skillfull slinger: You see the Method of this snarling Cynique, and it will be fit to follow it so far as may consist with the honour and dignitie of the Royal Society, which is not to foule their hands mouthes with reproches; but, to give the sober World an Account of their Proceedings, and yet how easy a thing ’tis to turne anything into Raillerie, where the spirit of Malice, and a restlesse Envie domineeres: But, in summ, upon what I am able to observe from so much of his Pamphlet as I have read (for in earnest I have no had leasure to heare him talke to the end) all that his travail amounts to, is onely Transcriptions out of Authors, not carrying their maine Intentions, or Sense; but some Scrapps and fragments of them onely, which he has wrested to his purposes of Contradiction; a thing so facile, that I doubt not but a develish Industrie might be furnish to do, as much against any good Booke whatsoever, not excepting the best in the World: Has not Scaliger and Verderius and Campanella, [LM: Excer: in Cardan: Hypercrit: In Autores per omnes antiquos Censio]4 and divers others, attaqu’d the bravest men that ever writ, and from whom they sucked attacks on the Royal Society were motivated in part by the belief that its defenders aimed to undermine the intellectual foundations of the university curriculum and of Protestant theology. In this and in the following letter (333) to Patrick Maginn, Evelyn mounts a critique of radical Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, united, for him, in their adherence to scholastic philosophy. For the larger context of Evelyn’s response to Stubbe, see Feingold, ODNB; Jacob, Henry Stubbe; and Wood’s unusually detailed account (Athenae, III, cols 1067–83). 3 Joseph Glanvill wrote two responses to Stubbe: A Præfatory Answer to ... H. Stubbe, the Doctor of Warwick (London, 1671; listed in the 1687 catalogue) and A further discovery of M. Stubbe in a brief reply to his last pamphlet against J.G. (London, 1671). Guy of Warwick is the eponymous (and somewhat comic) hero of a medieval romance. 4 J.C. Scaliger, Excercitationes de Subtilitate ad Cardanum (Lyon, 1615; first published 1557); Claudius Verderius, In auctores pene omnes, antiquous potentissimum, censio (Lyon, 1586). Both were in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue. One of Stubbe’s attacks on the Royal Society was called Campanella revived, or an inquiry into the history of the Royal Society, whether the virtuosi there do not pursue the projects of Campanella for the reducing of England unto Popery (1670).

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in the ­Nourishment, which they turne to poyson? Rosse, and Prinn, and Hobbs,5 and the rest of the Monosyllables are yet fresh amongst us, for their Peevishnesse, Insolence and their folly: Have we learned any thing from our Aristarchus of new, besides what may any hunter of Indexes and *Bibliothecarius’s [LM: *Stub: was Bibliothecarius of Christ Church:] may every day produce? The Members of the Royal Society bring in Occasional Specimens, not Compleate Systemes; but as Materials and particulars, which may in time amount to a rich and Considerable Magazine, capable of furnishing a most august and noble structure: But therefore they do not fill their Papers with Transcriptions out of Mizaldus, Alexis of Peimont, Kircher,6 and the Montebanques, to render their Histories compleate, for which this Ismael reproches them, and for which he would have us value his Rhapsodies: I do assure you, I have seene nothing in his Book, upon any subject, to which I could not add ten times as much, if I had his leasure, and were so unhappy as to be pleasd with the undertaking: But the Man is Poore, and Caytive, and desperate, and mercenarie, and may serve to gratifie the more sordid of the Booksellers, for nine daies, or halfe a Terme at London; but the blaze will soone be spent, when wise and sober men examine the designe, and the fruite of it, and shall compare the Persons, and Assemblies whom he reviles with this Hippias7 and vaunting Hobgoblin, who not capable to bring his purpose to issue, by Argument, or producing any thing considerable, seekes to undermine by a pretence of his tendernesse to the Protestant Religion, at which the Hypocrites and truculent Impostors have begun, who sought nothing more than the subversion of it: And therefore as to his Wild Parallele of Campanella;8 Dr. Glanvill has but to consult the stale device of Martin Marle-Prelates,9 and the rest of the discontented Tribes, from the very beginning of the Reformation to this instant period, and he shall find it to have ben the most pernicious stratagemme, that was ever Invented against the Hierarchie and Church of England; their persuading the People, that it was Antichristian, and her Tenents and Rites Idolatrous and plainely Popish: Thus shall you find them opposing our Liturgie, with passages out of the Masse Books and Breviaries, the Feasts, Fasts, and Ceremonies, and whatsoever was decent and venerable stigmatiz’d by these men, and by which they 5 Alexander Ross (1591–1654; ODNB), who had attacked Wilkins and the new astronomy from the perspective of Aristotelian orthodoxy in The new planet no planet: or, The earth no wandring star; except in the wandring heads of Galileans (London, 1647) and other works; William Prynne (1660–69; ODNB), included perhaps for his preface to the 1660 edition of a translation of Campanella’s De monarchia Hispanica discursus; Thomas Hobbes, who had been associated with Stubbe at Oxford (see Jacob, Henry Stubbe, 8–24, and note 31). “Aristarchus” is a by-word for grammatical pedant. 6 All figures interested in hermeticism and alchemy: Mizaldus (Antoine Mizauld, c.1510–78), professor of medicine at Paris and an associate of Marguerite de Navarre, and also deeply interested in astrology. Alexis, also Alessio Piemontese (probably Girolamo Ruscelli, d. 1566) was famous for his De’Secreti (1557), of which there were many English editions, beginning in 1558. Evelyn had visited Athanasius Kircher in Rome, but assessed him more critically later. He cites James Ussher’s description of him as a “Mountebank” (Diary III.156). The Elizabethan actor Will Kemp’s dance from Norwich to London in 1600 was the origin of the phrase “a nine-days wonder.” 7 probably meaning “sophist” or “quack” 8 Stubbe’s attack on the Royal Society titled Campanella Revived (London, 1670) 9 “Martin Marprelate” was the pseudonymous name under which radical Protestants attacked the Church of England. The name originates with the Marprelate Tracts of 1588–9. See The Martin Marprelate tracts, ed. Black, particularly lxxiv–cxi, “Martinism and anti-Martinism, 1590–1700.”

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have ben the occasion of sheading more Christian blood, than ever did (I think) the Ten Persecutions, nor Ceas’d it, ’til the best of Earthly Kings was caught in their Snares and barbarously Murdred:10 I would therefore Counsel Dr. Glanvill to consider this Topic fully, and to render him his glut of Quotations to this purpose: Mr. Hooker11 or Durell,12 and as many as have ever written against the Puritans, and Anabaptists, will yeild him Instances aboundant; and he cannot do the Church of England more right, than to tare this ougly Masque from his ill face, and shew (by his former Writings and Life) what a Champion they militate under, whilst the he seekes to render the Royal Society odious, as designing Poperie, seacretly approves her inveterate and worst of Enemies, in whose steps he treades: I do not know anything like this advantage to render our Medicaster13 ridiculous with all his insectile malice and exceeding Virulency. As touching Mr. Henshaw,14 who onely gave in a Paper, not a compleate Historie (though so perhaps styld by Dr. Spratt,15 as most suitable to his purpose) what has this Whiffler added, but a bundle of Receipts, to which one might yet superadd as many more out of printed books; for it appeares he has nothing of his owne, save what he has taken on trust of the itinerant Salt-Peter men for a little garnish and drinking mony; on which he would be thought to refine at the expense of the Reputation of a modest, and learned Gentleman, whom this Quaker (drunk with Pride and vanity) so unmanerly tramples upon: How easy a thing it is [to] head every period with Fopp, Impertinent, Comœdian, Insolents, Prattle-boxes, Screech-Owles, Apostats and other termes of Obloquie, any one may judge, by the usage of this bold Licentiate, and the multitude of hard names which he quotes, do not come neere to the numbers and the Armies of them, which his Antesignan Prynn,16 and the rest of the Margin-fillers, have happily arriv’d to: Now for Experiments, we have that of his owne blood17 (though none of the most Generous) but for every particular of which, we have onely his owne testimony: Yet this his Pride would have us value, as the Thousand Trials have ben made before so many illustrious Witnesses: But this is like the greate young Gentleman whom he Celebrates; and one must be very dark, not to discern the Person to be his illustrious selfe, though he pretends to pittie the losse of so much Vertue: But in this sort he entertaines the gentle Reader, with the Remembrance of a fine Cavaliere, Sir Stubbs by name, if you will be curious to know the Man: These Passages you have in pp: 43 etc. [RM: Plus Ultra] where he speakes himselfe a statesman [RM: see p. 41. 44.] under the same Vizor, and a little after (in a Marginal note upon an incomparable paragraph of Dr. Glanvill) degenerates 10 Charles I 11 Richard Hooker (c.1554–1600; ODNB) 12 John Durel (1625–83; ODNB). He was DD (Oxford) and dean at Windsor, and author of a series of attacks on non-conformity. 13 a pretender to medicine, a quack; Salt-Peter man: a searcher for saltpeter to create gunpowder, hence “explosive”; Quaker: attacker of order; Antesignan: ensign, standard-bearer 14 Thomas Henshaw 15 Thomas Sprat 16 William Prynne, notorious for the “fearsomely annotated appearance of his work.” Johns, The Nature of the Book, 335. 17 Stubbe defended the medical practice (phlebotomy) of curing by opening a vein to let the blood flow.

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his Hero in so malicious and pitifull an Instance, as realy to be detested: ’Tis there he cannot forget his Pedantic Antitheses and Antapodoses, [RM: *a pernicious Booke which he dedicated to Sir Henry Vane.]18 marvellous ingredients to make a Polititian, and worthy the Assenter of the Good old Cause – which was but to subvert the fundamental Laws and Religion of this Nation, destroy the Universities (see his Queries against them) for giving him due Correction, when this Profligate was whip’d at Christ-Church and turn’d Renegado: But he has given us a Godly-Book of the Arch-Bishop of Benevento,19 (that notorious Pæderastes) [RM: Art of Grandure:] since that, and wondrously improv’d our Language with his Redevable, resveries, ambitioning, felicifying, Esloigne, Capsicitation and authentecates, to expresse the Authors meaning: He has likewise blessd the Ages with his Historie of Chacolati20 etc:, in another Translation, which with his learned Scholar, wherein you have the true Confection of this Spice-Cup, as it was us’d by my Ladys Chambermaides, when he was Pedagogue you know where:21 I tell you Sir, it is a World, that this Universal Intellect has pick’d up by Reading, and Meditation, and the Coffè-houses (to say nothing of his Bermudas and Jamaica Perginations)22 of which there are innumberable ’twixt his Castle of Warwick and London: Dr. Glanvill will take notice, how like a Parricide he endeavors to blast the Reputation of the famous Doctors Gilbert, Harvey Lord Bacon: Willis Mr. Boyle23 etc. and to gratifie strangers with the Glory of their Inventions, to the Ignomine of our Countrimen, and these Heros, when they shall assert their Titles to them from our owne Confessions: These grave and excellent Persons passe with him for Comical-Witts, because they pursue the designe of the Royal Society, and favour the Institution: If this be to advance the Cause of his owne pretended Faculty, and serve the Universities, let all worthy Patriots judge: But this Bedlam, cares not what he says or dos. So he may wreake his Malice, he teares out his owne mothers bowells and magnifies every forraine Trifler, to the prejudice of the worthiest, and the greatest Genius’s that ever appear’d, and whose worke and Inventions have merited the Elogies of 18 Illustrissimo, summaeque spei juveni Henrico Vane, etc (Oxford, 1656); translated into English 1659. Antapodoses: returns (in argument). The “Good old Cause” is Puritanism. Sir Henry Vane (1613–62; ODNB), executed for treason after the Restoration. Stubbe had lost his post as sub-librarian for the Bodleian and been turned out of Christ Church in 1660 when Edward Reynolds was restored as dean. 19 The arts of grandeur and submission [by Giovanni della Casa, Abp. of Benevento] (London, 1665). Evelyn is also responding to Stubbe’s preface in which he claims to have amended della Casa’s text “to become more proper and intelligible as I have worded it” (“To the Reader”). Although Evelyn was in no position to criticize neologisms, several words on this list are now common. Only “capsicitation” (biting) and “esloigne” (distant) are nonce words; “redevable” (beholden, indebted) is rare, and “resveries” is now “reveries.” 20 The Indian Nectar, or, a Discourse concerning Chocolata (London, 1662) 21 Evelyn may be alluding to Stubbe’s interest in the alleged aphrodisiac properties of chocolate (see Stubbe, The Indian Nectar, 141), and to his presence in the household of Sir Edward (c.1623–83; ODNB) and Anne Conway (1631–79; ODNB), when they hosted “Greatrakes the Stroker.” See Jacob, Henry Stubbe, 50–2, and Hunter, “The Royal Society and the Decline of Magic.” 22 Stubbe had been in Jamaica from 1662 to 1664 as king’s physician and a physician in Warwick on his return. 23 William Gilbert (1544?–1603; ODNB), William Harvey (1578–1657; ODNB), Francis Bacon, Thomas Willis, Robert Boyle

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all the world. For my part I have read and seriously ponder’d both Dr. Sprat and Glanvil, and can find nothing which a sober Person can take just Exceptions at; they have said nothing but what is justifiable for the bespeaking the favour and Civilities of honest and learned men to an Assembly of many honorable Gentlemen, who meete inoffensively together, under his Majesties Royal Cognizance; and to entertaine themselves ingenuously whilst their other domestique Occupans avocations or publique buisinesse deprives them of being allways in the company of learned men, and that they cannot dwell forever in the Universities: But I would know, is this derided in other Countries? Have not all the Civil Nations of Europe, their Academies? and would not this Emperique be scourg’d by the Hangman, that should dare to treate a Royal Corporation after so insolent and slovenly a sort? The Summ is, the designe of this Man of Words is plainly to alienate a party from the King, by insinuating that his Majestie Countenances a Crew of Atheists and Papists, which how heavenly distant, let the Writings and the persons be produc’d, as we are ready (if provok’d) to shew out of such as Stubb, and his fellow Rota-men:24 In good earnest, I have seriously thought of it, and that in so many yeares, as now the Royal Society has flourish’d, not a Dog should move his Tongue against it, but one of the worst of man-kind (for the Devil is more knowing; therefore let none tell me of his Learning, without judgement or good-nature) of whom I never yet heard any Creature speake but with detestation and abhorrency: and having said this, and being able to prove it too (if I would defile paper with so dirty a name) I hope none will have the ambition, or take it for any greate Glory to pursue his steps, and write after so fowle a Copy. But it becomes Dr. Glanvill and Sprat to let the World know all this, and if that be not enough to silence the noise, he should bark with the Currs: Had he Animadverted on any of those heads he perstringes in a Christian, or generous way (and after he had well consider’d the Designe, perus’d our Registers, and ben Witnesse of our manner of proceeding etc.) I should greately have commended his Industrie: but when I find nothing in all the Rhapsodie, but Lies and Invectives, and malicious purposes, without grievance the least provocation; I pitty the Mad-man, and can have no value at all for the little he informes me: Experimental Philosophie was the onely Philosophie ’til the Gotic Inundation turn’d videtur quod sic into the genius disguise of the Scholes, and notions as unintelligible as their jargon: And how easie were it to repay his Courtly langage against those persons of the Royal Society, he makes so bold, with Hobgoblin, Dragon, knight of the burning pestle, pun-maker, Bragadoccio, Cacofuego, Mushrum, Medicaster, Licentiat, prating Saltingbane, è trivio pædagogus,25 in summ, this haughty Luciferian monster, atque omne immensum Scar-Crow, fitter for a dog-whip than a serious Reply – Sed praestat motae componere26 – for was ever seene so foule-mouth’d a Whifler? One whose wit’s as leane as his face, one would take him for a Ghost, or one that stands impal’d, one whom nature has mark’d most signaly; looke but on his Countenance to reade his nature, he’s the very 24 crafty politicians 25 videtur quod sic: it seems to be so; cacofuego: expelled villain; mushrum: upstart; medicaster: quack doctor; licentiat: licentious man; saltinbane: mountebank, quack; trivio paedagogus: elementary teacher 26 atque omne immensum peragravit mente animoque (“Therefore the lively power of his mind prevailed”): Lucretius, De rerum natura 1.74 (Rouse, trans); Sed praestat … (“But better it is to calm the troubled waves”): Virgil, Aeneid 1.135 (Fairclough, trans).

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picture of Envie, a stub fit to be rooted out: But thus the Man hater boasts, and then rages, casts fire brands, and threatens like another Fuaks,27 to blow up Lords and Commons, and teare the limbs of all he meetes with in his raging fits: I tell you our Hypercritic takes himselfe for some greate one, and like a Man of War, stands at defiance with all the world: But Brag, is a fine Curr ’til cudgell’d, and then he claps his taile betweene his legs; let him remember that a turbulent knave (of his owne* name) [LM: John Stubb: See Cambden Eliz Ao 1581 p. 326 Edit. Lond. 1615 fol. 1662. Dec. 22. See Mr. Heath Cronicle of the Civil Warr p. 886 etc.]28 had his hand cut off for his libel Pamphlet, Intitl’d Vorago, in the Palace Yard at Westminster Anno 1581. Memini qui Præsens aderam29 says the learnd Camden and Francis Stubb was executed for High Treason at Tyburn – Nomen infaustum:30 In a word, I know of no Enemies to the Royal Society save Stubbs and Hobbs,31 27 Guy Fawkes 28 Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue listed Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha (London, 1615, 1627); James Heath, A brief chronicle of the late intestine vvar in the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1663). John Stubbe was a lawyer. His work is properly titled The Discoverie of a gaping gulf (1579). 29 “I remember because I was there.” Camden, Annales (1615), 326. 30 “ill-boding name.” Virgil, Aeneid 7.717 (Fairclough, trans). 31 Evelyn’s attitude towards Hobbes had shifted over the twenty years he had known him. They had met in Paris, and Evelyn notes on 7 September 1651 that he “went to Visite Mr. Hobbs the famous Philosopher of Malmesbury, with whom I had long acquaintance: from whose Window, we the whole equipage & glorious Cavalcade of the Young French Monarch Lewis the XIVth passing to Parliament, when he first tooke the Kingly Government on him” (Diary III.41). He also notes another meeting on 14 December 1655 (Diary III.163). Nothing in these early references suggests either hostility or much familiarity with Hobbes’s theories, even though some of Hobbes’s earliest critics were Paris-based Church of England theologians with whom Evelyn was closely associated (see Raylor, “The Anglican Attack on Hobbes”; Jackson, Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity, particularly 146–79; and Malcolm in Hobbes, Leviathan, I, 24–51). Evelyn’s attitude had hardened by 1664, when he linked Hobbes explicitly with his French translator and critic of the Royal Society Samuel de Sorbière (see Letter 223). The question of Hobbes’s exclusion from the Royal Society has generated much controversy (see e.g., Malcolm, Aspects of Hobbes, 317–35). In a late prefatory note to his “Rationall Account of the True Religion” (begun in 1657), he accused a “man of greate Name” (identified as Hobbes in a marginal note) of “making Religion a meere figment, and that (as well as man himselfe) but an Engine, & by discarding all natural justice, goodnesse & charity, resolve it into brutish force” (Add 78367: f 6, and The History of Religion, I, xxviii). Hobbes is represented in the 1687 library catalogue by several works: Eight bookes of the Peloponnesian Warre written by Thucydides the sonne of Olorus (London, 1629; Eve.b.38); Elementorum Philosophiae, sectio tertia; de cive (Paris, 1642); Philosophicall rudiments concerning government and society. Or, A dissertation concerning man in his severall habitudes and respects, as the member of a society, first secular, and then sacred (London, 1651; Evelyn Library, no 763); Quadratura circuli, cubatio sphæræ, duplicatio cubi, breviter demonstrate (London, 1669); (and John Wallis, Thomæ Hobbes quadratura circuli, cubatio sphæræ, duplicatio cubi; confutata [Oxford, 1669] and An answer to three papers of Mr. Hobs [London, 1671]); De mirabilibus pecci (London, 1675); The history of the civil wars of England (London, 1679; Eve.a.14); Thomæ Hobbes Angli Malmesburiensis philosophi vita (London, n.d.). See also Evelyn Library, no 764 (The Art of Rhetoric [London, 1681]), no 762 (Leviathan [London, 1651]), and no 767 (The Iliads and Odysses ... translated out of Greek into English [London, 1677]), the latter two from the library of John Evelyn Jr. Of the many critical responses to Hobbes, the catalogue lists Seth Ward, T. Hobbii philosophiam exercitatio epistolica ... Cui subjicitur appendicula ad calumnias ab

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both heretics in Religion, and Philosophie, and yet forsooth is this Screech-owle set up to gratifie the Universities, and pull downe Dagon, the poore Greshamites, for feare they should bring more sacks to their mill, than Genus and Species, qualitas occulta, and substantial forms;32 ô the precious moments this Iliad has cost him, the gripes, and the joults from Oxford to London, from London to Oxford, to the prejudice of our Medicus, Medicus did I say? Hippocrates, Galen, Esculapius, Apollo what not! And yet when all is don, our Alma Mater Men Doctors you’l find, will be forc’d to play the Apes; You heare they talke already of founding a Laboratorie, and have beg’d the Relique of old Tradescant, to furnish a Repositary,33 and will in time civily invite the despiz’d Society, to vouchsafe a Correspondence, and for all their Antiquity, are but our Younger Brothers: And now do I expect a speedy Reply, with some wondrous witty Title, but ’twill not I perswade my selfe concerne the Apologist. If the Cur snarle, he may chance to have a rap on the nose, ’tis the guise of the Village dog to bark at all that passe by, and they are to be neglected: Wise and Christian therefore was that saying of the greate Theodosius: Si quis Imperatori maledixerit; si ex levitate, contemnendum, si ex Insania, miserandum, si ab Injuria, remittendum.34 Sir, You see how easie it were to revile the reviler, and pay him in his owne Coine35 but we have better things in hand, and this Ismael lies so expos’d to Dr. Glanvill (to whom I beseech you present my worthiest respects) that he neede not put himselfe in paine to satisfie all good men, that Mr. Stubb’s tongue is no Reproch: I am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 27 July: –1670

32 33

34 35

eodem Hobbio ... in authorem congestas responsorial (Oxford, 1656; Eve.a.29); and Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, A brief view and survey of the dangerous and pernicious errors to church and state, in Mr. Hobbes’s book, entitled Leviathan (Oxford, 1676). See also Evelyn Library, no 1474, Herbert Thorndike, An Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England (London, 1659; with “pergegi [sic] 1659” at the end and numerous marks and annotations; Eve.b.41: see Collins, The Allegiance of Thomas Hobbes, 254–5). Evelyn also notes on 1 February 1653 that “Old Alex: Rosse ... presented me with his Book against Mr. Hobbs’s Leviathan” (Diary III.81) (i.e., Leviathan drawn out with a hook: or Animadversions upon Mr Hobbs his Leviathan [London, 1653]). terms of scholastic philosophy; Evelyn contrasts “experimental philosophy,” whose classical origins he asserts, to scholasticism, in a manner which aligns with his critique of it in Letter 333. Elias Ashmole had catalogued (Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a collection of rarities preserved at SouthLambeth neer London [London, 1656; in the 1687 library catalogue]) and later been deeded the collection of the Tradescant family. Although formal discussions between Ashmole and the Oxford authorities did not begin until 1675, leading to the opening of the Ashmolean Museum in 1683, Ashmole’s connections with Oxford were strong (he had catalogued the Bodleian’s collection of Roman coins [1658–66]), and informal discussions must have taken place. “If any one speak ill of the emperor, if jokingly let him be condemned, if out of insanity pitied, if out of a desire to do wrong pardoned.” Codex Theodosianus 9.4.1. coin first minted in the Marprelate affair, and in the pamphlets which followed, particularly Thomas Nashe’s attacks on Gabriel Harvey.

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Patrick Maginn1 Letter 333 [330] September 27, 1670#2 Add 78317: ff 114–16

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCXXX To the Reverend Father Patrick hoc Sanctum Benedictum

Reverend Father, You require me to give you an Account in Writing, what the Doctrine of the Church of England is concerning the Blessed Eucharist? and, in particular, whither there be any thing in it Signifying to Adoration?3 Which, I conceive, an Expression of mine one day at Mr. Treasurers,4 might occasion. Though I cannot suppose you to be at all ignorant of what her Opinion is in these matters; and that indeed you ought to enquire concerning them of some of our Learned Praelats, and Doctors, whose province it is to un-fold these Mysteries; Yet, since you command it, and that I read in the Apostle,5 How every One is oblig’d to render an Answer to those who demand a Reason of the Hope which is in them, I do with all alacrity comply with your desires, as far as my talent reaches.6 The Doctrine of the Church of England is, or at least, to my best understanding, imports, That after the Prayer, or Words of Consecration, the Symbols become chang’d into the Body and Blood of Christ, after a Sacramental, Spiritual, and Real manner; and that all initiated, or Baptiz’d Persons, of competent age and understanding capacity; who by Unfained Repentance, and a faithful consideration of the Life, Doctrine, and Passion of our Blessed Saviour, resolve to undertake his holy Religion, and to persist in it, are made 1 Patrick Maginn (1617–83). An Irish priest who was an almoner to Catherine of Braganza, he first met Eve­lyn at the house of Thomas Clifford and engaged him in religious controversy. Maginn was also a close associate of Henry Bennet, who converted to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed. 2 This letter is missing from the first letterbook, but a number and a head-note (“To Father Patrick Abbot of ---”) have been created for it (183v), and a blank page has been left (184r). The letter exists in a fair copy (which has itself been cancelled) in Evelyn’s manuscripts (Add 78317: ff 114–15 [27.9.1670]). The original date of 27 November has been deleted. 3 Evelyn’s position in this controversy, which erupted again in 1686 and is reflected in his letter to Anne Spencer (Letter 543) is here derived from Jeremy Taylor’s essay on the real presence (The real presence and spirituall of Christ in the blessed sacrament proved against the doctrine of transubstantiation [London, 1654]), in which the fathers and scholars referred to here are clearly cited. The work is in his Συμβολον Ἠθικο-Πολεμικον: or a Collection of Polemical and Moral Discourses (London, 1657; in the 1687 library catalogue). For the larger context of debates over patristics and church history, see Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity. 4 Thomas Clifford 5 1 Peter 3:15 6 [LM: If it be transsubstantiated tis a miracle, now our Blessed Saviour never did Miracles (that we reade of  ), but the visible Change was apparent to all the world, as from blindness to sight: from sickness to health, from death to life; so the loaves were augmented, the water Converted to wine, etc.: but here is a miracle wrought without any visible Change, which we never read he did, and is indeed a Contradiction, this weighs much with me and destroys the effect of our Common sense and reason, by which alone we have assurance of all that Christ did and sufferd; and if we may not credit these, we may justly doubt of the whole Christian religion it selfe; which God would never tempt his rational Creatures to do.]

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realy Participants of the Benefits of his Body and Blood for the Remission of their Sinns, and the Obtaining of all other Spiritual Graces: In asmuch, as it is a Revival of the Sacrifice of Christ on the Crosse, Once offer’d for Sinn, and for ever effectual; and a re-newing of the Covenant of Grace to the Penitent.7 But She8 who affirmes this, holds also, That even after the Words of Consecration (or, rather, Efficacy of the Benediction), the Bodily Substance of the Elements remaine; Yet so, as to become the Instruments of the Divine Spirit, conveying its Influence and operation to the prepar’d Recipient: And therefore she dos not behold the Elements altogether such as naturaly they are to the Corporal Reflection; but, (as Theodoret speaks), upon the Change of the Names, the Change which Grace superinduces: Or, if you like it better; Not bearely Bread and Wine, naked Figures and Representations; but, such as Exhibite Christ himselfe, and puts the worthy Communicant into sure possession of him: In a word, They are Seales to Superior Excellencies; give foederal Title to Gods Promises; and though they are not Chang’d in Natural qualities, Yet are applicable of divine Benefits, and a Solemn Profession of our Faith, etc. – And upon this account, the Mysterious Presence of Christ, she holds to be a greate Miracle, engaging the infinite power of God, to render the Flesh and Blood of Christ so present in the Elements by Effect and Benediction, as that the Worthy Receiver as Realy Communicats in reference to his Spirit, as he Sacramentally Communicates in reference to his Body; the Mystical Presence being present with the Material, by a Supernatural Conjunction really tender’d to the Faithfull. I could add infinite other formes to Expresse the same thing, But this I take to be the cleare Sense of the Article; and can, when you command me, defend it, by the best, and noblest Instances of Scripture, Fathers, and Reason;9 but you have not requir’d it, and it were too long for a Letter. Let it suffice, that the Difference betweene us, and the Church of Rome consists chiefly in the Definition of the Manner of the Change; the Quomodo or Modus; about which (not to recite here what Ockham, Cajetan, Biel, etc. say) when P. Lombard had (as himselfe professes) collected the Opinions and Sentences of all the Antients; he ingenuously accknowledges, he could no way make-out that, that there was any Substantial Conversion; for the Doctrine was then in the Cradle;10 and when 7 compare Taylor, The Real Presence, 7 8 i.e., the Church of England 9 [LM: And now we mention’d Fathers, There occurs to me one passage in that excellent Treatise of St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana: Book 3, Chap. 6, upon that famous Period in St. John on which our Antagonists put so much stresse, that as it instructs us how to Interpret the literal sense of divers the like places in Scripture; so has it perfectly convinc’d me as to the meaning of that pretended adversity: I say so surely, as I dare oppose it to whatsoever they can produce us out of all the Fathers of the Church (as they call them) put all together: The words are these. Si præceptiva etc: If a Preceptive Speech or Expression, seemes to injoyne a thing that is flagitious or Wicked; or to prohibite a beneficiall or profitable thing, it is figuratively to be taken: e.g. Except ye Eate the Flesh of the Son of Man, and Drink his blood (says our Saviour), ye shall have no life in you. [John 6:53] This, seemes to command a flagitious and unlawfull thing, tis therefore Figurative, enjoining us to communicate in the passion of our Lord, and sweetly, and to be profitably, to keepe in mind that his flesh was Crucified and Wounded for us: and This is so plainly the Sense and the Voice of the Church of England, that I thinke men must be out of their witts to contend against it. I could yet augment the number of as plain testimonies and suffrages from more of these greate men; But you] 10 See Taylor, The Real Presence, 285–6.

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a­ fterwards it grew up, and became an Article of Faith, Durandus says, plainely, The Matter of Bread remaind – Modum nescimus, Præsentiam credimus,11 and so says the Church of England: It was then left free, why should it not be still so? We both affirme a Change and the Reality of it; only we retaine the Antient and middle Beliefe, and presume not to determine the Manner of it; because we find it no where reveal’d; and can produce irrefragable Testimonies for 1200 yeares, to explode the grosse, and material Sense which the later Age has forc’d upon it, when to assert it, they tell us,12 That a Body consisting of all its Physical Dimensions and Parts, occupies neither Place nor Space, but is reduc’d to a point invisible: That mere Accidents can inhere without Subject: That Colour, Tast, Smell and the Tactile qualities can subsist, after the destruction of the Substance: That Bodys are Penetrable; that the Same individual Thing may be at the same time in different Places, and Visible and Invisible at the same instant period: That the same Proposition may be absolutely true, and false in the same Instance: That Contradictions may consist with God’s Veracity: That Christ devour’d himselfe, and that his Body was broaken and torne with teeth when it was yet whole and intire: That Christ’s body may be eaten, though only Accidents be manducated and chew’d: That a Sacrifice should be made without the destruction of the Oblation, and a thousand other incompossibilities, Riddles, and Illogical deductions, extinguishing the Eye of Reason, and making an Errour to be necessary to Salvation. In briefe, This new-minted Transubstantiation, abhorring from the genuine and rational Sense of the Text, substitutes a Device not onely incredible, but Impossible; so as Christians, who are enjoined to render offer up a Rational Liturgy and Service, or Reason of the Hope which should be in them; Must bid defyance to it; for they must not believe their Eyes, nor Tast, nor Touch, nor Smell (the Criterions by which St. John [LM: Jo 1:1–3; 4 Acts 20] Confirmes the Christian doctrine quod vidimus oculis nostris, quod spectavimus, et manus nostræ contrectarunt, &c.)13 – But they must renounce them all, and not onely quit the Common Principles of Sciences; but even Common Sense: I will say nothing of those who have taken in these strange impressions with their Milk; considering the incredible force of Education, and that the profoundest Learned amongst the Heathen were not secur’d by it from the grossest Errours upon this account. One would yet have thought the Wise Athenians [LM: Acts 7:22] needed not a lecture from St. Paule 11 “We believe in the presence though we do not know the manner of it.” Evelyn contrasts the “mystery” of the real presence as it was acknowledged in the early church and affirmed by the Church of England, with the doctrine of transubstantiation, which lacks scriptural or historical foundations and entails for him an abdication of the faculty of reason. Peter Lombard (c.1100–60), in his Libri Quattuor Sententiarum, the standard medieval theological textbook, takes up the question of the eucharist in IV.8–13 and acknowledges, Evelyn argues, the weakness of its foundation in the writings of the early church, and the need for its subsequent elaboration by late medieval and early modern theologians, such as William Durandus (c.1230–96), William of Ockkham (c.1285–1347), Gabriel Biel (c.1420–95), and Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469–1534) even after its adoption by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Evelyn’s argument here echoes the arguments of Taylor and those advanced later by John Cosin in Historia Transubstantiationis Papalis (London, 1675), translated as The History of Popish Transubstantiation (London, 1676). 12 a catalogue of some of the philosophical absurdities which, for Evelyn, follow on from the doctrine of transubstantiation 13 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

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upon the Topicks he preach’d; But that men Persons inlightned as the Doctors of the Church of Rome pretend to be, should fall into Absurdities so illogical and destructive to the very definition of that which discriminates Men from Bruits,14 is plainely stupendious; and seemes, mi-thinks, to be pointed at by the great Apostle, where he tells us in the later dayes, that God shall send some of them strong delusions, [LM: 2 Thessalonians 2:11] and you know what follows. He would be thought a thick-skin’d Doctor in any of their owne, as well as our Scholes, who could skill’d not to discern how a thing might be Real and yet Spiritual, or, as if nothing were Real , but what were Corporeal and Natural. These do not consider how God himselfe operates on the Conscience and Soules of Men, and that the Gifts of his Sacred Spirit are Real Graces, and yet not things Intelligible and Sensible as Bodys are. That the Church of England believes a Real Presence, she Expresses in the Canon of her Eucharistical office, Verily [LM: see the Catechism in Book of Common Prayer] and Indeede, and than That, what can be more Real? To Object, that the Faith in the Holy Trinity obliges us to as greate a difficulty, as the Pontifician Modalitie, is very Trifling; since that is onely matter of Beliefe indefinite; We are not requir’d to explaine the Manner of the Mysterie; Nor have We, or the most Metaphysical Wit living, faculties and adæquate Instruments to dissolve that knot: Spiritual things belong to spirits; we can have no notices proportionable to them; And yet, though they are Un-fathomable by our Reason, they are not in-consistent with it, nor do they violate our Understanding by enjoining Non-Sense: They indeede, exceede our Explications, but disparage not our Religion; rather they procure it Veneration; since there are in nature, and common Objects, things which We know to be, but know not how they be. But when the dispute (as in this of the Holy Eucharist) is of Bodyes, and Material things, We can define, and may pronounce concerning their Affections and Possibilities; They are obnoxious to sense, and fall justly under our Cognizance and Explication. But your Reverence injoynes me to say what our Church permits her Sons to believe concerning Adoration; I will tell you, the very same that St. Augustine, Nemo digne manducat, nisi priùs Adoraverit:15 She holds therefore, that the Holy Eucharist is an Homage, and an Act of Adoration; and receives it in that humble Gesture; For Christ being there Present in an extraordinary manner, she Worships him at a tyme when he exhibits himselfe to her in so Extraordinary and Mysterious a Manner, and with so great advantages; But then this act is to her Blessed Lord, as God’s right-hand: Or, if it please you better, she Adores the Flesh and Blood of her Saviour in the Mysterie and Venerable Usage on the Symbols, representing and imparting it to our Soules; But she gives no divine honours to the bare Symbols without that signification; since it is certain, had the Primitive Christians done otherwise, [LM: see Minutius Felix Octav] Their Enemies would have say’d, they worshiped the Work of their owne hands too, and so retorted their Reproches: The Church of England, and we her sons, worship what we know; you worship what you know not, and whatsoever is not of Faith is Sin: Species, and Accidents, Representations and meere Creatures, though consecrated to holy Uses, are not proper Objects of Adoration; God is 14 i.e., the faculty of reason 15 “No-one eats [Christ’s body] worthily, unless he has first adored it.” Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98:9 (a frequently cited passage).

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a jealous God; and it would be seriously consider’d , how innumerable the Contingencies are (though your Opinions were true tollerable) that render your manner of Worshipping the Host extremely obnoxious and full of peril; since the possible Circumstances and Defects of the Priests Ordination, Consecration, Recitation of the Words, want of Intention, Impuritie of the Elements, their disproportion and mixture. If the Priest be Illegitimate, Simoniacal, or Irregular, and severall other Impediments of the like Nature, render the Adorers grosse idolators by your own Tenents and Confession. I have but a Word to Add, and that is, concerning the Oblation, in which the Church of England differs from that of Rome. She affirmes, that the notion amongst the Antients imported only Oblatum celebrare, et Memoria renovare; [LM: ἀναμνησιν St. Chrisostom calls it. Homilie 27]16 and, that if Christ were realy Offerd (as you pretend) he must every time be put to death againe. But St. Paule tells us plainely, he was but Once offerd, [LM: Romans 6; Hebrews 9],17 as now shortly on Good-Friday, he is say’d to be Crucified, and at Christmas to be Borne, etc: But we add, if Christ delivered his Holy Body, and Sacrific’d it in a Natural Sense, when he instituted the Holy Sacrament, before his real Passion on the Crosse (as, according to you, un-disputedly he did), it could not be Propitiatory; and if it were not Propitiatory, what becomes of your Masse? For, if it was Propitiatory when he Instituted it, his blessed Father was Reconciled before his Suffering, Which I think we neither dare to affirme. It was then Representative and Memorative onely, of what Was to be, as now it is to us, of what it has already ben; And yet the Church of England dos for all this, acknowledge it in another sense to be a Sacrifice, both Propitiatory and Impetratory; because the oblation of it to God, with, and by the Prayers and Praises of her Members, dos render God Propitious, by Obtaining the Benefits, which the Death of our Lord dos represent: And therefore Over it We beseech God for the Universal Peace of the Churche; for the State of the World, For Kings, Priests and Magistrates, For the Sick, For a Glorious Resurrection of the Saints. [LM: Se the Prayer in our Communion Office, for the whole state of Christs Church Militant etc.] In summ, with St. Cyrill, we Implore that it may moove God to grant All that is desired by the Regular, and Assiduous Offices of the Catholique Church, especially of those who at that time Offer and Communicate. This Reverend Father, is the best Account I am able for the Present, and in so short limits, to give you: It is what our Church will owne, what I believe, and what I endeavour to Practise; who in great Charity and humility, subscribe myselfe Reverend Father, Your most faithful servant, J. Evelyn. Sir, you must pardon my frequent blotts, etc. For the Reverend Father Patrick

16 reminiscence 17 Romans 6:9: “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more ... For in that he died he died unto sin once”; Hebrews 9:28: “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.”

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Henry Bennet Letter 334 [331] October 28, 1670 f 184v

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Epistle CCCXXXI To my Lord Chamberlaine:1

My Lord In the midst of an Employment of somewhat a different nature, which your Lordship has call’d me to,2 I have not neglected even the least of your innocent diversions, in order to which I yesterday went to Serjeant Stephens, to looke over his Catalogue of Tulips,3 and upon intimation to him that your Lordship was not fond of Costly Trifles, which could onely be valu’d by a few Florist Virtuosi about this greate Towne, and would be but a Temptation to robb the Gardiner to robb his Master: I concluded with him that your Lordships designe was onely to furnish some beds for the lustre of your Parterrs with such flowers as would make an Eclate at the Season, which the Mediæ (as they call the middle sort of Tulips) would perfectly do, as well as the most costly, which depended so much on fancy, and were one yeare in vogue, and the next perhaps not esteem’d:4 And my Lord there are amongst this inferior Classe, such as very few judge not to be of the best, and even from those varieties do annualy spring, which frequently are of the rarest kinds: I have therefore conjurd Mr. Stephens to provide your Lordship a parcell of such as are of reasonable price, and yet such as are of reputation in the noblest Gardens. So as your Lordship be not put to the Expense of above £5 or £6 for which summ you may annualy maintaine and furnish your ground with sufficient both for delight and credit: Some Anemonies are also necessarie, and Ranunculus were also because they are flowers of greate splendor, variety and long continuance: But why should not your Lordship signifie your Pleasure to some friend of yours among the Tulipomaniaques of Holland, or Paris, where for a small matter you may have both Tulips and other Coronarie flowers to store you plentifully; seing ’tis from thence that our Florists raise their stocks:5 Stephens has very fine Polyanthies, strip’d and purpl’d, these with Auriculas your Gardner may raise of Seede every yeare in infinite numbers and varieties, and he can furnish you with excellent seede: And when your Gardiner has 20 or 30 slips of the best Carnations, which Mr. Stephens has promisd me to 1 Bennet was secretary of state in 1670 and did not become lord chamberlain until September 1674. 2 Bennet had urged Evelyn to write the history of the Second Anglo-Dutch War 3 Evelyn acts on behalf of Bennet in selecting flowers for the garden at Goring House, bought by Bennet in 1664, but burnt in 1674 and replaced by Arlington House. Neither Serjeant Stephens nor Burton can be reliably identified, though Stephens is also mentioned in a 1676 letter from Thomas Stringer, Anthony Ashley Cooper’s steward, to John Locke. The countess of Shaftesbury is said to “have sent to Serjeant Stephens, a man of great delight in Gardens, and he hath undertaken to mannage them for her.” Locke, Correspondence, 1, 444. In his notes to the Stringer letter, De Beer identifies him as Robert Stephens (1622–75; F). For London nurseries prior to the founding of Brompton Park by Roger Looker and George London in 1681, see Harvey, English Nurserymen, 39–51. The earliest surviving nursery catalogue is William Lucas, “A Catalogue of Seeds, Plants, etc.” (c. 1677), rpt. in Harvey, Early Gardening Catalogues, 65–74. 4 Evelyn proposes that Bennet buy the more common “mediæ” rather than the more rare and expensive early (“præcox”) or late (“serotina”) varieties. See the catalogue of tulips in John Rea, Flora: seu, De florum cultura. Or, A complete florilege, furnished with all requisites belonging to a florist (London, 1665), 50–72. 5 for “tulipomania” and the international market in bulbs, see Pavard, The Tulip, 75–96

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present you into the bargain; you have nothing else to desire (for they will strongly propagate) to render your Garden a little paradise:6 You may therefore I think send to Stephens and let him know that you committ the furniture of your Parterrs to him, upon the satisfaction I have given you, and may be pleasd to expedite this grand Affaire, because of the Season which is fugitive, and that frosts will come: I have inquird concerning Burton, whom your Lordship mention’d: By all that I can heare (for I know not the man my selfe) he is a very able workman, sedulous and sober, and one well experienc’d in the Culture of Fruit Trees, and Esculents, which are rare qualities in that profession, among whome there are so many pretenders, and so few knowing: I am told, he delights in his Trade, and has a special Genius to it; if so, you will have a precious Jewell; As to his parting from Sir Philip Carteret, let it not much waigh with your Lordship[.] I know that Gentleman well: some Masters are harsh and difficult to please (ne quid asperius)7 to their Servants: Your Lordship is above it; and by what I can gather he is the Man for you: Before I end this long Epistle, let me int recommend to your Lordship the Planting an Avenue of the Castanea Equina which I mentiond to you, they are to be had of a prety stature in the Nurseries; It is a florid Tree, and will exceedingly become their stations: The Zinnar (or celebrated Patanus)8 is now not difficult to find, which I should range with the Canale, for the love they have to the Water; though the Noble Romans did use to irrigate them (your Lordship knows) with Wine: But I detaine your Lordship too long from greater things who am My Lord: Your etc. Sayes: Court: 28: October 1670

Thomas Hanmer1 Letter 335 [332] December 13, 1670 ff 184v–5

Epistle CCCXXXII To Sir Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer Knight and Baronet Prince of Florists

Sir, Since you lately were pleas’d to take notice of my penurie, and so generously to offer me your Contribution,2 I shall not despaire of putting your excellent Instructions into 6 see the discussions of flower gardens in Directions for the Gardiner at Says Court and in “Elysium Britannicum,” II.16 (“Of Coronary Gardens”), particularly Elysium Britannicum, 394–5 (carnations), 395–6 (ranunculus), and 398 (polyanthus); Evelyn’s essay “On Anemones” in Elysium Britannicum, 449–52, and Thomas Hanmer’s on tulips and daffodils (see Letter 335, note 2); and Rea, Flora, Book I. 7 not more harshly 8 Castanea Equina: Horse Chestnut; Zinnar: probably from the Turkish Çenar, the plane tree, which occurs in obs. French as “chenar.” Platanus is the Latin name for the same tree. 1 Thomas Hanmer, 2nd baronet (1612–78; ODNB, H). Hanmer matriculated at King’s College, Cambridge, in 1627, and toured the continent between 1638 and 1640. He left England for France in 1644 but returned in 1650. He retired to his estate at Bettisfield, gardened extensively, and wrote a Garden Book in 1659 (not published until 1933). He gave Evelyn advice on the creation of the garden at Sayes Court. See Robinson, “New Light on Sir Thomas Hanmer.” 2 Although Evelyn cites Hanmer many times in “Elysium Britannicum,” Hanmer also contributed two distinct essays on tulips and on daffodils; see Elysium Britannicum, 445–8, 453–4.

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p­ ractise, and religiously observe your directions: For it seem’d to me a prepostrous and unjust Attempt, to pretend to write of the Culture of Flowers, before I had some Conversation among them:3 It was this Meditation alone, and that of your noble and Communicative Genius which induc’d me to make so hardy a Request, as to beg one of those bulbs which celebrates your Name amongst the Virtuosi [LM: Agat Hanmer4 a Tulip so cald; raisd by Sir Thomas]. But I begin to blush at the Insolence, and to absolutely unbespeake what I so rashly begg’d, since I find it will be to rob the most generous person in the World; to gratifie a Cabbage planter, whose Garden is not worthy the purgaments of Sir Thomas Hanmers: The truth is, having for some yeares wholy addicted my selfe to the propagation of Foresters, and rusticities of that nature, I have so miserably neglected the my little Flower-garden, that having redressd a little Parterr neere my House, and being destitute of furniture I harden my Selfe with a strange Mendicity in hopes to store it by the Charity of Friends, and well disposed persons, amongst whom it was impossible not to place you in the front: But I should aske with better grace, and greater Confidence, were I able to returne some Curiositie that were worthy my Benefactor, who am: noble Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 13: December –1670

Joseph Glanvill Letter 336 [333] December 15, 1670 f 185

Epistle CCCXXXIII To Dr. Glanville

[RM: *one of his Majesties Chaplains and Ministers of the Bathe etc.] Sir, Every new Favour, exacts a new Acknowledgement, and I have receiv’d a double one from you,1 by the hands of our Secretary Mr. Oldenburg:2 Believe it Sir, You have tam’d the shrew, and perform’d it with that Courage, and dexteritie, as renders you proofe against all opposition; I can heare of none but universal suffrages: If this do not the work (as Hydra you know had many heads) you have still the Massive and knotty Club in hand,

3 Evelyn had sent Hanmer the printed prospectus for “Elysium Britannicum,” and he had responded on 1 May 1668. See Robinson, “New Light on Sir Thomas Hanmer,” 6. 4 Properly called “Agate Hanmer” this greyish-purple tulip was named by John Rea. It had been brought to England by Hanmer and Evelyn had it in his garden. See Rea, Flora (1665), 65, and Pavord, The Tulip, 117. 1 Probably a reference to one or both of Glanvill’s responses to Henry Stubbe. See Letter 332, note 3. 2 Henry Oldenburg

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and if you think fit, to repeate the stroke:3 My Lord of Chester 4 bid me tell you, he had some Ingredients to present you, that will render it yet more pesant: Sir, I come with my particular Thanks to you; but, you are to expect the Publique Recognition, as the Publique Champion, and for having freed, not onely the Society, but the whole Nation from this Calydonian Boare, this Publique Enemie: I am sure you highly deserve it, and that I should subscribe my selfe Your etc. Sayes-Court 15 December –1670

Matthew Wren Letter 337 [334] January 2, 1672#1 f 185

Epistle CCCXXXIIII To Mathew Wren Esquire Secretary to his Royal Highnesse

[RM: Son to the Bishop of Ely, a most learned accomplished gentleman slaine in the last War with Holland:] Sir, The honor you are pleas’d to do me, by allowing me still a place in your Friendship, and as upon all Occasions I have found it, sincere, and worthy your selfe, gives me the Confidence to beg an Effect of it (at this time especialy) for a Concerne as well publique as in my owne behalfe; and it is, that the generous Inclination which I am told you have to do Sir Denis Gaudens kindnesse,2 may for my sake also, be continu’d: ’Tis true the Victualing Office, which he has compleated at Deptford on my Land3 (and which ought to excuse my good wishes for him) is my particular Interest; but it is likewise of itselfe for publique Use and Designation, and that of so universal Benefit, that Envy itselfe cannot worthily reproch it; and I am sure, it cannot but obtaine your Suffrage, if ever you have well viewd and examin’ it, as I question not but you have: I say nothing of the Persons who obstruct the application of it, and the real service it may do upon this conjuncture of affaires, as relating to his Royal Highness greate Charge; nor how ungratefully a publique 3 Evelyn compares Glanvill to Hercules in his controversy with Stubbe. 4 John Wilkins 1 The dating of these letters indicates that at least some of them are from 1672 and are misplaced. Matthew Wren, secretary to the duke of York, was killed in June 1672 at the battle of Sole Bay. 2 Sir Dennis Gauden (1600–88; Diary). A tenant of Evelyn at Deptford, Gauden was a contractor for the navy at various times between 1660 and 1677 (Add 78318: f 27 [18.2.1685]). He was sheriff of London (1667–8) and the brother of John Gauden, the bishop of Worcester. 3 Sayes Court; see Letter 338.

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spirited man is depress’d, having likewise ben encourag’d to this expense by the king himselfe: But I will persist to Implore your generous kindnesse to a worthy and usefull Subject, if ever this Nation had any of that capacity; and that he may by your Influence lift up his head; if through your vigorous motion, his Royal Highness might be pleas’d to take a full Survey of the Place, before it be quite condemn’d and deserted: I do assure you Sir, you will most signaly oblige the Publique, as well as this honest man, and in very greate measure this poore and populous Town, which (you know) deserves not a little encouragement: For where could such an Office be more appositely plac’d to diffuse its advantages, than where the Royal Navie has its station, and chiefe Oeconomie? At least, let his Royal Highness vouchsafe to heare the Answer to all Objections, or see them rather confuted upon the spot: This Sir, is (I am told) a proper Season to appeare in his behalfe, and the least signification of his Royal Highness’s pleasure therein, will forever fix it, and for ever oblige Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 2: January: 1671/2

Dennis Gauden Letter 338 [335] January 2, 1672# f 185

Epistle CCCXXXV To Sir Denys Gauden Knight1

Sir, Though you are not pleas’d to Consider me, with any real Effects; yet I cannot be unmindfull of improving the Interest I have in a person now in place, on your behalfe: ’Tis true, I have an end in it;2 but, I assure you Sir your particular Concernes preponderate infinitely with me: It has ben whisper’d to me (by a Friend of mine) that Mr. Secretary Wren3 has greate dispositions to serve you, and you know what interest he has with his Master the Duke of York, as to the recovery and fixing of your Office at Deptford: I examine not by what course you have hitherto steer’d; but I cannot but wonder, he should be heard complaine, that you did not cultivate his Friendship: I could therefore heartily wish (and perhaps I have some good reason prompts it) that you did more seriously apply your selfe to that generous Person: I give him that Epithete, because I have had long experience of it: If this Advice may be acceptable, or of advantage to you, I shall be glad: But the Confidence I had, that it would be so, has made me already bespeake him in your Cause, and I send you a Copy of what I have writen to him, that you may take your measure accord 1 See Letter 337. 2 Both as a Deptford ratepayer and as a lessor to the Victualling Office, Evelyn had an interest in its staying where it was. 3 Matthew Wren

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ingly: If I have presum’d too far, or don an impertinent thing, the affection with which I have don it ought to obtaine my Pardon, who remaine Sir, Your etc. Sayes-Court 2: January –1671/2

John Dolben1 Letter 339 [336] February 17, 1672* f 185r–v

Epistle CCCXXXVI To my Lord Bishop of *Rochester

[RM: *Since Arch-Bishop of York] My Lord, I am heartily sorry it is my lot, to send you ill Newes, and such as I am assur’d, will much surprise you; the first time I have the honor to write to your Lordship. We have lost Dr. Breton (our worthy Viccar)2 who dyed suddenly the last night, without any the least previous Indisposition: He had ben abroad to Christen a Child about 8 a clock, supp’d well, went well to bed, ’til about 12, complaining he felt some paine in his side, fetching one onely deepe sigh, never stirr’d after, doubtlesse from some pleuretick effect, which his wife not considering at the Instant, no Chirugion was cald, that by opening a veine might possibly have relievd him: What a Losse his particular friends and Relations have here, is very greate; but that of this poore Parish unexpressable; so sound was his doctrine, so inculpable and exemplarie his conversation, and above all his charity: I most humbly implore your Lordship, for many reguards, as to this miserable place, to use your Interest, and Pastorall authority with Sir John Cuttler 3 (the Patron) that he be not hasty to impose a Successor upon us, ’til your Lordship recommend a qualified Person, fit for the needes of this Parish, which is, your Lordship knows, composd of many factious Spirits, and will as much neede a discreete, wise, and well-temper’d person (such as was Dr. Breton) as an industrious, and otherwise able for the Function, and what he undertakes: In a word,

1 John Dolben (1625–86; ODNB). He was successively canon of Christ Church (1660), prebend of St Paul’s (1661), and dean of Westminster (1662–83). He became bishop of Rochester in 1666 (where he was responsible for the vicarage of Deptford, and thus the addressee of this letter), lord high almoner in 1675, and archbishop of York from 1683 until his death. 2 The letter is misplaced. See Diary III.603, where Evelyn notes the death of Robert Breton on 18 February. On 24 February 1672 Evelyn notes: “To Lond to speake with our Bishop & Sir John Cuttler our Patron, to present Mr. Frampton” (604). 3 Sir John Cutler (1607/8–93; ODNB). Cutler was a merchant and master of the Grocers’ Company who had been knighted in 1660 and created a baronet in the same year after promoting the subscriptions by the City of London to Charles II.

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such another, as whom we have lost: My Lord this is a Service to the publique, as well as to this place alone, and will particularly oblige my Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 17: February 1671/2

James Hamilton1 Letter 340 [337] April 27, 1671 ff 185v–6

Epistle CCCXXXVII James *Hammilton Esquire Nephew to the Duke of Ormond etc.

[LM: *afterwards slaine in the Holland War:] Sir, It is upon your Importunity onely that I could be induc’d to make more witnesses of my Imperfections; but you assure me it is to do you a real service, and against that I have no bouckler; tho Father Patric 2 have not dealt fairely with me, to spread my weaknesses about the Court, who promis’d to be tender of me, and knows upon what Articles I was brought to gratifie his Desires, or rather to yeild to a tentation: I inclose you here a tedious Paper; but it is hard to hold one’s hand upon a provocation so monstrous, I had almost said, Inhumane: That the Peace of Christendom should be disturb’d, because all men cannot believe Non-sense, and understand a Terme3 that’s un-intelligible: But, Sir, I neede not tell you (though the wiser, and most discerning amongst them, are perfectly sick of this unfortunate Mistake) why the greate-ones so passionately persist to maintaine it so pertinaciously: They have cut Ten-thousand Thousand Throates for it, and it makes them more than Gods, among those who believe they can make their God, and then eate him too: so as it would be both shame, and losse unsufferable, to submit to Reason now, and to the men they have so long despiz’d: sed magna est veritas, et prævalebit.4 Sir, I was glad to heare so generous an expression of your Resolution, to keepe to Your Religion, in an Age [of ] so much defection: Be still of that mind, and let no Consideration 1 James Hamilton (c.1630–79; P). The nephew through his mother of the duke of Ormond, Hamilton spent part of his youth with the royal court in exile. He was an early favourite of Charles II who made him ranger of Hyde Park, groom of the bedchamber, and provost marshal-general of Barbados. During the Third Anglo-Dutch War he was one of the lords commissioners for prizes and colonel of a regiment of foot but was fatally wounded at the naval fight of Schonvelt and died on 6 June 1673. 2 This Roman Catholic priest is Father Patrick Maginn with whom Evelyn continued to correspond. The enclosed document is probably a copy of Letter 333. 3 transubstantiation 4 Adapted from Esdras 4:35: “therefore great is the truth, and stronger than all things.”

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move you with the splendid out-sides, nor the pompous names they make a noyse with, which would dwindle to nothing but for the Inquisition, and the Fagot: They dare not let men make use of Reason Scripture, true Antiquity, or right Reason: But Reason is still Reason, and Truth, Truth, though all the world were against it: ’Twas once that Athanasius thought himselfe the sole Orthodox, as well as Eliah;5 and a sincere, and well grounded Faith, will come to be a precious, and a rare thing: I see it to my griefe; and especialy, that the Church of England finds no more reverence amongst the Wits and the Gallants: I am told, they turne Sacred things into Ridicule; that they do not esteeme it greate and honorable to owne the Service of God, and be as externaly Religious as our Adversaries: It is beter to be an Hypocrite, than Prophane, for the Example is contagious, and will prove deadly. The Religion of the Church of England is a Sublime, and noble Service, comely, and adæquat to its glorious Object, and would be envyed and admir’d, if the Greate-ones did it honour, and would bring Piety into reputation: It is consistent with the Splendor of Life, and as well adapted for the Courtier, as for the most resign’d Christian, and has ben Re-establish’d by as greate a Miracle as any Age has produc’d this Thousand Yeares; and yet she is depress’d: But there is a buisy Spirit that maligns her, who would soone demolish his hold: She is still therefore to be Militant here on Earth; and though the Gates of Hell shall never totaly prevaile against her; yet her out-ward Circumstances may be Eclips’d, and she driven againe into the Wildernesse, and yet be never the lesse deare to her Lord, whose Kingdome is not of this World: These are the Considerations which ought to establish her Sonns amidst all her diminutions: Father Patric6 had reason to hope my Ignorance might have betraied the Cause; They have for the most parte wondrous conceite of our Opinions, and make a strange noise to their Proselytes, because of some differences amongst the Reformed Churches; But this is not a candid proceeding: The Church of England in Controverted points, and Speculative matters, allows her sonns a modest Liberty, and dares not breake Communion, where the sense is tollerable; and her Articles are Termes of Union, and an Instrument of Peace: If Father Patric will himselfe Reply, I shall make a Civile Rejoynder; but if it create Noyse, and be like to engage Parties; he disobliges me, who ment it no farther, than as a friendly Debate, and the Letter to pacifie his Importunity: For I am (you know) neither Divine, nor sonn of Divine, but a poore Country Gentleman. Disputing is not my Trade, but an humble and a Christian Life: It is true, that taking Umbrage at the general dissolution of the Age I happn’d to Converse in, I was some-time since resolv’d to set upon an impartial Research (as far at least, as my Talent would extend) amongst the religious Pretences of the severall Parties, that I might at once establish my Mind in a Matter so important: Fifteene Yeares was I no indilligent Enquirer, with a resolv’d Indifference; and verily Sir, after all the Scrutinie, and paines I had taken, I found no Rest, but in the boosome of my old Mother, the Church of England, when without any Temptation of Earthly Interest (for she was then the most Afflicted and despiz’d in the world) I was forc’d to acknowledge her for the most sober, Apostolical, and Catholique of any the after Centuries had reservd, or later Protestants 5 Athanasius (c.296–373), the author of the creed, was as ruthless an opponent of the Arian heresy as the prophet Elijah had been of the religious failings of the Jews. 6 Father Patrick

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embrac’d: I found in her alone the Golden Meane, neither too streite, nor to Wide, but of a just dimension and admirable Constitution: I found on the Contrary, that the Church of Rome had still declin’d from her primitive simplicity, since the moment she begun to be freed (by the beneficence of Christian Emperors) from Persecution; affecting dominion and Poverty, and that as she grew opulent, she grew Contentious, affecting Domination, and to Impose on others her private Conceits, and as they became subservient to her Interests, by little and little, to adopt them into Articles of Faith, and to pronounce them Hereticks, that would not blindly receive them as such, how exorbitant and fictitious so ever: In a word, that since [RM: sub: Pio. 4o:] the Conciliable of Trent she was quite a New Religion, and began at last to Evaporate Faith into speculations, high and Mysterious notions; unprofitable and burdensome Ceremonies, Pomp, and Pride, which are all quite averse to the grand Designe of Christ and the Gospel. I could tell you by what Arts this Machine is still sustain’d, and how Interests are carried on, and interwoven, and in fine, what Confusion of all Piety it is bringing into this quarter of the World: But I am writing a Letter, not a Treatise, and would not be brought upon the Stage in these dayes of Raillery: If the inclosed Paper may be serviceable to you, ’tis the highest of its Ambition, and of him who is Sir Your etc. Says-Court 27: Aprill –1671

Edward Thurland Letter 341 [338] May 3, 1671 f 186

Epistle CCCXXXVIII To Sir Edward Thurland, Soliciter to the Duke:

Sir, You will pardon me if I thought so trivial a summ might have ben receiv’d without so much formalitie as it seemes you requir’d: If I had ben minded to borow, I might have ben trusted for as much, and I have often delegated this Bearer in employs of this nature to persons that had the Character of prudent men, who us’d to Distinguish ’twixt friends and strangers: (Sed ne offendiculo simeis)1 I have now sent you a blanq; yet so, as that I thought it very unreasonable (to say no more) that I should be requir’d to divine when every individual Circumstance shall so fall-out to your Mind, that you shall think I may be permitted to receive my Mony: I am one who love as little to lose my time, as my respect; and though my buisinesse is not in  foro vulgari;2 yet I know so well to value, and use my leasure, that I would not willingly trifle it away impertinently, which I must then do to excesse when you shall insist on these nicities: It seemes you are in Earnest when you think 1 “lest we should offend them” (Matthew 17:27; Theodore Béza Latin translation). 2 in the common marketplace

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I am in love with the Trade: But I shall soone disabuse you, when you understand, that this is like to be the last time I shall either importune you for Principal or Interest, both of them belonging to another Person: As to that of Mr. Hyldiards,3 ’tis somewhat strange you should be ignorant how much is due, or præmonich my Lady, that my servant came sans Acqitance, as if the danger were next a præmunire:4 But I cease to aggravate these disingenuous warienesses, nor I hope be necessitated to render your friendship a snare to your innate and wondrous Caution, who am Sir Your Says-Court: 3: May: –1671

Thomas Clifford Letter 342 [339] July 14, 1671 f 186

Epistle CCCXXXIX To my Lord Treasurer1 etc.

My Lord, I never waite on you but with blushes, to receive such signal marks of your favours, without ever hoping to be in capacity of meriting the least: But you act as God Almighty acts, and whom all greate, and good men should Imitate, who require nothing but Praises, and a little Clowd of Incense for benefits immense, and indicible: I have a greate while sought for one (like your Lordship) worthy to be my Patron: A person of steady Virtue, and generositie; and I have found him in your Lordship and therefore do not refuse these little Oblations from me, or think so meanely of me that I flatter you: for benefits sinc Your Benefits to me contradict it in termes, and have something in them unexpressable: I will sometime or other say my whole heart upon this subject; for this is too narrow a space, a letter cannot containe it, and it must have issue: My Father in Law2 will waite on you, and when you heare his Cause, you will not pronounce him unreasonable, if ever upon 3 Henry Hildyard 4 sans acquitance: without warning; præmunire: a treasonable offence that entailed the loss of one’s goods and estate 1 Clifford was properly treasurer of the household. He was appointed lord treasurer at the end of November 1672, when the office was revived, having been dormant since the death of Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton (1607–67; ODNB). 2 Sir Richard Browne. Sir Richard was clerk-in-ordinary of the Privy Council, and hoped to pass the position on to his son-in-law. Evelyn had previously solicited the support of Henry Bennet (Letter 321), and now appeals to Clifford. He also attempted to obtain Clifford’s support in the legal actions to recover the money Browne and Evelyn expended on behalf of the Crown while Browne was the English resident in Paris. See also Letter 347, in which Evelyn lays out the legal case more fully. The matter was not finally resolved until 1687. Evelyn’s son here (as in the next letter) is John Evelyn Jr who was now 16.

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the merits of that, he implor’d your Justice: But as well by his own inclination as to my wishes, he has prevented that, by throwing himselfe into your Lordships armes: To speake with the freedome your comitie allows me: The greater lines of my particular concerne are involv’d in his; and that my sonn may have the prospect of a being capable to finish his Education, and render him fit to serve you and his Countrie. I designe him not for a Gallant, but an usefull and honest man, and have no reason to despaire of it with your favour. When I mention the passing my lease into Fee farme, I meane nothing more than a defalcation of a dearly purchased Arrere;3 burying all Sir Richards merits in his modesty, and the satisfaction he esteemes it to have serv’d his Majestie with loyalty and without repining; though not without a sense of what he has suffer’d, which otherwise were not a laudable, but stupid Obedience: Thus far, your Lordships suffers permits me; and it is my greatest temporal Interest, and I looke on it as safe in your hands, and patrocinie, who am my Lord, Your etc. Says-Court 14 July: –1671

George Lane1 Letter 343 [340] July 17, 1671 f 186v

Epistle CCCXL To Sir *George Lane, Cleark of the Council etc.

[LM: *Secretary to the Duke of Ormond, now Lord Lansborow in Ireland:] Sir, I have just now red-over your hopefull sonns Nobile Decennale,2 I cannot tell you whether with more admiration at the Progresse he has made in so few yeares, or Indignation at my owne mispending so many: I remember Joseph Scaliger gives an Account of his

3 Evelyn notes (12 January 1672) that: “His Majestie renewed us our Lease of Says-Court Pastures for 99 yeares &c: but ought according to his solemn promise (as I hope he will still performe) have passed them to us in Fee-farme” (Diary III.600). 1 Sir George Lane, 1st Viscount Lanesborough (1620–83; ODNB). Lane was knighted at Bruges in 1657, made a baronet in 1661, and created Viscount Lanesborough in 1676. He was an MP for Roscommon in the Irish Parliament (1662–8) and married as his second wife (c.1654), Susan, the daughter of Sir Edward Nicholas who was a neighbour and close friend of the Evelyns at Wotton. 2 This was probably George Lane’s successor as 2nd viscount, James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough (1650–1724) who was at Oxford 1667–70, having been at the Inner Temple in 1661. The work referred to was not published.

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Youthfull Studies,3 not much unlike your learned sonn: Grotius4 was a Doctor of Laws at 23, and at that age Pleaded Causes to admiration, and if my Augurie faile not, your sonn is in the way to emerge as greate a man as Either: Sir, I should run over many Topicks, to speake but a little of what I conceive of such happy beginnings; and perhaps You, yourselfe would not well suffer the Elogies I should give you, for the generous and paternal Care you have had in his Education (which has ben extraordinary) and that the Age is like to be so obliged to you for giving it so Usefull a Man, and so greate an Ornament to it: Though my Lord Duke5 can tell you that I am a Doctor6 as well as his Grace; Yet would I readily exchange my Purple, for the Lambs-skin, that I could render as laudable an Account of my Periods, to this day, as Mr. Lane (your sonn) has don his ten-yeares: I greately applaude the Progresse he has made at Schole; but am infinitely more surpriz’d at the method, and fruit of his Academic Studies, in which I find he has omitted nothing which may furnish his Mind with solid Erudition; the choice, and the mixture is such, as I would wish Young Gentlemen to pursue. But, where shall we find such another Subject and Capacity? so much Discretion, and Sedulity, joynd with that early Piety, and excellent Notices which enamells and gives lusture to all the rest: All I can add is, You are an happy Father in such a sonn, and I am sure the Terme is Convertible; long may you enjoy one another; since I find he also desires it , which I assure you, as ’tis the mark of an excellent Nature, so is not allways to be found in an Age that breathes after liberty: But you have given it with so much felicity; that you have cause rather to blesse God for the Vertue it has met with, than to imagine it altogether the result of Education, however carefull you have ben, and therein much to be honour’d. Sir, You have greately oblig’d me, by these Papers, which I am commanding my little boy to reade over, and hope they may raise some worthy Emulation in him: He is not yet ariv’d so far as Littleton. But has dip’d into Justinian;7 understands something of both old and new philosophy; chopps logick, has a smattering of the most learned tongues, and runs over many Books of the politer studies; but he is a Child for all this, and must come infinite degrees behind your incomparable sonn, and will therefore will esteeme it for the greatest honour to Carry his books, and kisse his hands, as I do to be Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 17: July –1671

Joseph Scaliger (1540–1609). See Scaliger, Autobiography. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), Dutch statesman and scholar James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond Evelyn had been awarded a doctorate by Oxford for his part in the acquisition of the Arundel Marbles. See Letter 294. 7 Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists several editions of Littleton’s Tenures, Edward Coke’s Commentary upon Littleton, and Justinian’s Institutes. “Old and new Philosophy” refers to Aristotelianism and postBaconian experimentalism.

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Thomas Clifford Letter 344 [341] August 31, 1672*1 ff 186v–7

519

Epistle CCCXXXXI To my Lord Treasurer

My Lord, It is not my fault, but misfortune, that you have not ’ere this received a full account of the time which (by your particular favour to me) I acknowledge to be wholy yours: Your Lordship has sometime since justified the Quæries which I first drew up, that they were material, and promis’d, I should not want your Assistance, in the Solution of them.2 But the Recesse of the Court, and consequently, your Lordships Absence, and otherways want of opportunity, and pressure of affaires, has depriv’d me of receiving those necessarie Directions, which so important a Subject as that under my hand, dos require: But, though this might serve somewhat to extenuate what may be thought wanting to my Industrie; yet, I hope, I shall not be found to have trifled in that which I am preparing to put shortly into your hands; namely, The two former parts of the Historie; which (if your Lordship likewise approve) I think of disposing into the following Periods. The First (giving a succinct account of their Original for methods sake) Comprehends the state of the Hollanders in relation to England; Especialy their Defection from the Crowne of Spaine Anno 1586, ’til his present Majesties happy Restauration 1660: And herein, a Didaction of all the notorious Injuries and Affronts, which the English have suffer’d from the Dutch, and what Rebukes they have received for them, from the powers, who first made warr against them, and from his Majestie, whom they compell’d to make another. The Second, sets forth at large the Cause, and Progresse of the late Differences, from his Majesties Returne Anno 1660 to the yeare 1666 (inclusively) by which time (his Majesties Ambassadors being recald, from their respective Ministeries abroad) the Warr was fully Indicted. This Period, more especialy relates his Majesties Endeavor to have Compos’d matters in ­dispute, betweene his Subjects, and the Dutch: Answers all their Cavells, Vindicates his Honor, States the Aggression, Treates with Munster; Describes the first Battail, the Action at Bergen, Transacts with the Dane, with the French, the Rupture with both: together with all the Intercurrent Exploits at Guiny, the Mediterranean, West Indies, and other signal particulars, in 169 Paragraphs or Sections; and thus far it is already advanced. The Third and Last Period Includes the Status or height of the Warr (against the three greate Potentates we named) to the Conclusion of it, in the Treaty at Breda: 1667. In which I shall not admit omit any of those numerous Particulars, presented to his Majestie, through my Lord 1 This letter is misdated by Evelyn; it should be 31 August 1672. See de Beer, “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford,” 130. Evelyn reports on 1 September 1672: “I spent this weeke in soliciting for monies, & in reading my papers on the first Holland War to my Lord Clifford” (Diary III.624). 2 questions and materials for the preparation of Evelyn’s history of the Anglo-Dutch War. See “Desiderata” (Letter 346).

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Arlingtons3 hands in my first Project of the Work, nor anything else, which your Lordship shall Command me to Insert. The two former Parts being already dispatch’d, want nothing save the transcribing: which I therefore have not thought convenient to hasten, ’til I receive your Lordships directions in the difficulties which I herewith transmit; upon Returne whereof, I shall soone present his Majestie with the better part of the Worke; and then (as his Majestie shall approve of my Dilligence) proceede with the Remainder, which I hope, will not take up so long a time. If it shall be thought fit hereafter to cast it into other Languages, especialy Latine or French, it may be considerably contracted; so very many Particulars in the English, relating onely to Companies and more domestique Concernes, in a Legal style, full of tedious Memorials, and Altercations of Merchants; which (though now requisite to deduce somewhat more at large for the Justification of his Majesties Satisfaction of his Subjects, and, as a Testimonie publish’d from Authentique Records amongst ourselves) will be of little Importance to Forrainers, and especialy, greate Persons, Curious and learned men, who are to be entertain’d with refin’d and Succinct Narratives, and so far with the Cause of the Warr, as may best Imprint the sense of the wrongs we have sustain’d; take-off the prejudices our Enemies have præpossess’d them with; together with the most shining matter of Fact becoming the style of Historie. I now sent your Lordship my Præface: It is in Obedience to a particular suggestion of my Lord Arlington, requiring of me a compleate deduction of the Progresse of Navigation, and Commerce from its first Principle to the present Age:4 And Certainly, not without greate Judgement; since (as his Lordship well observ’d) all our Contests and Differences with the Hollanders at Sea, derive onely from that Source: And if the Introduction (for a page or two) seeme lesse severe, than becomes the forelorne of so rude a Subject as follows it I have this to say; That as no man willingly Embarks in a storme; so I am perswaded your Lordship will not Condemne me, when you have perus’d it to the End, and Consider’d how immense an Ocean I have pass’d to bring it home to the Argument in hand, and yet in how Contracted a Space. I have assembl’d together that multitude of Particulars the most illustrious; taken in all that is material, and more (permit me to affirme) then is to be found in many Authors of greate bulke; much lesse any one Single Treatise, Antient or Modern; by which your Lordship may perhapes a little estimate the dilligence has ben us’d; and that I can do nothing which your Lordships think fit to command me, superficialy: I confesse it were yet capable of Politure, and would shew much brighter in another dresse, among the Curious, to whom singly it might happly prove no unacceptable Entertainement: I could yet also add considerably to it: But some perhaps may think it already too large for a Vestibule; though that will best appeare, when the Superstructure is finish’d, which if my Calculations abuse me not, (from the Model already fram’d, and in good part advanc’d) will amount to at least 800 or 1000 pages in  folio, notwithstanding all the Care I can apply, to avoid Impertinences, as far as consists with Integrity, and the numerous Particulars which necessarily crowd into so active and extensive a Warr: Sure I

3 Henry Bennet 4 the text published as Navigation and Commerce (London, 1674)

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am (what ever may be objected) ’tis Apposite, and proper to the Subject, and the Occasion of it, and stands and falls by your Lordships Suffrage: His Majestie has yet two sheetes, which I beseech your Lordship to retrive for me, and after your Animadversions on this, I will waite upon your Lordship and receive your farther Directions to My Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 31: August 1671

Thomas Clifford Letter 345 [342] August 28, 1671# f 187v

Epistle CCCXXXXII To my Lord *Clifford made Baron:

[LM: *who was ever a most obliging friend to me in particular, and after Lord Treasurer (what ever his other failings were) a person of as cleane hands, and generous a mind, as any who have succeded in that high Trust:] My Lord, Amongst the Crowds of those who offer you this Incense, I come with a Censer full of Congratulations; and this day was a double Festival to me, when coming to Towne, I heard of your Lordships late Accession;1 and that the infinite satisfaction I take in it is from the heart, your Lordship best knows, who best can tell how vast my Obligations are: My Lord, though I hold no rank with the many who make their Addresses to you, I dispute Title with the greatest, that ther’s no man more sincerely honors you. Your Person is long-since deepely Ingraven in my heart, and therefore my hand cannot but expresse it: And (since I know how to be Gratefull) to spread your Worth, and tell it to the World, by some particular way that shall consecrate it to eternity: May fresh Accumulations still descend on your Lordship ’til your Coronet be stuck round with honors, and flowers immarcessible: so wishes my Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 28 August –1671.

1 Probably misdated. Clifford was created Baron Clifford of Chudleigh on 22 April 1672 (Diary, III.613, n. 5) and lord treasurer on 30 November 1672 (621, n. 2). Evelyn, however, refers to Clifford as lord treasurer before that in the diary (621).

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Thomas Clifford Letter 346 [343] November 14, 1671#1 ff 187v–8

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Epistle CCCXXXXIII To my Lord High Treasurer etc.

My Lord, I was yesterday at White-hall to waite on your Lordship and a little to expostulate with you, upon the work enjoin’d me,2 for want of that assistance which Mr. Secretary3 promis’d from time to time; so as unlesse your Lordship interpose, and procure those Papers, I must desist, and go no farther: ’Tis my Lord, a grave and weighty undertaking in this nice and captious age, to deliver to posterity a three-years War, of three the greatest powers and potentates of Europe against one Nation, newly restor’d, and even at that period, Conflicting with so many Calamities besides: If this deserve no application extraordinary, I have taken but ill measures, when I entred on it: But I rely on your Lordship whose commands first animated, and by whose Influence onely I care to proceede: If the materials I have amass’d lie still in the heapes, blame not me, who write not for Glory, unlesse you approve of what I write, and assist the deferrent, for I am no more: Tis matters of fact his Majestie would have me deliver to the publique world; let me have them Authentic then; and now especialy in this Crisis of its Exinanition (with griefe, and indignation I speake it) and that the whole Nation is sinking: As to the Action at Bergen,4 I am ready to transmit what I have drawn up; but it shall go no farther ’til you cast your eye upon it; since without your Lordships Approbation, after the measures I have taken of the Comprehensive and consummate Judgement (quorumque pars ipse fuisti)5 I neither can, nor ought to like anything I do: But this either your Modestie, or buisinesse deneys me, and unlesse you I overcome it; let all I have don wither and rise no more: Augustus Caesar had weighty affaires on his hand; but he sufferd nothing to sinke pine of lesser concerne, when he sometimes heard Poems recited, and Scipio would converse with Lælius, and often with Lucullus too. And will you let your Country Suffer, and that which

1 De Beer believes that this letter is misdated: “a date of a year or two earlier is by no means impossible.” See “The Correspondence between John Evelyn and Lord Clifford,” 130. See also Evelyn’s letters to Clifford dated 20 January 1670 (Diary [1887] III.221–3 and 31 August 1671 (228–31), where he reports on the progress of his work. He returned the papers he had borrowed on 18 August 1673 (Letter 359 and Diary IV.18–23). 2 the history of the Anglo-Dutch War, subsequently published in part as Navigation and Commerce (1674). Charles II ultimately decided to suppress the rest of the work in light of complaints from the Dutch ambassador (Diary IV.41). See Darley, John Evelyn, 243–4. 3 Henry Coventry 4 In Evelyn’s diary entry for 15 October 1670 he writes: “I spent the whole afternoone in private with the Treasurer, who put into my hands those seacret pieces and Transactions concerning the Dutch war, & particularly the Expedition of Bergen in which he had himselfe the chiefe part” (Diary III.562). Sandwich acted at Bergen under Clifford’s orders and had been against the expedition (Diary III.618). 5 “of which you yourself were a part”

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you with so much earnestnesse and vigour pressd might be publish’d with the greatest Expedition, Languish now, for want of your Assistance? My Lord, what you were wont to say, was prædiction, and we are already blown upon, [LM: set up for de Witt on his exploit at Chatham:]6 and profan’d without recovery: The Inscription I here inclose, will more than a little discover, that it were high time to think of all imaginable ways, to recover the dignity of the Nation; and I yet assure my selfe your Lordship has ben inflam’d with a disdaine becoming you, at the sound of this disgrace: I do protest solemnly, I have not in my life, received a more sensible Mortification: Ô that ever his Majestie and this Glorious Country, should in our time (and when your Lordship sits at helme) succumb under the Reproch; see our selves buried alive, and our honor (which is ten thousand times more precious than life) borne thus away by a perfid and ungratefull people! To see our Glory drag’d in Triumph, and a Pillar to our Infamie set up on that foule Turfe, which had not ben a Name but for our Indulgence. I dare say My Lord, your heart is as big as your breast can containe, and that you would be One of the first should even devote themselves, to tare down that Impudent Trophy, and take away our Reproch: And if God Almighty do not shortly stir up amongst us some such generous Indignation, I do not for my part desire to live, and see the Ruines that are coming on us: But this is reserv’d for men of greate hearts, and for such as your Lordships. My part will be to represent it so, when I come to that cutting period. If it incite not all that call themselves English, to rise as one Man in rescue of our honour, the whole World will blush at our stupid Lachetè;7 and the ingratitude of our foes, be styl’d a Vertue. Let me therefore my Lord receive your farther directions seasonably, that whilst you still incite me to dispatch, your Lordship not furnishing me those pieces, render it impossible to advance: I am Says-Court My Lord etc. Your etc. Says-Court 14: November –1671

Desiderata: 1. The Particulars of the Treaty with the Dutch after the first war with the Parliament: to be found (I suppose) in the Paper Office. 2. What Commission was given De Ruyter,8 when he went to Ginnæ, of which we charge the States? 3. Mr. Henry Coventries9 Instructions for Sweden, so far as concerne the action at Bergen: 4. Collonel Nichols’s10 Instruction etc. with the Articles of the Redditio of New ­Amsterdam:

6 The Dutch had raided Chatham on 13 June 1667 and inflicted humiliating losses on the English navy, including the destruction of the Loyal London, and the capture of the Royal Charles (Diary III.484–7). Jan de Witt was grand pensionary of Holland (1653–72). 7 cowardice 8 Michael Adriaanszoon de Ruyter (d. 1676) attacked the British forts in Guinea on the west African coast, costing the British £100,000 in lost possessions. (Pepys Diary V.352–3) 9 Henry Coventry was ambassador to Sweden in 1664–6 and again in 1671. The English attacked the Dutch East India ships in August 1665, an action in which Clifford was engaged. 10 Richard Nicolls (1624–72; ODNB) accepted the Dutch surrender of New York and became its first governor.

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5. Lord Fitz-Hardings11 Instructions, which I suspect are corrupted in the Dutch ­relations 6. The Instructions of Sir Walter Vane sent to the Duke of Brandenburg:12 7. His Majesties Treatie with the Bishop of Munster:13 8. By whose Importunitie was the Saile Slackn’d in the first Encounter with the Dutch, or whether I am to blanch this particular?14 9. What particular Gentleman Volunteers etc. am I more especialy to mention for their behaviour in the first Engagement? 10. Was Mr. Boyles15 head carried into the Sea, from the trunk? 11. Did there no wound or bruise appeare on my Lord Falmoths16 body? 12. On whom is the breaking bulke of the East India prizes, to be realy charged?17 13. Did Bastian Senten18 board the Earle of Sandwich, take downe the blew flag, set up the Orange, and possesse him 3 houres, as the Dutch relations pretend? 14. Sir Gilbert Talbots19 letter to the Commander in chiefe at Bergen,20 which I find not in your Lordships papers: 15. I desire the order your Lordship promisd me, to the Cleark of the Parliament, that I may search the Journals for those important particulars your Lordship mention’d etc.

11 Charles Berkeley, earl of Falmouth (1630–65; ODNB), was in the duke of York’s ship at the Battle of Lowestoft. 12 Friederich Wilhelm, duke of Brandenburg (1640–88) by this time the most powerful Protestant ruler in Europe, joined the Dutch against the French in 1672. 13 Christopher Bernard von Galen, prince-bishop of Munster (1650–78) had made a treaty with the English against the Dutch. Evelyn probably alludes as well to A letter sent by His Highness the Bishop and Prince of Munster, to the Lords the States-General of the United Netherlands (London, 1665). 14 Henry Brouncker (c.1627–88; ODNB, H) issued the order to shorten sail, allowing the Dutch fleet to escape. “But Brouncker, by a secreter instinct, / Slept not, nor needs it; he all day had wink’d. / The Duke in bed, he then first draws his steel, / Whose virtue makes the misled compass wheel:” Marvell, “Second Advice to a Painter,” 239–42 in Poems on Affairs of State, I, 34–53. 15 Richard Boyle (c.1640–65), heir to the earldom, was killed on board the duke of York’s ship, Royal Charles at the Battle of Lowestoft, “the head of Mr. Boyle striking down the Duke,” says Pepys (Pepys Diary VI.122). It was through his death that Robert Boyle succeeded to the title. 16 The death of Charles Berkeley, earl of Falmouth, is also described in Pepys Diary VI.122. “Such as his rise such was his fall, unprais’d: / A chance shot sooner took than chance him rais’d. / His shatter’d head the fearless Duke distains / And gave the last-first proof that he had brains.” Marvell, “Second Advice to a Painter,” 185–8. 17 Edward Mountagu is said by Pepys to have taken “about 18 more of the Dutch fleet” on 14 September 1665 (Pepys Diary VI.223). Subsequently he refers to “the disgrace my Lord Sandwich hath had in it” (VI.281). 18 Bastian Senten (or Centen) was a captain in the Dutch navy under von Tromp. He was engaged in the Battle of Lowestoft and entered Lord Sandwich’s ship but died in that battle. 19 Sir Gilbert Talbot (c.1601–95; H) was envoy to Denmark, responsible for negotiations with the Danes prior to the disastrous English attack on Bergen 20 probably Thomas Teddeman, who was knighted in 1665 and is described by Pepys as being sent by Edward Mountagu to Bergen with twenty-two ships “after several messages to and fro from the Governor of the Castle,” urged Teddeman “not to come thither with more then five ships” (Pepys Diary VI. 196).

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Thomas Clifford Letter 347 [344] January 28, 1672#1 f 188r–v

525

Epistle CCCXXXXIV To my Lord Treasurer

My Lord, As to my Succession of Cleark of the Council,2 you know the Promise I obtain’d of his Majestie and should I loose the fruits of it, because my Father in Law continu’d in his Majesties Service as long as he was vigorous, and had not devolv’d on me, ’til he was willing? Is it no merite to have exhausted himselfe, and spent a real fortune in his Service, and that of his Royal Fathers? That there remaines an Arrere of no lesse than £11800 due to him? That he had never made one false step, during 19 yeares of Exile, and Temptation? That he was a fellow Sufferer with your Lordship in no inglorious or cheape Employment? That he purchased his present station at the rate of £1500, without receiving any benefit by it; (his Majesties Father of Blessed Memory sending him abroad on a particular emergency, with promise to recall him, within three moneths, and then continuing him from yeare to yeare) both from the exercise and benefit of his Place, ’til the Warr came on, and from that time keeping him in Suspence, as to any Settlement of the Fee-farme, ’til waiting to the very brink of the Grave, he is now became no longer in condition to prosecute his Title? These are particulars my Lord, which claim some consideration: And though he did not presume to chalenge any thing in that peremptorie style that some of have successfuly don; yet he humbly conceivd his long, and loyall Services might be some inducement of his Majesties favour to me: I do not repeate these things to your Lordship with either hopes or desires to retrive that Office (though the Bishop of Benevento3 had not given me a precept) but to engage your Lordship to pursue your generous promise: My Father in Law (all circumstances ponder’d) being the onely individual Instance of his Majesties disreguard, and upon whom his Influence has not shone so graciously either in direct, or reflected beames: He is not, I confesse Calculated to the Meridian of Court, cannot importune; but is a person of honor, has worthily serv’d his Master, in difficult times, and there is something due to his Integrity as well as to his sufferings: Your Lordship is in a station worthy your greate Merits, and it is not strange that (after what you have intrusted in my hands) I should more admire them, and love you more;

1 There is an earlier letter to Clifford, dated 23 November 1670 (BL Reserved Photocopy 5460) which lays out Evelyn’s case in greater detail than he does in this letter. See Harris, Transformations of Love, 138. The relationship between these two texts is not clear. 2 Evelyn had been promised the reversion of the position of clerk of the Council after the resignation of his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, but it passed to Sir Joseph Williamson, as Evelyn notes on 23 January, “upon consideration of 1000 pounds; and our lease of 500 pounds per ann: at fourty shill rent, without fine for 99 yeares” (Diary III.601). 3 Giovanni della Casa (1503–56)

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I flatter not, but speake my most intimate thoughts, not meane enough as yet to fawne, for what I think’s my due: But this is certaine, that should Fortune constraine me to accept of favour, from some little people (though greate in Title) I should receive a greate no small Mortification in stead of a benefit: But as there is nothing big enough to expresse the Sentiments I have of your Lordships Virtue, when I consider the manly steps you have made without the little arts, and the miserable prostitutions by which others ascend: so I affirme his Majestie never did himselfe more true honor, than when he dignified your Lordship; because, as you won it bravely; so I am wittnesse you weare it worthily, and use it as you ought: And therefore I avowe it I am not asham’d to apply my selfe to such a person: In the meane time, to shew you that I cannot, I neede not flatter: I have (I thanke God) a competency that supports me, and no despicable family with decencies, and in some degree of being esteem’d an honest man: But as it has pleasd him to blesse me with some sweete Children (of which three are Daughters),4 I would be glad to provide better for them, and deliver my selfe from the anxieties of age, in the passing of their prime, in their fathers house, as neglicted, by any thing which a laudable Industrie may contribute to; And for that reason (though there be no insuperable impotency in the case, and that all similitudes run not on four legs feete, your Lordship knows my meaning) I am now seeking for some propitious Angel, not onely to stir the water, but to put me into the poole, who have lay’n so long in the Portico:5 And perhaps I have found the Person; I am sure I have know where is one can do it; and I would have him know, that I have too well studied the nature of benefits, to forget my Obligations to him: Servily I cannot seeke them, gratefully I can, and publish it too without offending the laws of honour: And now my Lord I have put myselfe intirely into your hands, not (I conjure your Lordship to believe) upon the least conceit of merite my desserts, though not without some honest ambition, without which (if I rightly judge) you could have no esteeme for me: But because I truely honor you, and would gladly be Oblig’d to one whom I can do so, more for his Merites, than for all the dazling Circumstances of his Greatenesse, who am My noble Lord Your Lordships Says-Court 28 January 1672

4 Mary Evelyn Jr (1665–85); Elizabeth Evelyn (1667–85); and Susanna Draper, née Evelyn (1669–1754) 5 the pool of Bethesda: John 5:1–15.

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Ann Sylvius1 Letter 348 [345] July 27, 1672 f 188v

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Epistle CCCXXXXV To Nanny etc.

[LM: Mrs. Ann Howard Mayd of Honor to the Queene afterwards Lady Sylvius]2 My Deare Playfellow, That I send the young Scholard3 to make my Excuse this Morning you will not reprove, me For to See you depart Would breake my heart; When to heare you are going Is halfe my Undoing: –

But away with this Rhyming and whining; I am heartily Angrie at your Journey: You may remember how you serv’d me at Hay-harvest, and will you now be gadding agin? Well, I wish there may be never a greene Abricot in all Shrop-shire:4 That the Peares and Apples and the plums were guarded like the Hesperides for your sake, and a dreadfull Dragon somewhere: N’one but a Mad Wench would undertake such a jaunt; In the Dog-daies too: I am Confident Chance would not follow Thee, though his fleas to be sure will: But tell me Playfellow ingenuously, What wilt thou do in Shrop-shire at my Lady Poultnies?5 Thou hatest Omber, and canst play at nothing but Push-pin, and Blind-mans Buffin: D’ey think to revell it there as you did a Fridy-last, I know where? Ther’s no Blagge6 at my Ladys, she w’ont indure it, and you’l find a sweete difference in Playfellows, and wish 1 Lady Ann Sylvius, née Howard (1656–1730; Diary). The daughter of William Howard, fourth son of the 1st earl of Berkshire, Ann was one of Catherine of Braganza’s maids of honour along with Margaret Godolphin. She married Sir Gabriel Sylvius in 1677 and went with him to Holland. Ann Sylvius was frequently in London in the following years and continued to correspond with Evelyn until 1700. 2 Evelyn notes on 31 July that “I entertaind the Maids of honour ... at a Comedy, this afternoone” (Diary III.622). Ann Sylvius seems to have missed the occasion. 3 presumably John Evelyn Jr who was then at the Inner Temple 4 In fact Sir William Poultney lived at Masterton in Leicestershire. 5 Grace Poultney, née Corbet. The daughter of Sir John Corbet, 1st baronet of Stoke, she was the wife of the Royalist and MP, Sir William Poultney (1624–91). 6 Margaret Godolphin, née Blagge (1652–78; ODNB). This is the first reference in the letterbooks to Margaret Godolphin. Although Evelyn first refers to “that excellent creature Mrs. Blagge” on 28 July 1669 (Diary III.530), their intense friendship did not begin until the summer of 1672, and was sealed on 16 October (Diary III.628). See Harris, Transformations of Love. Evelyn celebrated their friendship in a portrait he commissioned from Matthew Dixon (Diary IV.13) in 1673, now in the Cantor Center, Stanford University.

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your selfe at home agen: Well, If you stay out above one Moneth (and that Moneth too will seeme a sad one to poore Morose)7 I’l absolutely conclude Play-fellow’s Mad, starke beside her selfe; that she wanders about like a Besse;8 thrusts needles into her armes, foames at Mouth, and must be brought home in chaines, like a Bedlame by the Constable: The best I can think of her, is, that she’s turn’d Gypsie, a Cut-purse, or sings Ballads, [words deleted] about the streetes; but remember there are Whipping-Posts for such Vagrants (my Nanny) and that I tell fortunes: Ah! I ha hitt it now – There’s now I think on’t a Bag-pipe, the Morice and the Goose at end of Harvest, and your mind runs a Dauncing with the Bumkins – What a dismal Creature will Playfellow returne? I’ve such another for a Gemple-woman, as was poore Cravon for a Squire,9 when he came from Schoole: She must be taught to make a Curtsy agin, hold in her body, hold out her head, and will forget that ’ere she was at Putny,10 and was the best Mime, and the boniest Gyrle, and the frankest, sweetest, sprunkenst, prettiest, Cherr-lipt, Chirping, Cheerefull Playfellow in the World: A Curse upon Shrewsbery, and all the Shrews in it, for taking my Playfellow from me: Though I will never bid thee Adieu; for Adieu is to God, and when thou goest thither, thou goest God knows whither – Says-Court 27 July: –1672

John Mordaunt Letter 349 [346] July 29, 1672 f 189

Epistle CCCXXXXVI To my Lord Vicount Mordaunt

My Lord, I have allways receiv’d it for a very greate honor, and marke of your Esteeme, that you should at any-time command me to serve you, and especialy in so weighty a Concerne as is that of the Education of your Sonn: My Lord It is a very nice thing, and as you expresse your paternal Care in the most worthy Instance; so I should account my selfe extreamely happy to be able to contribute towards it; because it will be to the building up of one of the most refined spirits, that I have anywhere obser found amongst all our Young Noblesse; and the Ornaments you designe him, accomplish that, which (with the blessing of God) will render you the most solid of Satisfactions: But my Lord, It is so difficult a Province to find out a Person qualified in all the requisites you have mention’d; that as I am not at 7 Evelyn’s description of himself as a character out of Jonson’s play Epicœne, or The Silent Woman (1609; 1640 ed. of Jonson’s works in the 1687 library catalogue) 8 probably a reference to the stock madwoman, Mad Bess of Bedlam. 9 Craven Howard (d. 1700; Diary). A son of Sir William and Elizabeth Howard, he was the brother of Evelyn’s friends and correspondents Ann Sylvius and Dorothy Howard. 10 As there were many girls’ schools in Putney at this time, it is possible Ann Sylvius was educated there.

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present (and on so short a warning) able to name the man; so, I feare, it will prove no easy matter, to light upon him: Tutors and Pædagogues, and such as would take it ill, not to be thought fit Governors, there are more than enough: They can speake Latine ill (though not ill Latine) and reade Logic, and looke morosely and like Pedants, because they are nothing else; but I dread the Men, and let no such approch your noble sonn: Where then shall we find a Gentleman who is well, and throly polish’d, that has ben abroad already, that can performe the part of a friend and humble Companion, without loosing his respect and authority, and with ease, and delight instill those brave, and usefull qualities, your Lordship has so prudently considerd? My Lord, This is the difficulty, and our want of such rare Persons, are perhaps amongst the most considerable of this Nation, as your Lordship, and my-selfe have I am sure observ’d upon many encounters abroad, when we were young travelers together in Italy: My Lord, All I can at present returne you in Answer on this tender Afaire, is, That I shall do my uttmost endeavor, and make it my buisinesse to enquire after him, among my Friends, and those upon whose Judgement I can best relie: Indeede I had ben able to have answer’d all those Transcendencies (as I may call them) in a Friend1 of mine, some time since; but he is now become a Married man, is settled, and in a prosperous Course, from which I feare it will be hard to reclaime him: And my Lord the time is short; but I will use dilligence, and so soone as I receive any satisfaction in it, give your Lordship notice of my good fortune, whose discernement alone, will (after all I shall be able to performe) be the best Judge of his Abillities; and I wish I may be so lucky as to serve your Lordship with the successe desir’d by My Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 29 July: 1672

1 This is probably Christopher Wase. Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough (1658?–1735; ODNB) was now thirteen and was to go to Oxford two years later.

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John Durel Letter 350 [347] August 2, 1672 f 189r–v

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Epistle CCCXXXXVII To Dr. *Durell, Prebend of Dureslme

[RM: *preacher at the French-Church in the Savoy, Author of many usefull books Translator of the English Liturgie into French and at last Deane of Winsor.] Reverend Doctor I had not a Minute of Leasure from the moment you did me the honour of giving me a Visite at my Lodging ’til the last night (after 10) to peruse your Book; so that I must beg your pardon for not being able to waite on you, before your departure; my buisinesse so unluckily falling out, that I am not master of this poore morning, that I might have kissed your hands. I conceive the thing you hesitate on is, whether you should take any notice of the Pamphlet at all, or not; and it is what I am the most unfit person in the world to resolve you in; because I am in doubt of it my selfe; and have seene so much evil, and so little good to proceede from Disputes and Altercations of this nature; Especialy with Parties so embiter’d and so eagerly set, and which no Musique has ben able to Charme. There are yet (mithinks) some Passages, which reflecting on your sincerity, and may have influence upon the Cause you so worthily assert, I should think worth your paines to cleare, even to your very Adversarie,1 and the Tribe; if during your Recesse in the North, you did resolve to defeate the effects, which even these creeping papers, do now and then maliciously work, whilst they are scatter’d amongst their Proselytes, as Spoiles, and Triumphs: There is nothing in Controversy betweene us and the Roman Catholiques, but what you know has ben aboundantly reciprocated from time to time; and yet I suppose it greatly important, that as often as they happen appeare in the field, our forces should march out against them, though but with the former Weapons for substance, improv’d or modified as the Constitution and humor of the time, and Conversation of men varie pro hic et nunc; nor is it sufficient to have once repell’d them; the Hydra’s head must be cut off as oft as it rises with a new on: This neglect, has given the Papists no small advantage (amongst the ignorant of their Party) who have men at leasure to do the drudgery; and there comes forth nothing of our men, which they defy not in a moment, and tell their zealous Converts, that ’tis Answer’d, and it pays them without more ado: Dr. Stillingfleete2 (you see) is sensible of this, and it must cost him another Booke: And thus must we deale with the rest of Gaine-Sayers; though I cannot but extreamely wonder deplore those whose Un-happy Lot it is to be concern’d: But it is a Worke of Charity, and highly 1 In 1669 Durel had published Sanctæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ adversus iniquas atque inverecundas schismaticorum criminationes, vindiciæ (London, 1669). It was in turn answered by one Bonasus Vapulans (Henry Hickman posing as “a Country Scholar”) as Some castigations given to Mr. John Durell for fouling himself and others in his English and Latin book (London, 1672). 2 Edward Stillingfleet

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necessary, and you know how long it was after the Conquests of Joshua e’re the Nations were quite subdued, that troubl’d the quarters of the Israelites, and before they could put them under the Yoake. There are, in my opinion, so many Impertinences in this Book (which you have put into my hands) as I cannot see your taske is like to be Considerable: Cavels about Words, and formes of speech, and in ordinarie Converse are a greate part of the rhapsodie; and after what he has excepted against in p: 135 (which you may please to Confront, with what he affirmes of Mr. Gataker3 p: 149) he would undoubtedly have culled the last verse of St. Johns Gospel, and several others that make use of Hyperbolies, Whiskers, as he dos those passages in pp: 82.127 etc. His exceptions against the Placing of the Apocrypha in our Church Kalendar, of the Audible Voice etc. are extreame trifling, and betray a peevish spirit: But to let these passe, ’tis not to be endur’d, what he says of our Bishops Conferring Clancular Ordinations,4 when (God knows) poore men, they were under the Persecution, and the watchfull Eyes of the Presbyterians, and other their back friends, who in all Changes, had their shops and packs open, and were themselves as versatile, and giddy as the times. Sir, Much of this dilute stuff, will contract your trouble, and give you Advantages more than enough: and for what seemes of Concerne, and Malice above these, I neede not direct what you have to do; I’m sure if I should pretend it, I should be as impertinent as your Adversary: I should guesse by the initial letters, at an Author you know; but that I have not known him to be of this temper, though of the party; and I would not willingly charge him at adventure: I am sorry Sir heartily, that I am no better capable to serve you, and have now onely to beg your Pardon for this presumption, tho led to it by your expresse Commands, for such to me, are allways your desires: That your Journey, and all your Undertakings may be prosperous, shall be the Prayer of Sir Your My most humble Service to Dr. Brevint.5 White-hall 2: August 1672

3 Thomas Gataker (1574–1654; ODNB). Hickman had objected to including the books of the biblical Apocrypha among the lessons read in church. 4 i.e., clandestine ordinations 5 Daniel Brevint (1616–95; ODNB). At the Restoration he received a DD from Oxford and became dean and prebendary of Lincoln. Like his friend, John Durel (a fellow Jerseyman), he was a religious controversialist.

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Robert Holmes Letter 351 [348] August 23, 1672 f 189v

Epistle CCCXXXXVIII To Sir Robert *Holmes Commander of the St. Michael etc. at the Buoy of the Noore:

[LM: Formerly Page to Prince Rupert, a person that had don great exploits at Sea, especialy in the Dutch Warr, the same who attaq’d their Smyrna fleete by our perfidious Aggression] Sir, There is amongst the Gentlemen that have waited on his Royal Highnesse in the Adventures of this summer at sea, one Mr. Craven Howard,1 and who is now I understand with you in the St. Michael:2 You would do a most obliging thing in perswading him to returne to his Friends and Relations here, in order to the looking-after, and settling an Estate, newly fall’n to him from his Aunt, the Lady Craven lately deceased: The Young Gentleman has so tender a sense of honor, that unlesse you interpose, and prevaile too, he will hardly be brought to quit the hopes of some farther Action this Summer, though to the prejudice of his Concernes here, and therefore ’tis the earnest request of his Parents, that you will use your authority, upon this occasion, and which they shall acknowledge as a particular favour. Sir, I remaine etc. Your White-hall: 23: August –1672.

1 Craven Howard’s legacy was through his aunt, Lady Craven, who had been married to one of the Lords Craven before marrying Craven Howard’s uncle, Henry Howard. It was this estate that he was required to share with his mother and sisters. 2 Evelyn visited the fleet in the Buoy of the Nore on 25 August (Diary III.623). The St. Michael was refitted in 1672 and was active in the battle of Sole Bay.

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Craven Howard Letter 352 [349] August 23, 1672 f 189v

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Epistle CCCXXXXVIIII To *Craven Howard Esquire1

[LM: *heyre to the Earle of Berke-shire:] Sir, Your Friends here are pleas’d to make use of the Convenience I have now and then to send to the Fleete; to enjoyne me likewise to let you know, how absolutely your immediate Presence is here, in order to the settling of your Concernes upon the Decease of my Lady Craven: And though I am assur’d that the sense of your Obligations to your Parents (who desire it) be sufficient to justifie your quitting the station on which you have deported your selfe so honorably; Yet let also the Consideration I have of your receiving the Advise of a Friend, and one that has a particular value for you, add something to their Importunity: If you had not already acquitted your selfe so handsomely, and brav’d the dangers which you so nobly sought; I should perhaps yeild to your longer stay in the fleete: But it is enough, and you have cause to give God thanks, who has reserv’d you to be a Comfort to your Relations here, and not to tempt him with seeking hazards, when besides the Injunction of your Parents, and the Perswasion of your Friends, there is that of an ample Fortune, which cannot be safe without your coming home; Sir, This is my first Request to you, and ’tis highly your Interest to take my Advice; You know the part I beare in all your prosperities, and that I am Sir Your etc. Whitehall 23 August –1672.

Henry Savile1 Letter 353 [350] September 8, 1672 f 190

Epistle CCCL To Henry Savell Esquire Secretary to his Royall Highnesse

Sir, Hearing that his Majestie is coming downe to the Fleete (though I am at present not so perfectly in health, as to adventure to Sea) yet I thought it my Duty, to visite the several 1 See Letter 351. 1 Sir Henry Savile (1642–87; ODNB). A nephew of Sir William Coventry and a brother of the author and statesman, George Savile, 1st marquis of Halifax (1633–95; ODNB), Henry was a gentleman of the

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places neere it, and the ports under my Inspection, and where I am sure, I may do his Majestie most Service;2 Chiefely in appeasing the poore People, who have ben so exceedingly clamorous for monies, and to discharge the Quarters of such as are fit to be sent back to the Fleete, according to his Royall Highnesses Expresse Commands, received by an Advertisement of my Lord Arlington;3 And I have this day, cleard and yesterday, clear’d our Quarters, of neere 300 men, but find it so uncertaine how to convey them on board, that I must intreate you, to move his Royall Hignesse that a Smacke (or some such Vessell) may be order’d to call at this Place, and Gravesend once a Weeke (so long as the Fleete continues in the present station) to take in such of our recovered Men, as are fit to be dispos’d of: This, as it would save his Majestie a considerable charge in Conduct mony (which they imbezill) so would it prevent their slipping away, which it will be otherwise impossible to hinder; and yet I have caused Sir Jonathan Atkins4 (commander in these Parts) to take all imaginable Care, by Guarding all the Passages hereabout: I pray be pleas’d to represent this, as my most humble suite to his Royal Hignesse as being upon experience of the former War, very materiall, and especially on this Conjuncture of affaires. I am Sir Yours etc. Rochester 8: September 1672.

Henry Hyde Letter 354 [351] September 17, 1672 f 190

Epistle CCCLI To the Lord Vicount Cornbery:1

My Lord, I think it is not unknown to your Lordship that I have sometime since ben commanded by his Majestie to draw-up a Narrative of the Occasions of the First Dutch Warrs; In order to which, my Lord Clifford 2 acquaints me he did formerly, and dos still continue to desire of you, that you would be pleas’d to give me the perusal of Sir George­ b­ edchamber to the duke of York and active in the naval battles of the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. Later in 1672 he became groom of the bedchamber to Charles II. 2 Evelyn notes “another Excursion to the sea side” and that he “lay at Gravesend, thence to Rochester” (Diary III.624) on 8 September. 3 Henry Bennet 4 Sir Jonas Atkins (b. c.1610; Diary). After the Restoration he became deputy governor of Guernsey (1665–70). Knighted in 1669, he became mayor of London (1672) and governor of Barbados (1674–80). 1 Hyde replied on 24 September (Add 15948: f 142 [24.9.1672]). 2 Thomas Clifford

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Downings3 dispatches to my Lord Chancelor4 your Father, which (as I remember) you told me were at Cornebery, where now you are: My Lord, ’tis an extraordinary mortification to me, that my un-toward Employments here, have not sufferd me to waite upon you, all this time of your Sweete Recesse; that I might also have seen, how that place is adorn’d, and improv’d since I was there; and where I might likewise have seene those papers, without giving your Lordship this trouble: But your Lordship will consider my present Condition, and may be assur’d, that I shall make use onely of such particulars as conduce to the Province impos’d on me by his Majestie. I would likewise be glad to know what light your Lordship can give me, out of the Letters and Dispatches of my Lord Holles,5 Mr. Coventrie,6 and Sir Gilbert Talbot,7 which have all of them an Influence into that affaire, as it concern’d France, Denmark and Sweden, upon which I am also directed to touch, but shall not be able to do it with any Satisfaction, unlesse your Lordship favour me with the Communication of the Subsidiaries in your Cabinet, who am My Lord Your etc. White-hall 17: September 1672.

John Breton1 Letter 355 [352] December 28, 1672 f 190

Epistle CCCLII To Dr. Breton Master of Emanual Colledge Cambridge:

Reverend Sir, I most willingly embrace this opportunitie of presenting my Service to you, and to let you know how sorry I am, that it was not my good fortune to find you at your Lodging, 3 Sir George Downing, 1st baronet (1623–84; ODNB). Downing had been English ambassador to Holland from 1657 until he was expelled by the Dutch in 1665. He was knighted in 1660 and made a baronet in 1662. 4 Edward Hyde 5 Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles (1598–1680; ODNB). He was English ambassador to France (1662–5) and involved in the negotiations with the Dutch to end the Second Anglo-Dutch war (1666–7) leading to the Treaty of Breda. 6 Sir William Coventry 7 Sir Gilbert Talbot (c.1607–95; Diary, H). He had been in Venice first as secretary, then resident, and then envoy (1634–45). He was knighted in 1645. After the Restoration, he was made master of the Jewel House (1660–91) and was also envoy to Denmark (1664–6). He was a member of the Philosophical Society and an original fellow of the Royal Society. 1 John Breton (c.1610–76; V). Breton was admitted to Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1629 and rose to become DD in 1661. He was master of the college (1665–76) and vice-chancellor (1670–1) as well as prebendary of Worcester in 1660. He was the uncle of Evelyn’s late vicar, Robert Breton, who had died on 17 February.

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when (at your last being in London) I went to kisse your hands, hearing you had ben at Says-Court in my absence: But Sir, I had yet (I confesse) a farther Designe, if that Visite had succeeded; and that was, to bespeake againe your more particular favour to the Young Student,2 I formerly recommended to you, who is an Alumnus of your Colledge and under your Government: If my Excellent Friend, Dr. Breton3 (your Nephew) had lived; he would both for his Father sake, as well as mine, have importun’d you often in his behalfe; becaase it was his Resolution to do him good: I could wish it might consist with your kindnesse to the Memorie of that Worthy Person, to extend your favour to this Young-man by giving him some Preferrment in your Foundation, and which may not onely intitle him to better Expectations, but aleviate the present greate charge, which his Father has ben at for his Education, upon hopes of the future: But Sir, I beg your pardon, for this Presumption of mine, upon so small a merite: I have nothing to say in extenuation of it, but the assurances I have of your Obliging Nature, and that you would by it extreamely Ingage etc. Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 28 December –1672.

Thomas Osborne1 Letter 356 [353] January 2, 1673# f 190v

Epistle CCCLIII To my Lord high *Treasurer2

[LM: *the Earle of Danby:] May it please your Lordship If it were not upon an Occasion, the neglect whereof in me would admit of no Excuse, I should not adventure your Lordships reproof, for giving you this trouble so often: But, my Lord when you shall have cast your Eye on this paper, do in it as you think fit: I shall have don my duty: There is this very day (since I spake with your Lordship in the Gal-

2 See Letter 362. Richard Hunt “of Surrey” (b. c.1650–?) was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1671 and graduated BA in 1675. His father wrote to Evelyn in December 1664 (Add 78317: f 46 [December 1664]) about having his son educated with Evelyn’s son John, and in a letter to Mary Evelyn at Wotton Evelyn sends greetings to a “Mr. Hunt” who is there (Add 78431: f 70 [22.9.1665]). 3 Robert Breton. See Letter 339. 1 Sir Thomas Osborne (1632–1712; ODNB) was created earl of Danby (1674) and 1st duke of Leeds (1694), and became lord treasurer after the resignation of Clifford. 2 This letter is probably misdated. Osborne was appointed to this post on 19 June 1673, following the resignation of Thomas Clifford, who would not comply with the Test Act. Clifford’s reception into the Catholic Church may have happened on 17 May (Diary IV.14 and n. 1).

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lerie) come up to Deptford a Catch full of wounded men, and since the wind has blowne in this point, severall more into the Ports within my District: but letters informe me, they lie so long in the streetes, ’ere they can get shelter, that they are ready to perish, and my Officers are forc’d to breake open doors to procure them quarters, upon an Universal Combination; not to receive any more, ’til their Arreares are satisfied: My Lord in November last your Lordship bid me assure them, that at Christmas they should be pay’d:3 In February I had £1500, since that but £200, for the discharge of a Debt of then about Ten-thousand pounds; The failieur of which at our Lady-day (a quarter when the landlords of the poore people, are very urgent upon them) at Easter, and now at Whitsuntide (during since which the debt is much increas’d) makes them not onely in a kind of despaire, but so inrag’d, that I neither dare go down amongst them, nor for neere this five Weekes stay in my owne house; and what the Consequence may prove in this juncture of buisy Action, and Smart (and that I have no more excuses to charme them with) your Lordship will easily collect. The People (my Lord) are miserably poore, and greate summs they are which are due to them, far-greater, than at any one time, during the Late War; when yet they were punctualy pay’d; which makes them the more impatient, and distrustfull: In a word, my Lord, the Cry is so hidious, that Captain Hales4 (the person who is Competitor with Sir Lyonell Jenkins5 about an Election) comes now to me out of Kent, to represent their deplorable condition, especialy about Gravesend, Rochester, and Faversham, where the Arreare is run up to above £90000 [sic], and I cannot tell which way to turn my selfe in this plunging streit, unlesse your Lordship take pitty on me: It is not my Lord that your Lordship dos not assigne us Monies, upon application to you; but the misery is, that when upon hopes of it, we endeavor to pacifie the poore mens expectations, ’tis so long e’re we touch it, that they grow desperate, and the Arrere doubles, and all this occasion’d by placing of the Assignements in the list, which puts our Treasurer 6 to infinite uncertaintie, and is become a Grievance Inconsistent (I am sure) with this Service: I do therefore once more most humbly implore your Lordship to relieve us in this particular, and so to order it, that the intire summ of £10000 (which your Lordship has ben pleas’d to asigne me) may be pay’d me at one payment, and that I may have some considerable refreshment immediately, the necessitie of his Majesties Service requiring it, and that I may pacifie the languishing people, and be enabled to serve his Majestie as becomes me, and to prevent this Confusion: My Lord, I present you this Paper with extraordinarie regret; sensible how un-wellcome such Addresses are: But your Lordship will have the goodnesse to

3 alluding possibly to a meeting of the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen on 24 November 1673 (Diary IV.27). 4 probably Edward Hales I (1630–96; H) a captain of militia horse (1660–70?) and an MP for Hythe (1681,1689) who married the daughter of Sir John Evelyn of Godstone, and whose daughter married William Glanville Jr. 5 Sir Leoline Jenkins (1625–85; ODNB, H). Principal of Jesus College, Oxford from 1661–73 and knighted in 1669 for diplomatic services. He was MP for Hythe in 1671 and subsequently for Oxford University (1679–85). 6 George Cocke

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justifie me, who have no selfe-Interest or concerne in it, but what his Majestie and your Lordship ought to expect from my Lord Your etc. White-hall: 2 January –1673.

Sidney Godolphin1 Letter 357 [354] June 21, 1673 ff 190v–1

Epistle CCCLIV *To Sidny Godolphin Esquire

[LM: *one of the Groomes of his Majesties Bedchamber afterwards one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and of the Privy Council.] Sir, The Chapell of Oak-wood2 (of which I spake to you) is a Chapell of Ease to no lesse than six greate Parishes; whereof foure are in Surrey, and two in Sussex: The present Allowance for the Cure (if any man could be found that would honestly and constantly undertake it, on so miserable a stipend) is about 20 nobles per Annum; hardly worth the soliciting of attending the Exchequer for, out of which it ought to issue, and is pay’d to some stranger, or itinerant poore Priest, that happens to say Prayers there three or foure times in a yeare: There is yet a competent Indowment of Right, belonging to it (now improv’d to above £200 a yeare) which had (it seemes) ben alienated from it in Queene Elizabeths time, by virtue of an Inquisition unjustly taken, upon pretence of its being Chauntry-Land, which invested it in the Crowne, and out of which it was granted to my Lady Harveys Mother (I suppose) and her heyres etc. – It since appeares, that this had realy never been Chauntry Land for the maintenance of a Masse-Priest to pray for the Soule of a particular Person; but a Chapell of Ease to divers large Parishes, and to that intent endowed by Sir – – – Hales (about the Reigne of Hen Edward 4th) who built, and lies-buried

1 Sidney Godolphin, 1st earl of Godolphin (1645–1712; ODNB, H, Diary). The son of Sir Francis Godolphin and a close friend in Evelyn’s later life, Godolphin began his career as a page of honour to the king in 1662 and was a Cornish MP (1668–81). Godolphin was initially master of the robes and then commissioner of the Treasury. He became secretary of state in 1684, the year in which he was made a baron. He was also commissioner of the Treasury in 1687–8. From 1690 to 1696 he was head of the Treasury and, though having had to resign in 1696, he was made first lord of the Treasury in 1700–1 and lord high treasurer from 1702 to 1710. He married Margaret Blagge, with whom Evelyn had contracted an intense spiritual relationship, in 1675, without his knowledge. See Sundstrum, Sidney Godolphin and Harris, Transformations of Love. 2 Oakwood is a parish immediately south of Evelyn’s birthplace, Wotton, in Surrey.

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in it. – All that is desired of Mr. Harvey3 is, that his Lady, out of charity, and commiseration to a thousand poore Christians, (who live far remoate from the Mother Churches, in a Wild, and Desart Country, and are Consequently very ignorant and barbarous) would out of [lands] formerly belonging to the Chapell, and situate in the two greater Parishes, Restore to it a Subsistence of £40 or £50 a yeare (or what other Competency her Ladyship shall think fit) for the maintenance of some pious Man to Officiate, Preach and Catechise, amongst the poore People, who are most of them meere heathens. In good earnest, it would draw Compassion from any Christians heart, to consider the blindnesse they live in, for want of somebody to Instruct them! The place is exceedingly ruinous, but the Gentlemen of the Country, would (I am very Confident, and dare almost undertake) put it into good repaire, upon this encouragement; and I am sure the Beneficiaries (who are so many destitute poore Soules) would to all their Generations, have reason to blesse God for Mr. Harvey, acknowledge their noble Patronesse, and be eternaly obliged to your Charity, which (whither you succeede or no) will be rewarded in another place, for your pious disposition, and recommendation of their suite. I may possibly be mistaken as to some Circumstances of time, and nicer Particulars; but, if Mr. Harvy and his Lady desire it, My Brother and I and some other Gentlemen of the Country, will waite upon him, and give them farther Satisfaction: But this I think is the state of the Case, as to the maine, and I am sure, is an object worthy their generosity and charity, which (with your Assistance) will, I am perswaded, sufficiently weigh with those noble persons: I should now beg pardon for the trouble I give you upon so very little merite of my owne, if something did not well assure me, that you will esteeme no paines too greate, by which you may promote so good a work. I am Sir etc. Sayes-Court 21 June-1673

3 Probably the founder of the chapel in 1290 was Edward de la Hale who lived under Edward I. The wife of John Hervey (1616–80; ODNB) was owner of the lands associated with Oakwood Chapel. See Manning and Bray, History and Antiquities of Surrey (1809), II, 159 and Letter 730 to Thomas Tenison.

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Dorothy Graham1 Letter 358 [355] June 23, 1673 f 191

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCLV To Mrs. Dorothy Howard etc. Maid of Honor to the Queene etc.

[RM: *Since Married to Mr. Graham2 of the Privy Purse to the Duke of York etc. and afterwards to him when King:] Madame, Your Ladyship may remember that my Lady Saunderson3 threatn’d us the honour of accompanying some of the Ladys (her daughters) to this place on Moneday next; and that You believed her Majestie the Queene, might possibly call in, at her returne from the *Camp, [RM: *on Black-heath] perhaps the same day: My wife humbly desires you will be so obliging as to send her word, whether my Lady Saundersons resolutions continue; and whether she comes to Dinner: As for the Queene, I told her you had promis’d me to advertise us the day before, that my Wife may not be surpriz’d, and for want of providing such poore refreshments as the place afords: – You are my noble Charge, and I am by her Majesties favour, and your permission Madame Your etc. Sayes-Court 23 June: –1673.

1 Dorothy Graham, née Howard (c.1652–1701; Diary). She was the daughter of William Howard, 4th son of the 1st earl of Berkshire and Elizabeth Dundas, and sister of Ann Sylvius. She was a maid of honor to Anne Hyde, duchess of York and later to Catherine of Braganza, and after marrying James Graham she went to live near her sister in Bagshot. 2 James Graham (Grahme) (1650–1730; ODNB, H). After attending Christ Church, Oxford, he was admitted to the Inner Temple. He rose to be a colonel and keeper of the Privy Purse to James II. He was an MP in 1685 and again from 1705–27 and was a friend of Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland, who was one of Evelyn’s protégés. He was the creator of an important garden at Levens Hall in Cumbria. 3 The wife of Sir William Sanderson (1586–1676; ODNB), she was mother to the maids of honour and would have known Dorothy and Ann Howard as well as Margaret Godolphin.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Clifford Letter 359 [356] August 21, 1673* f 191

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Epistle CCCLVI To my Lord High *Treasurer1

[RM: *Clifford] My Lord, According to my duty, I send your Lordship the letters and Papers, which your Lordship has ben pleasd to trust me withall, for the compiling of that part of the History of the late Warr,2 which (having receiv’d both his Majesties and your Lordships approbation) I designe to publish, and the rather, because I have no other meanes to expresse my greate Obligations to your Lordship, than to set that forth, in which your Lordships Courage and Virtue has ben so conspicuous: And now my Lord, the greate Abillitie, Uprightnesse and Integritie which your Lordship has made to give lusture through the rest of those high Offices and Charges which you have rather dignified, than they your Lordship, makes me deeply perfectly deplore your Lordships so solemn, so extraordinary and so voluntarie a Recesse: I am deepely sensible of my owne greate losse by it; because I have found your Lordship has ever ben the most obliging to me; but much more of the publique: I pray God to blesse your Lordship and humbly beg this favour, that you will still reguard me as your most gratefull Beneficiary, and reckon me amongst the number of those who not onely make the sincerest Professions, but who realy are what they professe,3 which is to be Says-Court My Lord etc. Says-Court 21: August –1672

1 The letter is misdated. Clifford had resigned his office on 19 June 1673 and been replaced by Thomas Osborne. Evelyn describes a visit to Clifford “about this time” (18 August; Diary IV.18), when he “restored to him several papers of state, & other importances, which he had furnished me with, upon ingaging me to write the historie of the Holland War” (18). Clifford’s resignation was a setback for Evelyn in his pursuit of a settlement in his dispute with William Prettyman: “For the rest my Lord Clifford was a valiant, uncorrupt gent: ambitious, not Covetous, generous, Passionate, and a most constant sincere friend to me in particular; so as when he lay’d downe his office, I was at the end of all my hopes, and endeavors; which were not for high matters, but to obtaine what his Majestie was realy indebted to my F. in law, which was the uttmost of my ambition, and which I had undoubtedly don, if this friend had stood” (20). 2 Although one manuscript of part of this work survives (Add 78401), this work was subsequently suppressed by the king, following complaints by the Dutch ambassador (Diary IV.41), after Navigation and Commerce, which includes “the Beginning of our late Differences with Holland” was published in 1674. Another manuscript on this subject, “The History of the late Dutch Warr” was lent to Pepys in December 1681 and is now lost (see Add 15948: f 156 [5.12.1681]). 3 Evelyn records his leave-taking from Clifford: “L: Clifford, wringing me by the hand, & earnestly looking on me, he bid me god buy, adding, Mr. E: I shall never see thee more; no I my L: whats the

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Henrietta Yarborough1 Letter 360 [357] November 22, 1673 f 191r–v

Epistle CCCLVII To my Lady Yarbery:

Madame, I was never more Sensible of my penurie than now, that my Improvidence has render’d me uncapable of Serving your Ladyship: To the reproch of my extreame negligence, I have of late Yeares, almost totaly abandon’d the Culture of Flowers2 (unlesse such as are the most vulgar) having exchanged that agreable toile for the propagation of the ruder Trees, and that are not altogether so obnoxious to the seasons: This Madame, your sister, who has sometimes honour’d our poore Villa with her presence, can testifie, as well as the Regret she sees me suffer, for not being in capacity to serve your Ladyship with any thing that is rare, and that if I had ben Master of never so much plenty, the severity and advance of the season, would have depriv’d me the possibility of making you a present worth your acceptance: There is not a roote or bulb that was not lock’d-up in their frozen beds, neere a moneth before your Ladyships letter ariv’d: What else is it I possesse in the World, which so deare a Friend of Mrs. Blaggs might not Command of me? much more, when that Friend is my Lady Yarbrowes, her sister! But the Spring approaching Madame, (if we live so long in these Earthly Paradises) you shall be sure to participate of what my Garden affords and of that have timely notice from Madame etc. Your White-hall 22: November –1673

meaning of this? I hope I shall see you often, and as greate a person againe; No Mr. E: do not expect it, I will never see this Place, this Citty or Court againe, or words of this sound: In this manner, not without mutual tears almost I parted from him: nor long was it after, but the newes was, that he was dead” (Diary III.20). Evelyn goes on to report rumours of a suicide attempt. Clifford died on 13 October. 1 Henrietta Maria Yarborough, née Blagge (1613–60; Diary). Sister of Margaret Godolphin, she married (not later than March 1663) Sir Thomas Yarborough (1637–1716). In the Memoirs of Count Grammont, Hamilton labels her as vain and obsessed with fashion, and describes how she was made a fool of at court on this account by the Marquis de Brisacier ( Memoirs, I.129). It was she who revealed to Evelyn her sister’s marriage to Sidney Godolphin in 1676. 2 Although Evelyn was changing the nature of his garden at this time, his continuing interest in flower cultivation is reflected in his “Elysium Britannicum.” See Laird, “Parterre, Grove, and Flower Garden,” in O’Malley and Wolschke-Bulmahn, John Evelyn’s “Elysium Britannicum” and European Gardening, 171–220.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Obadiah Walker Letter 361 [358] December 22, 1673 f 191v

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Epistle CCCLVIII To Obadia Walker fellow of University Colledge Oxford

Sir, These two Eastern Strangers (Father and Sonne)1 coming to me with so earnest a desire, that I would recommend them to some body whom I knew at Oxford that might bring them to Dr. Pocock;2 I could not but Addresse them to You. By what I can find, their buisinesse is Begging, and to trie what Charity they can meete amongst the Scholars: The Young man speakes good French where ever he has gotten it: They are of the Citty of Nineveh: I have discoursed a little with them about that place, and the old Babylon; of their Religion and state of their Country; but had not time to make any usefull inquirie: They speak Arabic, and talke of Books; but did not satisfie me: If upon the account of their being strangers, or any Virtue in them, you judge it fit to recommend them to the benevolence of Charitable People, perhaps it may be a good-work: I could not refuse them this Civility, comming to me in this manner: I have then no more to add, but that I am Sir Your etc. London: XXII December –1673

Richard Hunt Letter 362 [359] December 16, 1673 f 191v

Epistle CCCLIX To Mr. Hunt at Emanuel Colledge Cambridge1

Mr. Hunt, The solicitude of your Father for your Education, and the Opportunities you have of 1 These men appear in Diary IV.29 but are not named. The Diary notes of “old Nineveh” that they told him: “the ruines being still extant, & vast, wonderfull was the buildings, Vaults, Pillars, & magnificent fragments now buried, & remaining” (29). A contemporary account of what were believed to be the ruins of Nineveh and the Tower of Babel is in J.B. Tavernier, Les six voyages de J. B. Tavernier ... qu’il a fait en Turquie, en Perse et aux Indes (Paris, 1676), I, 175, 213–14. 2 Edward Pococke; see Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning. 1 See Letter 355 to John Breton (28 December 1672).

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Improving your selfe in Academical Studies, will, I make no doubt be of greater force to encourage you, than any-thing I can add, whilst you are in Cambridge, and have so many invitations before you: But I understand you deliberate a little about the choice of your intended profession, and consequently of your Course, and the way you would take. It is yet in my poore opinion, something too early to make any solemn or fix’t Resolutions concerning that; but rather to bend all your endeavors for the furnishing your selfe with Arts, and get a good stock of Instrumental Science of all kinds, which will prove of best Advantage to you; what ever Calling you shall hereafter think fit to pitch upon: And yet, as to that, mithinks, that of a Divine should be of so faire a Prospect to you, that I should not be in paine what to resolve on for the maine of my studies, when I had first pass’d through the Philosophic Cycle: I neede not tell you, that besides the opportunities which your Friends may have to advance you (as to a comfortable subsistence) there is nothing of greater dignitie in itselfe. The study is most ample, and preferrable to all others; the function and service highly Acceptable to God and Man; and there are so many Topicks to induce you to make that your Choice above all other; that I should discredite your Understanding to make any question of it: And therefore I cannot but put in my Symbol with your Father and your Friends inclynations here; that you may not fluctuate about a profession, so long as you have these advantages in your eye, and may do God, and the Church so much service by it: Dr. Breton has lately promis’d me, he will advance you in the Colledge this next season, and if anything more come in my way, that may contribute to your promotion and Improvement, there is none shall do it with more Alacrity Than: Your etc. Sayes-Court 16 December –1673

Christopher Davenport Letter 363 [360] January 12, 1674# ff 191v–2

Epistle CCCXLX To the Reverent Francis* de Sancta Clara etc.

[LM: *alias Davenport a learned and modest Frier:] Sir, A few daies after I receivd the Paper directing me to that Citation out of Binnius,1 touching that passage of St. Cyrills in the Council of Ephesus, I had consign’d my Reflections on it for you to Sir Samuel Tuke, if the consideration of offending a zealous Proselyte (who seem’d displeas’d that any man should so much as doubt of implicitly believing that 1 See Letter 307 to Edward Stillingfleet (4 August 1668); Evelyn is now sending Davenport the text of the earlier letter. The considerable gap in dates raises the question of whether the letter is correctly dated.

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which passes for Catholique amongst you, before it be examin’d) I never yet and more decide had not made me stay for a more favourable Conjuncture: I now send them to you, and am most so confident of your candor and ingenuity, that you will readily accknowledge your mistake; and that (though I am no profess’d Divine, but a poore Christian and a Country Man) you will not reprove the research I have made, as every one is oblig’d to render a Reason of the Faith which is in him: In all humility then, and deference to better Judgements, I submit these papers to you, and will beg of you to pardon the imperfections you meete with as to the style, and Circumstances of nicer disputants entring the lists with such a Champion as Sancta Clara. or that I have not the least [word deleted] inclination to be a troubler of other mens Opinions, but think my selfe engag’d to assert a Truth which is so very obvious, and that you so kindly provoke me to: It is therefore in this private manner that I transmit these sheetes, and to conciliate your better Esteeme of that excellent and orthodox Church of which I accknowledge my selfe a Sonn, without reguard to any outward Circumstances, because she is to be still afflicted: But Truth is Truth and will would soone prevaile, were the pomp, and secular Interests remov’d (and humbly lay’d at the foote of the Crosse) which prejudices her native simplicity, and (I feare) many Confident, and Zealous Men. I am Reverend Father Your etc. Sayes-Court 12: January 1674

Elizabeth Howard1 Letter 364 [361] April 21, 1674 f 192

Epistle CCCLXI To Mistris Howard:

Madame, By a Letter which I have seene from Mr. Peters,2 I find your Sonn Mr. Howard 3 indeavoring to invalidate the Settlement4 which was made for your Ladyships support, and the

1 Elizabeth Howard, née Dundas (d. 1679; Diary, C, P). The daughter of Lowithiel, Lord Dundas, and the widow of William Howard, 4th son of Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Berkshire. She and her two daughters, Ann and Dorothy, lived near Evelyn at Deptford where she was housekeeper to the duke of York at the navy treasurer’s house. 2 unidentified; Evelyn blames Craven Howard’s wife, Anne Ogle, for instigating the suit against his father’s settlement (Diary IV.70–1). 3 Craven Howard 4 This settlement dragged on for another year. On 8 July 1675 Evelyn records: “I went with Mrs. Howard & her two daughters towards Northampton Assises about a Tryal at Law, in which I was Concerned for them

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Portions of your Daughters, by pretending (amongst other Suggestions to deterr your Tennants) that I should tell Mr. Shepherd5 I was sorry for what I had don in serving your Ladyship in that Trust, and that it was so troublesome to me, I could not be quiet in my house for it, and therefore would relinquish it: I am extreamely sorry Mr. Howard should be so undutifull as to attempt the overthrowing of a settlement which I believe to be so just, and to my knowledge, so cherefully the Act of his Father: But as to any such expressions of mine, either to Mr. Shepherd (or any other whosoever) I must and do declare; that I never did speake the least Syllable to that purpose, and therefore your Sonn has ben very ill inform’d. So far am I from being displeas’d that I was nominated by you for a Trustee in a Settlement so reasonable and just, that by the grace of God, I shall persist to Serve you in it so far as I may be usefull to you, looking upon this Act of Mr. Howard to molest your Tennants to proceede from a prejudice which some ill people have given him, and which dos by no meanes become him towards you: In the meane time, I suppose they will be better advis’d, so soone as you shall by your Counsel come to understand upon what equitie you have hitherto proceeded: And this is all which I thinke fit to reply to that part of Mr. Peters letter who am Madame etc. Says-Court 21 Aprill –1674

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 365 [362] May 17, 1674 ff 192–3

CCCLXII To my Sister Evelyn of Woodcot:

My Dearest Sister, If I had not as greate a value for you, as I have for any woman that I now know in the world, I should neither put you to the trouble of reading, nor my selfe to the paines of writing a tedious letter, which has no other errand than to let you know how unfortunate I think my-selfe to have lived so long in but a meere suspicion of so much unworthynesse, as you have lately discover’d; and what most afflicts me: That the Person for whom I ever had so intire an esteeme, and thought so pure, should give an eare to it, and harbour it so long in her breast: Sister; by all that’s holy, and as I hope for the mercy of my dearest Saviour (than which, I have nothing greater to assever by) It was from your owne mouth that I first ever heard the least whisper of it: My Expressions have ben so infinitely distant from any thing of that nature, that as I never in my life heard Syllable of it before; so nor as a Trusteè.” (Diary IV.67). Its successful outcome in favour of Mrs. Howard is recorded on 15 July by Edward Thurland (IV.70).The daughters were given pensions of £200 per annum (CSP Dom. 1673–5: 215). 5 possibly the “Mr. Stephness” identified in the diary (IV.67) as their lawyer in this matter

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did I ever so much as imagine it in my whole life: Be aboundantly assur’d, I have call’d my-selfe to the most accurate Scrutinie, of all encounters, and occasions of freedome, that I can possibly summon to my Memorie, for but one disloyal Thought concerning you: And I here solemnly protest, I cannot find it out; but this I find, (and to my sorrow speake it) that I have ben depriv’d of the greatest solace of my life, if not by the mistakes which have interrupted it; by the Malevolence of buisy-bodies, unmannerly and wretched people: And I am heartily glad that the Person is yet alive, whom you say, you can charge with this good Office; because (if you have any Charity for him or his) you will be oblig’d to give them notice of the injurie they have don the Innocent, and how highly it concernes ’em to Repent of it. I feare no mortals face upon this account, and therefore you ought to do me right in it, and you shall see I will use it discreetely, and to your full satisfaction: But is it possible (Sister) that all this Diffidence, Formalitie, and Strange lookes, under wich our Families have labour’d (notwithstanding all the Endeavors I have express’t to remove it, and to have liv’d like the most indear’d Relations) should proceede from so deadly a Source? Do you believe my Malice so deepe to my Brother Glanville1 that it should extend to the wounding the Reputation of one who never us’d me ill? Have you not rather observ’d me to be out of all Countenance at the liberty which some of my neerest Friends did use too often to indulge, and to suffer their Reproches, as a singular fop; because I tooke no felicity in that sort of meane and unhandsome Raillery? What ever may have passd in this kind; I conjure you to believe, that I never had purer thoughts of my Mother, or my Wife, than of the Person, whose honour you tell me was concern’d: Ah Sister! you do not, you cannot believe it, and after all this I challenge your Goodnesse, and your esteeme for me, and with all that will you hardly recompense me the Injurie don me, and the wound you have given me, who deserv’d it not of your hands: That you could entertaine so vile an Image of one, who have had, and express’d as much veneration for your Virtues, as I have ben able to describe, upon all occasions, and ever reguarded you as exemplarie a Person, as any I ever know alive. How often have I put my deare Brother in mind of his obligations to you! how often expressd even my particular sense of your kindnesse to him! and if he were amongst us againe, he must and would accknowledge that I have more than once admir’d your Perfections, and conjur’d him to make your life easy, and agreable, for the aboundance of good you brought him in your virtuous Person, and other Circumstances of fortune, and am I thus requited! I had that onely Brother in the World whom I intirely lov’d, with a desire of something reciprocal, and to be loved againe, and there be some who know, how sadly I have complain’d, that I could hardly obtaine his Confidence in me of late, but there seem’d a Reserve, and a kind of drynesse when we met, that I could never interpret: But I now heartily forgive him; since if he went out of the World with an Impression of such an Injurie, he had reason for all this; 1 This is the beginning of the complicated involvement of Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn’s neighbour and sister, Lady Anne Lewknor (c.1634–1704; Diary), with two branches of Evelyn’s immediate family, here with his brother-in-law William Glanville (see Letter 663, note 1). The precise nature of the rumours which Evelyn repudiates is not clear, but Evelyn’s earlier correspondence with his sister-in-law (e.g., Letters 320 and 329) suggests a history of misunderstandings between them and possible friction between the brothers (see also Darley, John Evelyn, 106).

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but he ought also (like a Brother and a Friend) to have declar’d it, that we might have embrac’d one-another upon the evidence of my Innocency: For I solemnly protest, that I lov’d him passionately and as my owne soule, and have given God an Account of it, in my seacret Recollections, and most affectionate expostulations for him, when I did not think it becoming me, to Indulge his extreame apprehensions, by over passionate bewailing his Condition before him; because I found nothing did him more injury; though for this behaviour of mine, I have gon with some, for a man of no greate bowels. My Brother Glanville has of many yeares treated me with greate Indifference, not to name it Scorne: But himselfe shall pronounce, if (after all his most envious Inquiries, and buisy genius) he dos not avowe my Innocence, and under what hard, and unjust Censures I have layen amongst some of my friends, without the least cause: It is his owne Ingenuity, and returne to better nature, which has at last made him acknowledge and deplore it, without the least complyance of mine, who never could yet comprehend how I incurr’d his displeasure, unlesse it were for sometimes defending my Impertinencies with that Zeale, which has offended you, and others of our Relations Diversion, according to the Estimation they have of a sort of Raillery, little, very little becoming them: Pardon this period Sister, I must speake truth – It is meane and very ill bread Conversation. Do not marvaille then, that I have now some greater value for him, since he values himselfe, by accknowledging it a fault: I never tooke him to be ill natur’d, though something tenacious, and obnoxious to passion; we have all our Infirmities; and if there were no more in it than that of the extraordinary Respect I have seene and heard him expresse towards you, and my Brother, I should think my selfe oblig’d to love him, and wish him all the good fortune and happinesse imaginable, and as I have expressly don to my Lady Leuknor,2 which is the summ of what I know in the world he thinkes to be the greatest; but which I perceive sister, you give me little thanks for: You have however some Obligations to this Gentleman that can hardly be payed with a lesser Oblation, than your uttmost assistance in his behalfe: It has (I heare also) ben believed by you, that I am now of another Opinion than formerly, as to another old Intrigue: Verily Sister, I will declare it sincerely, and that I have ben aboundantly Convinc’d of the Moral Lawfullnesse of such a Match,3 long before there was any discourse about that particular Concerne; and when you shall but a little cast your Eye and thoughts over what Dr. Taylor 4 has expressly written and published (in his Cases of Conscience) upon that subject; I will not perswade you to alter your Opinion, for Reason will constraine you: I do not say, I should have don what some may possibly fancy, or wish; but this I affirme, I should have freely prefer’d a worthy Relation before a Stranger; but do not say in the meane time, that I have any Relation that is worthy my Niepce,5 or that you have not don discreetely in resolving otherwise: For though I have 2 Lady Anne Lewknor, née Mynne (c.1634–1704; Diary). Sister of Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, she was first married in 1649 to Sir John Lewknor and secondly to Sir William Morley. Lady Tuke writes to Mary Evelyn in 1684 of having seen “a Letter of the intrigue” between her and William Montagu (Add 78435: f 88 [21.3.1684]). 3 This is a reference to the match between Anne Evelyn and William Montagu (c.1652–91) who subsequently alienated the Evelyn property, Baynards. 4 Jeremy Taylor. Evelyn refers to his Ductor dubitantium. 5 Anne Montagu, née Evelyn

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not ben privy to my Brother and your designe in this greate affaire and that I ingenuously confesse (if I had ben consulted) I should have thought altogether as well of some other proposals were made you, both by my Lord Ashley,6 and Sir William Farmor:7 Yet, since your better Judgement has otherwise conceived, I cannot but say, you have pitch’d upon a very honorable Family, and that Mr. Montague has the repute of a very worthy person; and therefore my respects shall allways go along with your choice, without the least resentiment, and as becomes a Gentleman: Let not therefore (deare Sister) any idle, or impertinent buisy people whoever prejudice me to you in this matter: Thus, Sister, you have my heart, ther’s nothing behind that I know, and if there were a thought in it unbecoming my profession (of truely honoring you) I would tare out of my brest: I am Sister Your etc. Sayes Court 17 May –1674

Anne Lewknor Letter 366 [363] May 17, 1674 f 193

Epistle CCCLXIII To my Lady Leukner: etc.

Madame, It may appeare somewhat surprizing that I should importune you at this time, and in this manner, if it were not in an afaire which dos with all well natur’d, and generous persons, use to excuse greater extravagances, than what it is possible should proceede from one, who so highly, and so truely honors you, as I realy do: It is not of late daies, that I am witnesse of the infinite esteeme which my Brother Glanville1 has in particular for my Lady Lewknor, above all of her worthy Sex in the world: I may date my Observations of his extraordinary value for her from a long day, and when he has not complimented others of the sex for at the least 20 yeares; which has much confirm’d me, that she has liv’d in his heart with all the honor and veneration imaginable: But it is (I confesse) Madame not long since, that all his Reservations, and art to Conceale this Respect, could possibly hide from me, the continuance and tendency of it in another style, than what he formerly us’d to expresse; because you were not in a capacity to take notice of it, and to cherish it, as it is now in your power to do; and in doing whereof, I sincerely professe, I cannot think you will do anything mis-becoming either your honor, or your Prudence: For Madame, what is it that can render us happy in this life, beyond a faithfull, a tryed, and a discreete 6 Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st earl of Shaftesbury, on behalf of his son Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 2nd earl of Shaftesbury (1651–99). See Letter 328 to Sir Paul Neile. 7 William Fermor, Baron Leominster (1648–1711; ODNB) 1 William Glanville, who did not marry Lady Lewknor

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Friend? A person of whose Conversation, Use-fullnesse, and Obliging-nature, you have had so long experience, and who in a period of so many Vicissitudes and changes, as those late times have produced, you must needes have found to be of a Constant, friendly, and equal disposition? It is true, that God has endow’d you with all the advantages, and attracts, which either Nature or Fortune can contribute, to render you desireble and happy: But, it is that Madame which prompts me to wish you would be kind to a Person in whom you may be confident to be yet more happy; since it is not Riches alone which can secure it, and that we daily find it so often a temptation to presumptuous, and lesse worthy men, to make that the object of their desires, and mistris of their Addresses: But, what of that Nature can enter into your consideration, whom Providence and Fortune have plac’d in a station to be able to make a Friend happy, which (for my part) I esteeme the greatest, and noblest Condition that can happen to any mortal; and I know my Brother Glanvilles nature to be so full of respect and gratitude, that what he professes, cannot be with the least mixture or thought of disloyalty: Madame, I have not ben acquainted with him so little time, as not to have known him well, and the kindnesse he has constantly testified to the memorie of my deare deceased Sister,2 and her Child,3 together with the respects he has signaly borne to your Family at Woodcott (in particular your Person) has made it Visible to all your Relations, as well as mine, that he is to be valued, and worthy to be obliged. It may as yet seeme somewhat early (I confesse) that he should importune my Sister ­Evelyn4 to promote his Inclynations, by bespeaking your favour in this language (because her greate losse is yet fresh upon her spirit), but it cannot mis-become my Brother to wish you saw clearely into his heart, nor me, (who am Conscious of his Vowes, and solemnest Professions to serve you all the daies of his life) to add my best Interpretations of his thoughts; Especialy also; since I am assur’d by him, that my Sister (who knows so well, how generously he has sacrific’d his Interests to her Satisfaction, and which cannot be conceald from your Ladyship) will not any-way prejudice his Addresses, or hinder the kind Effects of your kindnesse and respect: Having her promise and word (as my Brother assures me he has) I should be utterly unworthy but to imagine, she should tempt you to the least Aversion to a Gentleman, who has likewise so faithfully serv’d her, as to my Observation he has don upon many tryals and encounters, and your Ladyship cannot more oblige the Relations of my Late deceased Brother (if upon that account Madame, you retaine any respects for them) than in your kindnesse to my Brother Glanville who besides that he is a Gentleman that can still live honorably upon his owne fortune, seekes you for nothing that will diminish you. Deare Madame, I have written a bold Letter but your innate goodnesse, and that particular Civilitie you have ever shew’d me for many Yeares, may excuse the presumption which I have taken to entertaine you upon this Subject; since it is not possible I should betray you, or do anything unworthy one, for whom I am sure,

2 Jane Glanville 3 William Glanville Jr 4 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn

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you have some value; and that it can serve no particular Interest of my owne, beyond that of my wishes to render you as happy, as I wish the worthiest and best Lady in the world: etc.

Sayes-Court 17: May: –1674

Ralph Bathurst Letter 367 [364] June 6, 1674 f 193

Epistle CCCLXIV To Dr. Fell, Deane of Christ Church Bathurst President Trinity Colledge and Vice Chancellor of Oxford etc.

Sir, If I had not a greate deale of Reason to deplore my owne Imperfections, I should not blush (as I have reason to do) at the honors1 which have ben don me, and the very-greate Civilitys I acknowledge to have received by the glorious Monument, and Elogie you have sent me:2 That my Name, and Small Adventures have any Rank in so famous a Register, was rather due to me from the Justice of the Industrious Publisher, who tooke in (I find) the bad, as well as the best, than from any merite of the Author. But however Sir, I can worthily Intitle my selfe to nothing which the University and Mr. Vice Chancellor have accumulated on me, by this Illustrious and Noble Present, and other Honors which they have conferr’d on me; Yet, I can be thankfull, and highly sensible of the infinite Obligations I have to both who am, Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 6: June: –1674

1 Evelyn had been given an honorary doctorate on 15 July 1669 (Diary III.535) from Oxford in thanks for his part in the acquisition by Oxford of the “Marmora Arundeliana.” 2 Evelyn may be referring to the act of convocation of 17 October 1667, which he cites in his letter to Robert Plot (16 March 1683; Letter 456): “Quo die e[x]statit ad Senatum Academicum, Dominus Vicecancellarius, quantum Universitas deberet singulari benevolentiae Johannis Evelyn Armigeri, qui pro ea pie[t]ate quâ Almam Matrem prosequitur, non solum suasu et Consilio apud inclitum Heroem Henricum Howard Ducis Norfolciae haeredem intersit, et Universitati pretiosissimum Eruditæ Antiquitatis Thesaurum Marmora Arundeliana largiretur; sed egregium insuper in iis Colligendis asservandisque navavit operam.” See also “Epigr: Verses and Inscriptions sent me from Learned Persons, which should have ben engraven in Marble, and set up at Oxford in acknowledgement of my Procuring them The Greek Marmora Arundeliana” (Add 78359: ff 23–5). Evelyn claimed that he would not allow then to be published as “to[o] greate a Vanity in me.”

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Margaret Cavendish Letter 368 [365] June 15, 1674# f 193v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCLXV To the Dutchesse of New Castle etc. at Bolsover:1

[LM: When she sent me her Graces Works by Sir Francis Topp:2 etc.] May it please your Grace, I go not into my study without Reproch to my prodigious Ingratitude, whilst I behold such a pile of favours, and Monuments of your incomparable Spirit,3 without having yet had the good fortune, or the good manners indeede to make my Recognitions as becomes a person so immensely Obliged: That I presume to make this Small Present to your Grace (who were pleas’d to accept my Collection of Architects,4 to whom Timber and Planting is are subsidiaries) is not for the dignitie of the Subject (though Princes have not disdain’d to cultivate Trees, and Gardens with the same hands they manegd Scepters) but because it is the best Expression of my Gratitude that I can returne: Nor Madame, is it that by this I pretend to pay all my homage for that Glorious Present, which merits so many 1 It is unlikely that this exercise in mock-panegyric was ever sent to its nominal addressee, if only since she had been dead for six months prior to its assigned date. It is likely a jeu d’esprit, probably composed several years earlier (most likely after her visit to the Royal Society in 1667 when the Cavendishes visited London, and Margaret published her biography of her husband, and he his treatise on horsemanship, both acknowledged as gifts below), and intended to mock extravagant epideictic rhetoric and to be circulated among his family and friends, some of whom shared his opinion of her. See Mary Evelyn’s account when the duke and duchess visited London in April, 1667: “I found Doctor Charlton with her complementing her witt and learning in a high manner, which she tooke to be so much her due that she swore if the schooles did not banish Aristotle and read Margaret Duchesse of Newcastle they did her wrong, and deserued to be uterly abolished. My part was not yet to speake but admire, especially hearing her go on Magnifying her owne generous actions statly buildings Noble fortune, her Lords prodigious losses in the war, his power valour witt learning and indeed what did she not mention to his or her own advantage ... [N]ever did I see a woman so full of her selfe, so amasingly vaine and ambitious” (Add 78438: ff 1v–2 [April 1667]; in Diary [1887], IV.8–9). On this occasion, Evelyn notes her “extraordinary fancifull habit, garb, & discourse” (Diary III.478). 2 Francis Topp (c.1630–76; C). Created baronet in 1668, he had assumed management of the Cavendishes’ affairs on their return to England. See Grant, Margaret the First, 229–30. 3 the books presented to him by Margaret Cavendish: Plays, never before printed (London, 1668; Evelyn Library, no 1075: “Given me by her Grace: the Dutchesse of New-Castle”); and The Life of the thrice Noble ... Prince, William Cavendishe, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle, etc. (London, 1667). In The Rehearsal Transpros’d, Marvell suggests Samuel Parker is “so far in love with his own Whelp, that, as a Modern Lady, he will be at the charge of translating his Works into Latin, transmitting them to the Universities, and dedicating them in the Vaticane.” Marvell, Prose Works I, 66. 4 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664). Evelyn imagines sending her a copy of Sylva with this letter in response to the books received from the Cavendishes. She acknowledges the book in a letter of 9 February 1670 (Add 78688: f 54 [2.9.1670] and Diary [1887] III.226), stating that it “all which proves you more proper to be the head than a member of the Royal Society.”

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Encomiums, or write a Panegyric of your Virtues, which all the World admires,5 least the Indignitie of my style should Prophane a thing so sacred; but to repeate my Admiration of your Genius, and Sublime Wit, so comprehensive of the most abstracted Appearances, and so admirable in your Sex, or rather in your Graces person alone, which I never call to mind, but to rank it amongst the Heroines and Constellate with the Graces. Such of antient daies were Zenobia Queene of Palmyras6 that writ the Historie of her Country, as your Grace has don that of my Lord Duke your Husband,7 worthy to be transmitted to 5 Pepys “met my Lady Newcastle, going with her coaches and footmen all in velvet; herself (whom I never saw before) as I have often heard her described (for all the town-talk is nowadays of her extravagancies)” (26 April 1667; Pepys Diary VIII.186). 6 This list is largely derived from Lucretia Marinella, Le Nobilità et Eccellenze delle Donne, et i Diffetti, e Mancamenti de gli huomini (Venice, 1600), to which Evelyn refers below. See Marinella, The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men. Important precedents are Boccaccio’s De Mulieribus Claris and Castiglione’s Il Libro del Cortegiano III.21–40. See McLeod, Virtue and Venom. Zenobia, queen of Palmyra (3rd c AD), “a great scholar of languages who produced an abridged version of the History of Alexandria ’” (Marinella, 85); Pliny’s wife was Calpurnia, the daughter of Calpurnia Hispulla (Letters 4.19) who accompanied the couple to Bithynia; Pulcheria (399–453) acted as regent for her brother, the Eastern Roman emperor Theodosius, and was famed for her participation in the Council of Chalcedon (451); Anna Comnena (1043–1148), daughter of Alexius I, is famed for her Alexiad, a history of her father’s life and reign; Cornelia (2nd c BC), “daughter of Scipio Africanus and mother of the Gracchi” (Marinella, 84); Isabella of Castile (1451–1504) married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469 and was the mother of Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536) and of Isabella, queen of Portugal; Lucrezia d’Este (1480–1519) was the duchess of Ferrara, and a patron of poets and artists; Vittoria Colonna (1492–1547) wrote a series of poems (Rime spirituali), was friend and patron of Sannazaro, Bembo, and Castiglione, and exchanged sonnets with Michelangelo; Maria of Aragon (1482–1517) was married to King Juan III of Portugal; Fabiola (d. c.399), “received great praise in the epistles of Saint Jerome for [her] rare knowledge of holy letters” (Marinella 92); St Catherine of Siena (1347–80), “whose letters and dialogues show us the wisdom with which she was gifted” (Marinella, 92); St Bridget of Sweden (1303–73), “who left us a noble book of her revelations” (Marinella, 92); St Teresa of Avila (1515–82) was elevated to the status of doctor of the church by Pope Paul VI, and is probably best known for El Camino de Perfección (1583); Olivia Fulvia Morata (1526–55) wrote letters, dialogues, and Greek verses which were first published in 1558; Isabella Andreini (1562–1604) was the leading lady of one of the famous commedia dell’arte companies (the Gelosi), and author of a pastoral play (Mirtilla); Catherine des Roches (1542–87) was at the centre of a literary circle in Poitiers; Claudia Caterina di Clermont (1543–1603) ran a literary salon in Paris and was a supporter of the Pléiade; Marie de Gournay (1565–1645) was Montaigne’s “fille d’alliance,” and editor and commentator of his Essais; Anna Maria Schurman (1607–78) was a Dutch linguist who wrote poetry in Greek, Latin, French, and Hebrew and corresponded with Pierre Gassendi; Jane Seymour (1509–37), the third wife of Henry VIII and mother of Edward VI, was the author (with her sisters Anne and Margaret) of a Latin elegy for Marguerite de Navarre (1550); Elizabeth Jane Weston (1582–1612), published two volumes of neo-Latin verse; Katherine Phillips (“the matchless Orinda”) was a friend of Jeremy Taylor and famous as the author of Poems (1664); the three daughters of Sir Thomas More were all reputed learned – one, Margaret Roper, published A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster (1525). Christina of Sweden (1626–89) was queen from 1644–54 during which time she encouraged science and literature and invited Descartes to her court, who dedicated Les Principes de la philosophie (1644) to Elizabeth (1618–80), the daughter of the queen of Bohemia and sister of Charles I. 7 a bathetic allusion to The Life of … William Cavendishe, Duke, Marquess, and Earl of Newcastle, etc. (London, 1667). Says Pepys (18 March 1668): “stayed at home reading the ridiculous history of my Lord Newcastle wrote by his wife, which shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer [her] to write what she writes to him and of him” (Pepys Diary IX.123).

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posteritie. What should I speake of Hispylas, the Mother in Law of young Plinie, and of his admirable Wife! of Pulcheria, Daughter to the Emperor Ariadius, or of Anna, who cal’d Alexius Father, and writ 15 books of Historie etc. Your Grace has Title to all their Perfections: I passe Cornelia so neere the great Scipio and Mother of the Gracchi, to come to the later Wits, Isabella Queene of Castile, wife of Ferdinand King of Aragon, of which bed came the Fift Charles, and the Mother of fowre learned Daughters, of which One was Catharine, Wife to our Henry the 8th; Mary of Portugal, Wife to John Duke of Braganςa, related to her Majestie the Queene Consort rarely skill’d in the Mathematical Sciences; so was her sister, Espoused to Alexander Duke of Parma: Lucretia d’Este of the House of Ferrara Dutchesse of Urbin, a profound Philosopher; Vittoria Colonna Wife of Ferdinand d’Avila, Marquis of Pescaria, whose Pöetrie equal’d that of the renouned Petrarch: Hippolita Strozzi Daughter to Francis Duke of Milan, Mary of Arragon, Marques de Vasco; Fabiala, Marcella, Eustochium, St. Catharine of Sienna, & St. Briget and Theresa (for even the greatest Saints, have cultivated the sciences) Fulvia Morata, Isabella Andreini, Margarite of Valois, Sister to Francis the First (and Grandfather mother to the greate Henry of France) whose Novells are equal to those of the Witty Boccacio, and the Memoires of another Margarite wife of this greate Prince, that Name having ever ben so fertil for Ladys of the sublimest Genius:8 Catharine de Roches of Poitieres was a celebrated Wit, and Claudia de Cleremont Dutchesse of Retz, Mary de Gournay, and the famous Anna M. Schurman; And of our owne Country Queene Elizabeth, Queen Jane, The Lady Weston, Mrs. Philips our late Orinda, The Daughters of Sir Thomas More, The Queene Christina of Sweden, and Elizabeth daughter of a Queene also, to whom the renouned Des Cartes dedicated his learned Workes, and the profound Researches of his extraodinary Talent. But, all these, I say, Summ’d together possesse not but that divided which your Grace retaines in One; so as Lucretia Marinella, who writ a Book dell’Eccellentia delle Donne, et defetti d’huomini, had no neede to have assembled so many Instances and arguments to adorne her Work, had she lived to be Witnesse of Margarite Dutchesse of New Castle, to have read her Writings, and to have heard her discourse of the Sciences she comprehended.9 I do, madame, Acknowledge my Astonishment, and can hardly think 8 Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549) (Evelyn’s “Margarite of Valois”) and Marguerite de Valois (1553– 1615), both prefiguring in name the addressee of this letter 9 A month after the meeting described by Mary Evelyn (note 1) Cavendish visited the Royal Society (30 May 1667). Evelyn refers to her on this occasion as “a mighty pretender to Learning, Poetrie & Philosophie” (Diary III.482–3). Pepys arrived that evening at Arundel House “where I find much company, endeed very much company, in expectation of the Duchesse of Newcastle, who had desired to be invited to the Society, and was, after much debate pro and con, it seems many being against it, and we do believe the town will be full of ballets of it” (Pepys Diary VIII.242–3). One such ballad, addressed to Sir Joseph Williamson, and assigned to Evelyn by de Beer and Robert Lanham on the basis of a copy in the state papers (SP 29/450 ff 131–2), is also in his collection of miscellaneous and occasional verse (Add 78357: f 26r–v) with the note “To the tune of Sir John Suckling’s I’ll tell the[e] Dick”: But Jô, her head-gear was so pritty I n’ere saw any thing so witty    Thô I was half a fear’d Blesse us! when that I first did see her, She look’d so like a Cavalier    But that she had no beard.

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to[o] greate of those Soules, who resembling your Graces, seeme to be as it were wholy Separate from Matter, and to revolve nothing in their Thoughts but Universal Ideäs: For what of sublime, and worthy in the Nature of Things, dos not your Grace Comprehend and Explaine! What of greate, and noble, that your Illustrious Lord has not adorn’d: For I must not forget the Munificent present of his glorious and Usefull Book of Horsemanship,10 together with your Graces Worke upon all the profound, as well as Politer Subjects, which I received of Sir Francis Top; from both your Graces: But this Accumulation ought to be the Argument of a fresh, and more ample Accknowledgement, for which this Paper is too narrow. Madame Sir Richard Browne kisses both your Graces hands; And my Wife (whom you have ben pleas’d to dignifie by the name of your Daughter): And to tell her that you looke upon her as your owne, for a Mothers sake of hers11 (who had so greate a Veneration of your Grace) Presents her most humble duty to you by Madame etc. Says-Court: 15. June: –1674

Robert Boyle Letter 369 [366] June 20, 1674 ff 193v–4

Epistle CCCLXVI To Robert Boyle Esquire1

Sir, I have ben too long a debter to you for the many Obligations you have ben pleas’d to accumulate upon me; but for none more, than for the Book2 lately brought me by 10 also presentation copies: William Cavendish, A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses (London, 1667; Evelyn Library, no 1077), inscribed “Ex dono Illustriss. Authoris: 1668, Catalogo Evelyni Inscriptus: Meliora Retinete”; and Methode et inuention nouuelle de dresser les cheuaux (Antwerp 1657, changed by hand to 1658; Evelyn Library, no 1076), inscribed “Ex dono Illustriss. Authoris Evellendo Cultior.” 11 Elizabeth Prettyman Browne. The Brownes had known the duke and duchess well in Paris. They had been married in Sir Richard Browne’s chapel (with Elizabeth acting as mother of the bride), and had been guests at John and Mary’s wedding, the duke contributing verses to the occasion (Add 32497: ff 145v–6; see Darley, John Evelyn, 71 and 74), to which Evelyn replied in “To the Marquis of New-Castle in Answer to his Verses upon my Marriage” (Add 78357: ff 22v–3). 1 The version of this letter printed in Boyle, Correspondence, IV, 383–4 derives from a scribal copy in the Pierpont Morgan Library. Unlike Letter 368, which it superficially resembles in genre, this letter of thanks to Boyle was sent to its addressee. 2 The Excellency of Theology, compar’d with Natural Philosophy, as both are objects of men’s study (London, 1674; in the 1687 library catalogue, now Eve.a.82). His “return” was probably Navigation and Commerce (1674). Although Evelyn published few religious works in his lifetime, his manuscript devotions

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Mr. ­Oldenburge;3 and I am sorry the Poore Returne I make, beares so unequal a proporion to the inestimable Treasure I have receiv’d: I Confesse, I have (as well as all the World) ben ever an admirer of your Excellent Talent, and of the many greate Endowments, with which God has signaly bless’d you; but for nothing do I so sincerely love, and realy embrace you, as for that rare Piety, and those beames of heavenly Light, which I find to illustrate all your Writings and Conversations: After all you have seene of men, and read of Bookes, and experimented of things; what a blessed Choice have you made? But thus I remember you* [RM: *Seraphic Love]4 began, Thus you proceede, and thus (I am sure) you will conclude. I must Acknowledge, and deplore how vaine and unhappy I have hitherto ben, to have ever with any Solicitude, sought for Satisfaction in the Disquisition, and studies to which my Vanitie has at any time imported me: Very shallow and trifling have ben all my pursuites, compar’d with the many Usefull, and solid things which you have so gloriously produc’d: But still you find me blotting Paper: Forgive me this once, and be assur’d; that as I was not altogether the Cause of this Publication; so, nor has the Argument any sort of affinitie with my Genius:5 It has ben now for some Yeares my Endeavor, and resolution to Serve God, and to Devote the rest of the time which he shall please to assigne me here, to the Contemplation of those Things which you have Celebrated with so much reason, and pious Argument: I have a little entred into that glorious Vestibule, and find so much Satisfaction superior to all the pleasures that I ever tooke in other speculations, that fortified (as I am) by your excellent discourse and Example, I do not doubt, but I shall go on, and persevere: I am every-day more and more astonish’d at Men of Learning, and reason (as at least, the[y] would be so esteem’d) that they should not be the most Religious Persons in the World: But you have hit the White: There is a certaine Pride, which that knowing spirit dos infuse into them, which hinders the Operation of that more divine and heavenly Spirit, who onely dwells with the humble, and those who sincerely submit unto his Wisedom, however opposite, and Contradictorie it appeares to our corrupted and arrogant Inclinations. Mithinks, one Chapter of St. Paules, [RM: 1. Corinthians 1.] were enough to bring-down those lofty pinacles, as well as the Lives, Confessions, and Examples of so many Saints, and Eminently knowing Persons, as have in all ages submitted their Science, Wit, and prodigious parts to the Scandal of the Crosse, and the foolishnesse of Preaching: I meane, to the Doctrine of the Gospel: But, either men do not believe the things, or will not give themselves leave to Consider them: Blessed be God, that you are not onely, none of them, but an Emulous Instance of that Sanctified and true knowledge, which you so piously recommend: – Sir, the best, and most acceptable

for Margaret Godolphin (Add 78370–92), his Devotionarie Book (published in 1936), and his religious essays (Add 78365–9) reflect these interests. 3 Henry Oldenburg 4 originally titled Some Motives and Incentives to the Love of God (London, 1659; in the 1687 library catalogue) 5 probably a reference to Navigation and Commerce (London, 1674)

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Returne I can ever make you for this noble Present, will be to Cultivate the Choice which you preferr, and become your Proselyte etc. I am Sir, with greate sincerity and Affection Your etc.

Sayes-Court 20: June: –1674

Meric Casaubon Letter 370 [367] July 15, 1674#1 f 194

Epistle CCCLXVII To Dr. Meric Casaubon Isaaci Filius2

Reverend Sir, I am infinitely oblig’d to you for your Civil Reply to my Letter; but am not a little troubl’d, that it should importune you in a time when you were Indispos’d: The stone is an Infirmity, which I am daily taught to Commiserate in my poore afflicted and deare Brother,3 who languishes under that torture and therefore am much concern’d when I heare of any that are exercis’d under that sad Afliction. I will therefore beg of you, that no Impertinence of mine (for truely that Trifle is no other) may ingage you to the least Inconvenience and which may prejudice your Health: You have already greately obliged me, by the hints you are pleas’d to send me,4 and by the Notice you are pleas’d to take of that poore Essay of mine on Lucretius,5 so long since escaping me: You may be sure I was very Young, and therefore very rash, or ambitious, when I adventur’d upon that knotty piece: Tis very true, that when I committed it to a Friend6 of mine (and one whom I am well assur’d you intimately know) to inspect the Printing of it, in my total absence from London, I fully resolv’d never to tamper more with that Author: But when I saw it come forth so miserably deform’d, and (I may say) maliciously printed and mistaken, both in the Latine as well as Copy (which was a most correct and accurate one of Stephens’s) and my Version so miserably inhumanely deprav’d: Shame, and Indignation together incited me to resolve upon another Edition; and, I know not how (to charme my anxious thoughts, during 1 Casaubon died in July 1671. Since this letter seems to refer to their correspondence of 1670 (Letters 324 and 325), a date around this time seems likely. 2 the son of Isaac Casaubon 3 If this is a reference to Richard Evelyn, the letter must predate his death in March 1670. 4 Casaubon had reported (in a letter of 24 January 1670) that his father had written a treatise (De Baculis) on staves as an addition to his work on Theophrastus and promised to send it to Evelyn. Evelyn’s own work on the subject was never published and is in Add 78344: ff 129–35, “The Historie of Staves.” 5 An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus de Rerum Natura (London, 1656) 6 Thomas Triplet

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those sad, and calamitous times) to go- through the five remaining Bookes: But, when I had don, I repented of my folly, and that I had not taken the Caution, you since have given us (in your excellent Enthusiasme)7 and which I might have foreseene: But, to commute for this, it still lies in the dust of my study, where ’tis like to be forever buried: Sir, I returne you a thousand Thanks for the favour and honor you have don me, and which I should have sooner acknowledg’d; had I not ben from home, when your Letter came to my house: I shall now beg of God to restore your health, not for the Satisfaction of my impertinent Enquiries, but for the Universal Republique of Learning, and the Benefit which all good men derive from the fruits of your worthy Labours, who am Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court 15. July: –1674.

Christian Berkeley1 Letter 371 [368] July 18, 1674#2 f 194

Epistle CCCLXVIII To my Lady Berkeley

Madame, I cannot possesse so greate an happinesse as the company of Mrs. Blagg, without infinite obligation to your Ladyship who are so kind as to spare her from your selfe; but it is good she should have experience by the inconveniences she suffers here, what difference there is betweene being at Berkeley-house, and the poore Circumstances she now complies with; I believe yet your Ladyship will give me thanks for taking her a while from you; because it will be a meanes to fix her the more with your Ladyship where she is so consummately happy, beyond anything she can hope for else where; I am Sure ’tis what I continualy tell her, when she was wont to talke of changing stations, and setting her face Northward.3 And now Madame, you needed not have bespoke my Service by this 7 Meric Casaubon, A treatise concerning enthusiasme (London, 1656) 1 Lady Christian Berkeley, née Riccard (1639–98; Diary, C). The only child of Sir Andrew Riccard, a wealthy alderman and MP for London who was a neighbour of Pepys, she was twice married before she married (after 1659) John, 1st Baron Berkeley. She was a friend of Margaret Blagge Godolphin, to whom the Berkeleys were related, and who lived at Berkeley House in London. 2 This letter is misdated, probably by a year. Margaret Godolphin had spent a week at Sayes Court after her secret marriage to Sidney Godolphin on 16 May 1675. John Berkeley’s appointment as ambassador to the peace negotiations at Nijmegen (and later Paris) had also just been announced. Evelyn was persuaded to manage his affairs during his absence. See Harris, Transformations of Love, 232–4. 3 Samuel Benson (1647–?), the Berkeleys’ chaplain, was the son of George Benson (c.1613–92), who had been made dean of Hereford Cathedral. Margaret Godolphin had planned to leave London and move to Hereford before her marriage. See Harris, Transformations of Love, 209.

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Intercessorie (though indeede she has on absolute dominion over me) if you think I may contribute to my Lords,4 whilst he is absent in his intended Embassy (as she informes me) for I will certainely embrace his Commands, with all imaginable alacrity, and that not more for my Friends sake than the obligation I have to both my Lord and your Ladyship for loving her so well: This is an unfained truth, from Madam your Ladyships etc. Says-Court: 18 July –1674

John Maynard1 Letter 372 [369] September 12, 1674 f 194v

Epistle CCCLXIX To Sir John Maynard knight One of his Majesties Serjeants at Law etc.

Sir, The Bearer hereof (my Son)2 devoting himselfe to the Profession of our Municipal Lawes; I could not reject his frequent importuning me to Recommend him to you in Particular for a Method, and Direction, how he should with most Advantage prosecute his studies and Inclynations: I looked upon it as of good præsage and a mark of discernement, that he wished for an Addresse to you above the rest, who doubtlesse (and by the universal suffrage) are the Oracle of the age, and perhaps of any other, for your profound knowledge not onely in that study, but the more polish’d literature: The Difficulty lay, in my not having the honor of being so well known to you, as to justifie and excuse a greate deale of presumption; ’til calling to mind, that being my selfe of the Middle Temple3 (now many yeares since) You have formerly don me the honour to take notice of me: Besides I was assur’d, that a Person of Sir John Maynards Eminency and Virtue, would not be wanting to encourage, and advise a young Tyro in the pursuite of so laudable a designe, and of a choice so well plac’d: Sir, I beg a thousand pardons for this boldnesse of mine, and of my Sonns; but, as he cannot despaire of Successe in his Studies, deriving the least

4 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1607–78; ODNB). Knighted in 1639, he was raised to the peerage in 1658 and at the Restoration was named a navy commissioner, and was later appointed to a number of other posts, including lord lieutenant of Ireland (1670–2). 1 Sir John Maynard (1604–90; ODNB, H). An MP and one of the most prominent lawyers in the country, both during the Interregnum and after the Restoration, Maynard had been made serjeant-at-law in 1654 and protector’s serjeant in 1658. Charles II reappointed him serjeant-at-law in 1660, and later that year knighted him and appointed him king’s serjeant. 2 John Evelyn Jr, whose legal studies would be a disappointment to his father (see Letter 405) 3 Like Evelyn, Maynard had been at the Middle Temple, though he bequeathed his library to Lincoln’s Inn.

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Influence from you, so nor can he ever forget to pay the most gratefull Veneration and Remembrance of his Beneficiarie, as well as Sir Your etc.

Says-Court: 12: September –1674.

Samuel Benson1 Letter 373 [370] January 2, 1676*2 f 194v

Epistle CCCLXX To Mr. Benson, Chaplaine to his Excellency My Lord Berkeley, Ambassador Extraordinary etc. at the French Court: etc.

Sir, If you repay what you are pleasd to call Civilities from me, with such Advantages, they are very happy to whom you think your-selfe Indebted: I have aboundantly learn’d from my son, the greate Obligations he has to you; and if I durst be proude of any-thing, the Character you give me of him, would almost extenuate the Vanitie: It is, I assure you Sir, a greate satisfaction to me, that you allow him such an Interest in your kindnesse: But as that dos sometimes impose upon our Judgement, so I wish he may answer all the good you are pleased to tell me of him, and to which I am certaine, your Advice and Conversation will infinitely contribute: I am glad to Understand from you, that my son is so studious to acquaint himselfe with such Remarks as you approve: As for what he seemes to hint of his not being more in the Eye of his Excellency, I would by no meanes have him solicitous; ’tis sufficient he has the honor of being in a family the very Genius of which is enough to furnish him with greate Improvements, whilst I would by no meanes have him discover the least reluctancy, that he is no farther admitted upon such Encounters as he mentions; since neither his Yeares, nor any merite of mine can pretend to these peculiar intimacies; though I should be glad he tooke all the faire Advantages when the Accesse (on such occasions) were easie, yet I would not have him in the least Intrude, or 1 Samuel Benson (b. 1647), who was the son of George Benson, archdeacon (1660) and dean (1672) of Hereford, himself obtained the post of archdeacon in 1684, and was deprived in 1690 as a non-juror. In his capacity as chaplain to the Berkeleys and the confessor of Margaret Godolphin, he kept an eye on John Evelyn Jr when he accompanied them to Paris. See Harris, Transformations of Love, 239–40. 2 This letter is misdated. Although John Berkeley had been on a commission at Nijmegen, he did not receive his commission to go as ambassador extraordinary to France until 17 October 1675 (see Letter I.42). Evelyn travelled with the party (John and Christian Berkeley, Margaret Godolphin, and John Jr) as far as Dover Beach, from where they departed on 14 November 1675 (Diary IV.78–80). Benson wrote to Evelyn on 4 January N.S. (Add 78317: f 132 [4.1.1676]).

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be thought pragmatical; and, if I mistake not, those are none of his faults: Sir, I shall be highly satisfied to find him (as you say) improv’d in solid and usefull knowledge, Suitable to his Yeares, and the stage he is now upon, in order to some honest and worthy designe of Life; and this his Industrie, with the Blessing of God, I hope may in time accomplish. For the repose of his Thoughts in this matter, and for many other advantages, I would be glad he might receive your Advice, if what I write be agreable to your Sense, which I shall ever prefer to that of Sir Your etc. Sayes-Court: 2. January 1675

John Berkeley Letter 374 [371] February 12, 1676*1 ff 194v–5

Epistle CCCLXXI To my Lord Ambassador of France etc.

My Lord, After I have congratulated your Excellencys safe arivall at Paris, and (as you write me) the Improvement of your health too (all which a former letter from me, now of an antienter date should have acquainted your Lordship) I would proceede with your concernes here could I add any thing considerable to that Large Paper;2 onely besides that of my unsuccessfull search of the Earle of Berkeshires3 Bond: however, I believe his Lordship will be so noble as to pay the mony upon my Discharge, by virtue of your Excellencys Trust: You will by Mr. Aldrich4 understand what progresse be made in your Irish afaire,5 which Mr. Brouncker6 promises to assist in, and I am glad to see him againe upon his Legs; for he will be very usefull to us: I do not thinke it prudent to proceede so roughly with my Lord Ranalagh,7 considering the mighty Credite he has with my Lord Treasurer,8 however I went to him againe to mind him of your Lordships occasions: he told me he had considerable Tallies to passe within 8 or 10 daies, and that then I should not neede to trouble

1 misdated; actually 12 February 1676. See Letter 373, note 2. 2 Evelyn had agreed to manage Berkeley’s affairs while he was in France (Diary IV.77). Berkeley himself admitted to the chaos of his affairs in a letter to Evelyn of 31/21 October (Add 15948: f 146 [31/21.10.1675]). 3 Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Berkshire (1615–April 1679, P) 4 Henry Aldrich (d. 1683), a retainer for the Berkeley family and father of Henry Aldrich (1648–1710; ODNB), dean of Christ Church 5 Berkeley had been lord lieutenant of Ireland (1670–2), but continued to be lord-president of Connaught. 6 possibly Henry Brouncker, who had been involved with Berkeley in the Africa Company 7 Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh (164–1712; ODNB), chancellor of the Irish Exchequer (1668–74) 8 Thomas Osborne

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my selfe farther, he would find me out, and give me satisfaction: This Method is not new to me: I have taken up the Thousand pound of Collonel Whitley9 and continud to mind Mr. Hervy,10 who still deferrs; but I take him to be a sure man: Mr. Brent11 spake to me of a Pension your Excellency was to pay his Unkle, who is a Barister of Grays-Inn, and a worthy Person; and therefore desire to know what answer I am to give his Nephew: I lent Mr. Gaudy £2012 at Dover upon a Note under his hand, for charges of the Embarkment of your Excellencys horses,13 which I have repaied my selfe: And if I may serve your Excellency upon any other occasion, use the same freedome to command me as I have don to offer it, without reserve, or other imaginable Reward, than that of your Acceptance, and the honor you do me in thinking me Capable of the greate Trust you repose in My Lord Your Excellency etc. White-hall 12 February –1675

Robert Vyner1 Letter 375 [372] February 26, 1675 f 195

Epistle CCCLXXII To Sir Robert Viner Lord Major of London:

My Lord, There’s a poore unhappy Youth, who (having ben seduc’d by one Greene,2 a Broker) is falln into the hands of Justice, and Sentenc’d to be severly chastiz’d: Tis some affliction to me, that one who has had any Relation to my Service, should merite so severe an Animadversion: I cannot extenuate his fault farther than to assure your Lordship that, ’til he was perverted by that wicked fellow, he allways demean’d himselfe like a diligent and 9 Roger Whitely was appointed deputy postmaster by Lord Arlington in 1672 (a post he held until 1677) after a career in both the army and navy. 10 Sir John Hervey 11 probably Robert Brent, who later appears “transacting buisinesse ... about my Arrere due from his Majestie” on 10 December 1682 (Diary IV.297). 12 possibly the William Gaudy who writes to his father about exporting horses during the 1660s (Add 36989: f 480) 13 Berkeley had travelled to Dover in a party of “3 Coaches, 3 Wagons, and about 40 horse besides my Coach” (Diary IV.79). 1 Sir Robert Vyner, baronet (1631–88; ODNB). A goldsmith-banker, Vyner was knighted in 1665 and made baronet in the next year. He was sheriff of London (1666–7) and lord mayor (1674–5). 2 A Thomas Greene appears in 1673 (under Lord Danby’s administration as lord treasurer) as “Cashier and Accomptant,” with £120 per an. in Calendar of Treasury Books 1672–5 and later in the same year as cashier to the Office of Exchange (re tax collection). He continues to appear in 1675 and is described as a “gent.”

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faithfull Servant; and I verily believe he will never fall into the like againe, or any-thing approching it: My humble suit to your Lordship is that though you through your favour, the Infamie of his Punishment may be mitigated, since I verily believe the miseries he has pass’d through during his long restraint, will be a sufficient mortification to him: If I were not assur’d, that the Crime he has committed were not onely the first, but merely, the seduction of an old and a Subtile knave, I should not interpose in his behalfe favour. What Compassion your Lordship shall shew him, as to the disgrace and miserie he is so very sensible of, (and which I looke upon, as a good indication of his remorse) I shall receive as a particular obligation to my Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 26 February –1675

Dorothy Graham Letter 376 [373] March 16, 1675#1 f 195

Epistle CCCLXXIII To my Lady Grahame etc.

Madame, I should have approch’d my Charge, with other kind of Congratulations could I have divin’d your happinesse to be so neere, as it seemes it was, when I had that of seeing you last: But you have don well to prevent an ill Epithalamionist,2 for indeede my Poetic Veine is quite extinct, and I can onely wish you Joy in Prose, and after my plaine way, which I do a thousand times, and that it may continue with all the Benedictions of heaven: I pray present my most humble service to the Young Cavalier, whom I likewise felicitate: Sometime the next weeke I hope to kisse both your hands, who am. Madame etc. Says-Court 16 March –1675

Poor Garniture Thee I deplore, Poore Tom, and eke Sir John. Well honest Nancy3 be not vex’d Thy Sister’s now, thy turn is next: 1 This letter is misdated, probably by a year. Dorothy Howard’s licence to marry was dated 22 November 1675 (Diary IV.88, n. 6). In July 1675, the love-struck James Graham had followed Evelyn, Elizabeth Howard, and the two sisters on their journey to the Northampton Assizes (Diary IV.69). 2 “Tom” and “Sir John” are probably references to King Lear’s “Poor Tom” and Sir John Falstaff from Henry IV and The Merry Wives. 3 Ann was married in 1677 to Sir Gabriel Sylvius.

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Christian Berkeley Letter 377 [374] April 13, 1676* f 195

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Epistle CCCLXXIV To my Lady Berkeley at Paris1

Madame, I have stai’d thus long from acknowledging your Excellencys Condescention, ’til I could accompanie it with something worthy your Ladyships Notice from hence, that might divert you, if it be possible you should want any at Paris, and that glorious Court, where you make so noble a figure: The newes here, and which I presume will beare the accidents to which letters are obnoxious, is, the strange Passion the whole Polititians are here in upon the event of the Late naval Combate in the Mediterranean:2 My Lord Duras3 is to marry one of the rich heiresses to Sir George Sands4 (on whom he settles £3000 a yeare) but this I suppose you have already heard, and doubtlesse of the Eclat which the Dutchesse of Mazarine5 makes with her inartificial beauty, wit, greate, and unaffected Mîne:6 These are the Epithetes, whilst all this time I have never had the good fortune, or indeede the curiosity to contemplate: Sir Stephen Fox’s Office of Paymaster to the Guards etc. is at last conferr’d on Sir Henry Puckering7 of Warwick, an old Cavalier (and as old acquaintance of mine, when he liv’d at Charleton, now sold to my Lord of Downe).8 He is an honest gentleman but I do not think him happy in Sir Stephens place; nor neede I say from what malevolent Influence the clowd has covered Sir Stephen, who could never fall into his Majesties displeasure, if somebody were not very ambitious, and full of envy. It is hoped yet that his Assignements will be all made good to him, which will be no ill newes to any that are concern’d; especialy to my dearest Friend9 with your Excellency. Give her this Consolation from me: What other alterations attend the aire, of is rather discours’d, than known, and I will not undertake to prognosticate: But this is the first day of actual Retrenchment, which makes me arme more for fasting daies, against I come to Court, 1 This letter is misdated; it should be dated 1676. The Berkeleys did not go to Paris until November 1675 (see Letter 373). The duchess of Mazarin is first noticed in September 1676 (Diary IV.97 and n. 5). 2 The English navy occupied Tangier and began to build the fortifications in 1675. Sir John Narbrough (1640–88; ODNB) blockaded Tripoli after Sir Cloudesley Shovell (1650–1707) had attacked and destroyed the shipping in the harbour. See Routh, Tangier, 143–4. 3 Louis Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham (1641–1709; ODNB) 4 Duras married Mary Sondes, the daughter of George Sondes, 1st earl of Feversham (1599–1677; ODNB). 5 Hortense Mancini, duchesse de Mazarin (1646–99; Diary). The niece of Cardinal Mazarin, Mancini was born in Rome and died in Chelsea. Charles II proposed to her in 1659 and though she refused his offer, she came to England after the death of her husband (Armand de la Porte, marquis de la Meilleraye) in 1675 and was given a pension of £4000 a year by the king. Evelyn dined with her on 6 September 1676 (Diary IV.97). 6 mien 7 Sir Henry Puckering 8 It was sold to Sir William Ducie, Viscount Downe (c.1615–79). 9 Margaret Godolphin. She had added a note to a letter to Evelyn from Christian Berkeley expressing concern that “changes at Court ... have ben very unkind to Sir Stephen Fox” (Add 78308: f 1 [29.1.1676]).

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than I formerly thought of: But Lent is approching, and that’s a time of Mortification: Today I saw Dr. Fell (Deane of Christ Church) do his homage to his Majestie for Bishop of Oxford, and the Evening is to be concluded with a Ball to divert the Ladys, which is allways acceptable news to the Sex, and the most diverting period one can end a letter with to your Ladyship Excellency for though you care not for Dauncing, yet you cannot but be pleasd that we are so merry here: But Madame Raillerie a part, I am Madame your Excellency etc. London 13 Aprill 1675

My most humble Service to his Excellency and a little of my Love to St. Margarite.10

Ralph Bathurst Letter 378 [375] September 17, 1675 f 195v

Epistle CCCLXXV To Dr. Bathurst etc. Deane of Wells, President of Trinity Colledge and Vice-Chancelor of Oxford

Sir, His Majestie being now return’d to White-hall, I went the last night to Court, with full purpose of mentioning to his Majestie the Designe you were upon of publishing a faire volume of the Arundelian, and other Inscriptions,1 and to take that occasion of intimating how gratefull a present it would be to the Universitie, if that his Majestie would be pleas’d to bestow upon her those few Greeke Marbles and Relievos, which lie abandon’d in the Privie-Gardens: My Lord of Ossorie2 (with whom I have had the honour of a many-yeares and long acquaintance) being in the roome, I thought it becoming me to acquaint him what I was going about; and to desire his assistance, which I found his Lordship dispos’d to give me with all imaginable freedome; but upon consideration of a Circumstance (which I shall hereafter mention to you more properly) his Lordship told me, that he believed his Father (the Duke of Ormond)3 would not onely most certainely procure what was desir’d, but receive it as an Obligation, if Mr. Vice-Chancelor did but in the least signifie to him, their Request in this particular: Sir, It is upon this Suggestion that I trouble you with these lines; If you shall think fit to write to his Grace, intimating the ­Occasion (as above) with what an Accession it would be to the Collection you have 10 Margaret Godolphin 1 Humphrey Prideaux, Marmora Oxoniensia, ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis aliisque conflate (Oxford, 1676; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1215 [presentation copy from Oxford]). 2 Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory, whom Evelyn had known in France (see Letter 382) 3 James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond; chancellor of Oxford 1669–88

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already of this sort, about the Theater, and that my service may signifie anything to you farther in delivering him your letter. You may command it upon very many and greate Obligations which will alwayes be due to you from Sir etc.

White-hall. 17 September –1675.

I do not forget the Minerva4 of which you spoke to me at Oxford but my Lord Martial5 is not yet return’d from Scotland whither he is gon to see his daughter the Marquesse of Huntley:

John Beale Letter 379 [376] November 25, 1675 f 195v

Epistle CCCLXXVI To Dr. Beale etc.

Worthy Doctor, You might with reason pronounce me the most uncivil, and ungrateful person in the world, after so many favours, formerly, and of late accumulated, to have no returne from me in all this time: But so has my misfortune ben, that partly on a publique and partly on private account, having ben all this time absent from my dwelling, I had not your letter ’til I came home, which not being before the 18th of this moneth, I found I was run in arrere to you for no lesse than three most wellcome letters. How were it else possible I should become so barbarous, and forget my nature, and my worthiest friend: I have had buisinesse in severall places in Kent, which detain’d me long abroad; and I am no sooner gotten home, but a more generous Offer, than either wise or easy, of taking a greate Trust upon me, during the absence of my Lord Berkeley,1 now Ambassador in France (and design’d for Plenepotentiary for the Treaty at Nimeghen) ingages me in a Sea of Affairs: These Impediments not onely interrupted the care which I ought to have had whilst my Papers were at the Printers; but my giving you an Account of the noble Suffrage you have presented me; but which the Trifle2 I send you, dos by no meanes pretend to merite: However, had not the Impression ben finish’d, and severall of the Copies dispers’d before I knew in what forwardnesse things were; I know not whither my Vanity might 4 See Richard Chandler, Marmora Oxoniensa (Oxford, 1763), Pl. 3. In fact this was a statue of Athena. It came to Oxford with the Pomfret collection which had partly derived from Arundel’s collection. Sir Thomas Roe’s letters giving an account of the assembling of this collection in Turkey are in Michaelis, Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 185–204. 5 Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk. Elizabeth Howard, his daughter, married George Gordon, 3rd marquis of Huntly (1649–1716) in 1676. 1 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley. Evelyn had seen the Berkeleys, his son and Margaret Godolphin off at Dover on 14 November. The Berkeleys did not go to Nijmegen until November 1676. 2 A Philosophical Discourse of Earth (London, 1676). It was retitled Terra in its third edition (1706).

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have tempted me to weare those glorious Titles in the Front, which I now reserve as the indelible markes of your undeserved favour.3 This Declaration and Acknowledgement is the least of that which is due from me to Dr. Beale, who has furnish’d to this Discourse all that is in it, the most refin’d and Usefull, and without which, I should certainely have resisted the Decree of our Philosophic Council to have it publish’d:4 All then, which is mine in it, heartily bespeakes your mercy; but something was to be don as it fell in Course to be my Taske, unlesse I would altogether have betray’d my zeale and devotion for the Royal Society, by my disobedience, and given an ill example: etc. I returne you a thousand thanks for your excellent Epigramm, and wish I might owne the least period of it without arrogance, and could excuse that onely defect of your Judgement, when you make me the Subject of such Encomiums: But it is from the Excesse of your Friendship, that you still continue, and delight to oblige Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 25 November –1675.

Mr. Oldenburg has furnish’d my son5 with recomendations to all the Learned men on that side the Continent, and you are to thank him for it in my behalfe:

Christian Berkeley Letter 380 [377] November 28, 1675 ff 195v–6

Epistle CCCLXXVII To my Lady Berkeley at Paris

Madame, It is not want of greate reguard, and the Conscience of my Duty, that I appeare no sooner to Condole the losse you have made, by the death of your little Sonn1 (that happy child) but the apprehension I had of oppressing you with words of Ceremonie (which I know are grievous to you) and that I was assur’d I had a friend,2 from whose mouth you did as

3 In the “most welcome letters” of 3 and 6 November (Add 78313: ff 78 & 80 [3.11.1675 & 6.11.1675]), Beale had sent Evelyn two texts of a dedicatory epigram, presumably intended for inclusion in A Philosophical Discourse of Earth. Beale responded to this letter on 18 December (Add 78313: f 82 [18.12.1675]), acknowledging Evelyn’s references to him on pages 63 and 171 of that book. 4 The book was prefaced (A1v) by a notice of 24 June under the name of Royal Society president Viscount Brouncker that it be printed by John Martyn, “Printer of the said Society.” 5 Henry Oldenburg; John Evelyn Jr was in Paris. 1 Evelyn refers to the death of Maurice, her youngest child. Christian Berkeley discusses “the loss of this poor little Maurice” in Add 78308: f 3 (5.2.1676). 2 Margaret Godolphin

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often receive the expressions of my Duty, as I had opportunity of Writing: Madame, it were a greate impertinence in me to believe I could apply any-thing that should aleviate the sense of this affliction, more than what your owne Prudence, and the many excellent persons, who are about you, have doubtlesse suggested: Philosophers and Divines are not more sententious and fruitfull in their advise upon any subjects than on these: Whilst the Summ of all is this. A due Consideration of the Vicissitude of all things here below, and intire Resignation to the Will of God above, which is able to Sanctifie the bitterest Afflictions, and render them not onely tollerable, but advantagious; Of this Madame, I can speake with some experience: You must not therefore think this a stroke of Displeasure, but Gods usual method of sometimes exercising those he most loves, by mingling now and then a Drop of Myrrhe with our many enjoyments here, perishing and transient as they are, that we may long after and prepare for those above which are permanent and eternal: Your Ladyship has yet so many flourishing branches about you, that you will not onely sustaine the diminution of this with a serene and equal Mind; But even offer up all your Affections to this, and to all-things else, when God is pleas’d to call: This is turning the Rod into the staff, and not onely the best way to secure your remaining enjoyments; but to derive Comforts from the losse of them: God has spard his Excellency to you, whom you love (and that almost by Miracle) and for the good of his Country in an evil age time; and has taken your little sonn whom ye both loved, for the good of his soule, and from the evils to come: But, I must remember to whom I am writing, and what I have said at the beginning of my letter that I do not (whilst I proceede in this Style to a person who has so much reason and piety of her owne to guide her) contradict my premises with my Conclusion; I could not yet but let fall a Teare upon the innocent Herse of that Sweete Child whom realy I lov’d, as I must do all that have any relation to your Excellency for I am, with greate sincerity Madame your Excellencys etc. Says-Court 28 November –1675.

John Evelyn Jr Letter 381 [378] January 31, 1676 f 196r–v

Epistle CCCLXXVIII To my Son at Paris etc.1

Son, I have receiv’d your letter (I suppose written in hast) and am indeede surpriz’d at the 1 The first of two (see also Letter 405) letters of advice and admonition to John Jr, combined in this instance with a defence of mathematical studies and of modern learning.

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hint Request you seeme to make by Mrs. Blagge:2 You best know, what cause I have to apprehend your being alone, and at your owne dispose, upon pretence of extraordinary Improvements, by the ill use you made of it at the Temple, which I have no pleasure to remember:3 I have never said a syllable of this to your Governesse, nor shall I; but wish this may not be another Effect of that Inconstancy which is thought to be the general ingredient in your temper, and that whilst you your selfe love nothing long, you blame me for filling you with too many things at once: Do not think I write this in the least displeasure; though I conceive it very possible to one so far initiated in the language, to get aboundantly enough Acquaintance of French to converse with, so as may perfect your speaking it well, whilst yet you remaine in an Ambassadors family, to which so many of that Nation continualy resort: I have however given you free leave to do as you think good: Onely desire you to be carefull, that you give your Mediatrix no cause to repent of her Confidence in you, by the well employing of this Recesse, and the continualy having God, and your infinite Obligations to his goodnesse, before your Eyes; for it is that onely, which must preserve you, and will certainely reward you. I must confesse, I am sorry you should quit your Governesse, in confidence of whose love and care for you, we were onely induc’d to part with you at all: I wish you neither have given her, or any body else cause to promote this desire of yours to alter your Station thus on the suddaine, and that you calculate the Circumstances of it so, as to bring it within the compasse of your Exhibition, that I may not be put to inconveniences in complying with things unnecessarie. I hope you take this seriously into your thoughts: I have never refus’d you any reasonable thing, and you ought to understand it, and be discreete: In the meane time, I by no meanes discourage your designe, if realy it be on that Consideration, and that you foresee a Moneth or too will so much improve your studies; but where you will find a laudable and fit place, to pension in with good and virtuous Companie at randome, and without interferring with what you would avoide (the being amongst English at Paris) I that have liv’d so many yeares there, am to seeke: But I suppose you have ponder’d all these Circumstances; and so God Almighty blesse you: This I write without communication to your Mother, because she is not by me, but think you much faile of your duty not once to have writen to her in all this time: She is not of a temper you know, to take exceptions; but therefore should you give her no occasion. I would have sent you a small Toaken, in consideration of your disastrous Jade; but I had no convenience by this post. I am extreamely sorry that Beast has put you to so much trouble and charge, but you would be pleas’d with nothing lesse than my total compliance with you, when I told you the many inconveniencies of keeping an horse in Paris, and was unwilling you should have him along with you: Let this be a document to you against all impetuous affections, especialy when you find them disapprov’d by your best Friends: For though youth may abound in their owne sense, they cannot have the experience, which is a practic, not a speculative science:

2 Margaret Godolphin. John had requested that he be allowed to leave the Berkeleys, where he felt ignored, and to live on his own. He returned from France on 13 June (Diary IV.91). 3 John Jr was admitted to the Middle Temple on 2 May 1672, but not called to the Bar until February 1683 (Diary III.613 and n. 6). It is not clear to what misconduct Evelyn alludes.

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Something I have enlarged (in a paper to your Governesse) in vindication of my Encouraging you to the study of some Mathematics, and to disabuse that imagination of my prompting you to a uselesse thing: But if the Conscience of my owne greate defects, and certaine knowledge of what will render you a usefull, solid, and judicious man, have recomended that study to you, ’til you are ariv’d to some competent proficiency, it should not be imputed to Scepticisme, and fancy, or that I have yet so little insight of things, when I persist to wish you had begun with them when first you were taught your very letters: I have never known any man skil’d in Numbers and figures (that is) Arithmetic and Geometrie (so he did not breake his head with inventing new Propositions, Squaring of Circles, Doubling the Cube, and perpetual motions) that is, give not themselves wholy up to the Contemplative part of that Science, especialy, if Astrologie be taken in (of which I have a very slender opinion) but if he were handsomely season’d with other ingenuous Learning, he emerg’d an extraordinary person: And many such could I name, whereof some are yet living, and known to you: Judge Hales,4 Mr. Allen of Grays Inn,5 Sir John Warpoole6 Lawyers: The Bishop of Salisbury,7 Dr. Pell,8 Mr. Newton,9 Divines, Dr. Scarbrow,10 Sir Thomas Browne, Ridgeley11 etc. Physitians; Vicount Brouncker,12 Lord Angier,13 Earle of Essex,14 and Mr. Boyle15 (among the noblesse instar omnium) with innumerable more, and that prodigie of all usefull and ingenious arts Sir Christopher 4 Sir Matthew Hale (1609–76; ODNB). At the Restoration he became lord chief baron of the Exchequer and (in 1671) lord chief justice of the King’s Bench. He published on science, divinity and law. Gilbert Burnet published a hagiographical biography, The Life and Death of Sir Matthew Hale, Kt. (London, 1682). Evelyn, whose property case Hale arbitrated, described him as “that excellent good Man” (Diary III.565). 5 possibly John Alleyn (1621–63; H), who received a BA from Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1638), entered Gray’s Inn in 1642, and was called to the Bar in 1649. As a lawyer, he was celebrated for his learning. He was elected MP in 1663 and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1663, just before his death. 6 possibly Sir John Walpoole (1612–72), who entered Gray’s Inn in 1630, was cornet in Charles I’s troop, and was knighted in 1645. 7 Seth Ward (1617–89; ODNB), Savilian professor of astronomy (1649–61) and collaborator with John Wilkins at Oxford, he became bishop of Exeter and Salisbury. 8 John Pell (1611–85; ODNB, R), professor of mathematics in Amsterdam and Breda before returning to England, where he was ordained and obtained a DD on his appointment as domestic chaplain to Gilbert Sheldon. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1663. 9 John Newton (1621–78; ODNB). Newton graduated BA in 1641 and MA in 1642 from St Edmund Hall, Oxford. During the Interregnum he taught mathematics and astronomy, and was appointed chaplain to the king and DD in 1661. He produced a series of textbooks on mathematics which were frequently reprinted (e.g., Tabulæ mathematicæ: or, Tables of the naturall sines, tangents and secants [London, 1654]). 10 Sir Charles Scarburgh (1615–94; ODNB), after assisting William Harvey at Merton, he was created MD in 1646. He was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians in 1650 and succeeded Harvey as Lumleian Lecturer at the College in 1656. He was appointed first physician to Charles II and knighted in 1669. 11 Thomas Ridgeley (c.1576–1656; ODNB). He took his MD at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1608. He became a candidate of the College of Physicians in 1617, a fellow in 1622, and an elect in 1641. A Royalist, he withdrew from the College in 1642, but returned in 1649. 12 William Brouncker 13 probably Gerald Aungier, 2nd Baron Aungier of Longford (Ireland) (c.1597–1655), whom Evelyn refers to as “that learned Gentleman” (Diary III.142 and n. 5) 14 Arthur Capel 15 Robert Boyle

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Wren, his Majesties Surveyor General[.] Nor is there one of these (the negligent Dr. Pell excepted)16 but have either advanc’d their fortunes greately, or acquir’d reputation, and improv’d their other professions: So as with the assistance of this Science, I should not despaire of any Employment; such Security and Confidence it gives upon all occasions, nor is it at all obnoxious to the most Courtly breeding; for dullnesse is not the effect of this study, where it is mix’t, and made subservient to the profession men pitch upon, be it Divinity, Law, Physique, or the Militarie Discipline, as aboundantly I might instance from the first Cæsar to Alphonsus, late of Portugal:17 I have my selfe of late perus’d some Authors long neglected by me, and hardly touch’d these 30 yeares (for I went over Euclide and severall others, as you may see by those Papers, I not long since put into your hands) when first I minded Architecture at Rome, amongst other things properly studied in that place, where the types and best examples are yet remaining, partly in anc ruines, and Modern structures, a l’Antique; and find so much Satisfaction in them yet; that I exceedingly deplore my not cultivating them with more sedulity, when I had the opportunity: But of this sufficient for a letter. The Algebraic, and Cartesian way was hardly then known, ’til that excellent Mathematitian, our Country man and neighbour in Surrey Mr. Oughtred18 introduc’d a new method, by way of Symbol etc. But because I could never yet divine to what your Genius would more particularly leade you, I will impose nothing of this on you, whilst yet I wish you would once determine your Choice for your owne repose, as well as for my Satisfaction, and endeavour to excell in that, whatsoever it be you choose: I shall communicate your paper to Mr. Bohune,19 and what you write concerning your Bookes but have not yet seene Mr. Slingsby:20 Welcome (in the meane time) would have been to us all your Relation and account of the Ceremonies of my Lord Ambassadors21 Entrance, Cavalcade and Audience at Versailles; but you are very frugal in leting us know any-thing of what you see and observe, and we hope it is, because you are better Employ’d Sayes-Court 31 January 1675/6

16 Anthony Wood says of Pell, “he was a shiftless man as to worldly affairs, and his tenants and relations dealt so unkindly to him, that they cozened him of the profits of his parsonage, and kept him so indigent, that he wanted necessaries, even ink and paper, to his dying day” (Athenae Oxoniensis, 1, cols 461–4). 17 Evelyn may be thinking of Alfonso X of Castile (1221–84), known as “the Wise” or “the Learned,” and sponsor of the astronomical Tablas alfonsíes. 18 William Oughtred 19 Ralph Bohun 20 Henry Slingsby (1619/20–90; ODNB), master of the Royal Mint (1667–80), and a member of the Philosophical Society, and of its council at the time of the formation of the Royal Society. 21 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley

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Thomas Butler1 Letter 382 [379] February 21, 1676 f 196v

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Epistle CCCLXXIX To the Earle of Ossorie etc.

My Lord, I have not the Patience to hazard the being frustrate of a moment longer, to expresse my most humble thanks to your Lordship for the noble Intention you have had so lately to Oblige me. I sought to kisse your Lordships hands the last night, with an heart full of the most gratefull resent’ments possible, and to assure your Lordship there is nothing whatsoever, I would not greedily embrace, which your Lordship should esteeme me worthy of, did not the Conscience of my owne demerites, make me tender of injuring your Lordships Judgement, which I feare I should hazard by assuming a charge for which I am not duely qualified: [LM: To have made me Garter King-at-Arms upon the death of Sir Edward Walker:] My Lord however this succeedes,2 I beseech your Lordship to believe, the obligation is deepely ingraven in my a heart full of gratitude, and that your Lordships favourable thoughts of me, is a satisfaction I cannot easily expresse; but I would faine have you believe to be very greate: What shall I say? Your Lordship were certainely a perfectly noble and illustrious Person, without the Circumstances of Birth and Fortune, which yet (though yours by the most just of Titles) are the least Instances of your Greatenesse: Nor adds this a little to all your other Atchivements that you prevent your friends Servants (and those whom you honour with your Friendship) with Obligations, before they dare think themselves worthy of them, or have the Confidence to aske: Ô how Greate, how Noble, and unlike the rest of Courtiers is this proceeding! It can be from nothing else, than the result of a solid, and shining Virtue, which how early it appear’d, and has constantly accompanied all your Lordships Actions, I have the honour to be witnesse of, for a now long series of time, the fullest of Vicissitudes and Tentation, any Age has produc’d: But ’tis not here my Lord, that I pretend to write your Panegyrique. One can say nothing big enough to flatter; since all I can devise to say, will fall short of your Lordships Merites, and the Duty of my Lord Your etc. White-hall 21: February –1675/6

1 Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory (1634–80; ODNB, H), son of James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond, became earl of Ossory in 1642. Butler first met Evelyn in Paris in 1650 while demonstrating his horsemanship (Diary III.2). From 1661 onwards he was active in military affairs. In 1662 he was made a member of the Irish peerage and in 1666 he became Baron Butler of Moor Park in the English peerage. He was named lord chamberlain to Catherine of Braganza in November 1676. 2 Evelyn was not made Garter king of arms.

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Christian Berkeley Letter 383 [380] June 18, 1676 f 196v

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Epistle CCCLXXX To my Lady Berkeley etc.

Madame, I call to mind that I sometime since promis’d your Ladyship a Booke of much variety, to entertaine you with at Tunbridge; and now I send it to you: The Argument is to assert the Providence of God in the Government of the World,1 and that as old as it growes, it suffers no decay: Your Ladyship will find in it, amongst other rare Examples, the noblest Instances of Gratitude; and it were to degenerate from humanitie, as well as from my particular reguards, if, wherever I meete with that subject, I should not think my selfe concern’d in the deepest measure to Accknowledge mine infinite obligations to your Ladyship. You Love, and Cherish a Lady2 who dos me the honour to call me Friend; but has never justified her esteeme of me more than by being the Occasion of making me known to your Ladyship. Madame, I do not meane this for a Complement, I have ben long an Observer, and no lesse admirer of your piety and Virtue, and a thousand excellent things, for which I have the greatest Veneration nor to neede the supplement of meane arts, when I would speake of your Ladyship, though I take this slender Occasion to Signifie how much I am Madame Your etc. Sayes-Court 18 June –1676.

Charles Mordaunt1 Letter 384 [381] June 30, 1676 f 197

Epistle CCCLXXXI To my Lord Vicount Mordaunt at Paris:

My Lord, I have ever had so greate Veneration for your Illustrious Family, so many obligations to my Lord your Father;2 so long, and signal a Friendship (if I may be permitted to use so 1 George Hakewill’s An apologie or declaration of the power and providence of God in the government of the world (Oxford, 1635; in the 1687 library catalogue) 2 Margaret Godolphin 1 Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough and 1st earl of Monmouth (1658?–1735; ODNB). Mordaunt left Oxford in 1676 and went to France. Evelyn was a close friend of his mother, Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey, and was trustee for Charles and his siblings. 2 John Mordaunt

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indearing and familiar an Expression) with my Lady, your Mother3 (and who still dos me the honour to continue the remembrance of it) that I cannot let this opportunitie escape, of Offering my Service to you, and letting you know, how greate a concerne I have in your Lordships Prosperity: I am glad to find, that my Lady your Mother, dos not think of imposing a Governor over you, whom I looke upon as so much Master of your selfe, and consummately Virtuous, that it is impossible you should miscarry under the conduct of so much Reason, and so excellent an Institution; and therefore cannot with any patience heare, what has of late ben reported of the Ingaging your Inclinations any where abroad, without acquainting my Lady (your Mother) with it and receiving her Advice: I am not solicitous upon this account, I confesse, for my Lord Mordaunt, who can never be so far wanting of his deference to her Ladyship nor so unjust, as not to consult her in every step of his progresse abroad; especialy in so nice, and weighty a Concerne, as is the most considerable of his whole life. I know your Lordship has a farther ayme, and will not be deceiv’d with the little stratagemms, and the snares that young, and giddy men are oft surpriz’d with: It is now that all the World will take their Measures, and make their Estimates of future Expectations, if whilst you are in France, and when you returne into England, you preserve the Dignitie of your Birth and qualitie without reproch: There are Beauties here in your owne Countrie, rich, and full of Virtue, among whom my Lord Mordaunt may take his choice, and fix a noble and lasting Affection to make him happy: His Majestie takes infinite pleasure in the hopes and prospect of your Lordships Improvements; The who[le] Nation challenges an Interest in you, and I derive my best Augures of its future felicitie, from the assurance which I promise my selfe, that your Lordship will shortly make a figure, and fill a place in it, becoming an illustrious and greate Person; because your Lordship has (besides personal Endowments) an extraordinary Talent, and will cultivate it to all the advantages of honor and piety: In this Confidences, I humbly beg your Lordship pardon for the liberty I have us’d, and the permission of styling my selfe, My Lord Your etc. London 30 June –1676.

3 Elizabeth Mordaunt

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Margaret Godolphin1 Letter 385 [382] July 18, 1676 ff 197–9

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Epistle CCCLXXXII To Electra etc.

[RM: Mrs. Blagg, Maide of honor to the Queene:2 afterwards wife to Lord Godolphin:]3 My Electra, As I am infinitely sensible of those many defects which expose me to your Reprofes, and which you are religiously oblig’d to Continue ’til you find a thorow Reformation: So as I on the other hand would I not have you in the least be prejudic’d at the Scoffs and Raillery, of the Bouffoones, and ignorant Fops of this abandond age, when you heare them censure the Royal Society: But consider who they be, namely, such as turne into Ridicule, and prophane all things that are Vertuous and worthy praise: I was amaz’d to see one of your Sex (or rather one so much superior to it in all perfections) pleas’d with what the wretches said, to make themselves sport, at the expense of that you do not understand, nor were it needefull that you should, had you not desir’d me in your letter fully to informe you, what that Assembly was? what they did? and why I was am my-selfe a Member of that; the witts (you tell me) make themselves Rare sport so merry with? If your Hero4 imagine that I undertake the defence of my worthy companions, because I am fond of the diversion I there receive, you judge amisse; since I believe I might safely sweare, that I have not ben amongst them twenty times this seaven-yeare; which in truth I mention with extraordinarie Regret, and no small reproch on my selfe: For I professe it ingenuously, that next the actual Service of God, and those few Offices which I endeavor to do my Friends; I have learnd more profitable, and use-full things from some houres Conversation from in that Meeting, than ever I have don from the quintessence and sublimest

1 “Electra” is identified as “Blagg Godolphin” in the index (Add 78299: f 164). This is the only letter in the collection addressed to Margaret Godolphin, and a striking contrast to her ubiquitous presence in the Diary in this period. She had returned from France in early April, and Evelyn had been informed by Henrietta Yarborough, her sister, of her marriage to Sidney Godolphin on 26 April (Diary IV.89). See the treatment of Evelyn’s relationship with Godolphin in Harris, Transformations of Love. 2 Catherine of Braganza 3 Sidney Godolphin. Compare this defence to Letter 288, his panegyric on the Royal Society addressed to Cowley, and Letter 332 to John Beale, in response to Henry Stubbe’s attacks. 4 Margaret Godolphin had seen Thomas Shadwell’s play The Virtuoso (1676), which mocks the Royal Society, performed at the Dorset Garden Theatre by the Duke’s Company. Although Shadwell asserted in the prologue that “no one Coxcomb in this Play is shown, / No one Man’s humour makes a part alone, / But scatter’d follies gather’d into one” (A4), Evelyn was probably stung by the discussion of Lucretius which opens the play. Hooke recognized himself as a target, noting after seeing a performance, “Damned Doggs. Vindica me Deus. People almost pointed” (cited in Jones, “Robert Hooke and The Virtuoso,” 181). See Jardine, The Curious Life of Robert Hooke, 321–3, and Syfret, “Some Early Critics of the Royal Society.”

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Raptures of those empty Casks, whose noise you so admire at Court: when they have ben declaiming against it: If I should affirme, that all the Books of Science, my Education in the Universities, and Abroad, together with some practical Observations which I had collected during a life (not much resign’d to sloth) have not furnish’d me with so many solid, and excellent Notices, reducible to Actions, Practical, and of real Use, and no ignoble Speculation, as has the bare Register of the Discourses, and experiments which inrich their vast Collection; I should Confesse a greate Truth, without any reproch to the spending of my Time, before its constitution: Let those who set in the Chaires of the Scornfull, daine but to turne over the minute bookes of what they have already tried at no meane Expense, and by the traine, and Successe of the Tryals, (if they be endow’d with a grain of ingenuity, or any tincture of sobriety) deliver their opinion, if there be not a Collection of the most solid, and noble Materials, for the building-up of a more certain, and usefull Institution and Fabrique of Philosophie: That is a Method of attaining to the knowledge of the Aspectable Works of God; a knowledge which the Holy Spirit had perfeted in Adame before his fall, and afterward by in different measures, to divers of the Patriarchs, and others, Authors of Severall Inventions and things of use for human life: Learn’d in Geographie Astrologie (I do not meane as Fortune tellers and figure-flingers pretend to) Manual Arts, Agriculture etc. and other Mysteries and Employments: such were Abraham Jacob, Moses Joseph, Moses, Aholiab, David, and above all Solomon, as we find them more particularly celebrated by the Sonn of Syrac,5 and the more authentic Records of Sacred Writ: Now why the Attempt of Enquiring into such causes, as being once but obscurely attain’d, do of necessitie impell us leade us to the magnifying of their Divine Author, should be turn’d to Ridicule and derision, I am astonish’d at: But they pretend the Instances are some of them trifling etc. I thought I had shew’d, and sufficiently convinc’d you of the Contrary in the Weeke-days Contemplation,6 which you desir’d of me, and that God had created nothing so meane and despicable, but what is worthy our highest Admiration and Praise:7 Has Solomon, or Aristotle, Theophrastus, Plinie, Elian etc. of the 5 The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) celebrates natural creation in 43:1–33. 6 See the devotional manuscripts prepared for Margaret Godolphin, Add 78375–85, including Add 78379 (“Tuesdays Meditation”), Add 78380 (“Wednesdayes Meditation”), Add 78382 (“A Meditation for Moneday”), and 78384 (“Thursdays Meditation”). 7 the greatest scientists of the ancient and modern worlds: after Solomon and Aristotle (Opera omnia [Paris, 1654], Eve.c.15), the biblical and classical archetypes, Evelyn cites for the ancients Theophrastus, Aristotle’s successor at the Academy (in the 1687 library catalogue: Theophrasti Notationes morum. Isaacus Casaubonus recensuit [Lyon, 1638]; Theophrasti libelli duo: vnus de igne, alter de odoribus interprete Adriano Turnebo [Harderwijk, 1656]; Theophrasti ... Characteres ethici, sive Morum descriptiones, Gr. & Lat., cum notis & monitis I.A. Werdenhagen [Leiden, 1632]); Pliny, author of the Historia Naturalis (Latin: Cologne, 1615 and Leiden, 1669; English: London, 1631); and Ælian, author of On the Nature of Animals and the Various Histories (Greek and Latin: Geneva, 1630; English: London, 1666). Of the moderns, he singles out Joseph Scaliger (1540–1609), cited here for his Animadversiones in Historias Theophrasti (1584; in the 1687 library catalogue); Girolamo Cardano (1501–76), De rerum varietate (1580; in the 1687 library catalogue); Conrad Gesner (1516–65) the Swiss bibliographer and author of Catalogus Plantarum (1542); Thomas Moffett (Moufet) (1553–1604), author of Insectorum sive minimorum Animalium Theatrum (1659; in the 1687 library catalogue); Giovanni Battista Hodierna (1597–1660), an Italian astronomer who wrote on comets and the phases of the sun and moon; Thomas Johnson (1561–1644), a botanist who enlarged Gerard’s Herbal, and cited here for that and for his own

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­ ntients: Scaliger, Cardan, Gesner, Mouffet, Hodierna, Johnstonus, Aldrovandus, My A Lord Verulam, DeCartes, Mr. Boile and others of the Antients Moderns, who have publish’d vast [word deleted] and almost innumerable Volumes, in the most nice, and accurate Descriptions of Natural things: Whole Bookes upon the Eye of a fly, the stupendious fabrique of the severall sorts of Insects; besides what the Botanists have publish’d writen upon every Weede and Grasse of field, for the detecting their qualities, their Medical and Mechanical Operations, ben laught at, and expos’d to scorn in any age, or among any reasonable Men in the World, ’til this last period, the most vile and deprav’d? Did they pretend to the Philosophie (falsly so cal’d) nay, or to the Sophistrie of the Scholes, which has for this last 800 yeares exercis’d the witts and penns of all the reputed learned men, ’til this more inlightn’d Age, without so much as one graine of Advantage to the publique, church or state;8 but to the creating of devlish Animosities, the murder and perdition of many thousands of poore soules; such an Assembly had ben the worthy Subject of Contempt and infamie: But, why the Convening of a select number of Gentlemen, combining with their Ingenuity, Purses, and Endeavors in so usefull, innocent and laudable a designe, as the investigation of Truths, and discovery of Errours and Impostures (so magisterialy impos’d on the World) without any Offence or provocation to anybody, should be more persecuted with virulent, and malicious Tongues, than those, who to the detriment of their Soules and Bodies consume their precious moments either in pursuite of their vices, or insignificant, or impertinent diversions;9 I confesse to have ben these thirty-yeares, to learn amongst Those Heros, from whom they learne to despise this Assembly, who take their Measures, and are fortified by the Successe of a Scurrilous Interlude (for it wholy degenerates from the antient and genuine Comedy) to make Vertue the Scorne of Buffoones: I will for the sake of Electra (who tells me of a Certaine Lady, who that esteemes, nay preferrs, the stage to the Pulpet) say no more of Plays, than of painting the Face; but to my holy Friend, that the Comparison was not well; since Preaching is the power and Ordinance of God, and therefore to be reverenc’d, and the impressions accompanying it effectual to the Conversion of Soules; which, as yet, I never heard of any the most moral Interlude: I will onely tell you, for the Lawfullnesse of what that Lady, conceives so innocent; that not onely the Fathers have universaly decry’d them as impious, and abominable; but the whole current of Divines, and Religious men (some very few of our modern carpet priests excepted) utterly condemn’d them. If she have a desire to see this unanswerably asserted, let her Read our learn’d Dr. Raynolds,10 than whom this Mercurius Botanicus (London, 1634 & 1641), an account of his botanical travels (both in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue); Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1604), an Italian naturalist who wrote comprehensively on fish, quadrupeds and animals. 8 At the beginning of one of his later commonplace books, Evelyn affirms: “Till about 1648, it would have ben accounted a presumptuos thing to have attempted any Innovation in the Common course of Learning; they thought there could nothing comparable to the Physics, and Courses of the Philosophie, and Sciences taught in the Universities; and one should have ben cried out upon as a vaine projector; to thinke that any thing could be added to their Hypotheses:” (Add 78333: f 1). 9 the Royal Society by contrast to the culture of Charles II’s court 10 John Rainolds, Th’overthrow of stage-playes ([Middelburg, 1599]; in the 1687 library catalogue). Eve­ lyn’s Diary nonetheless records many visits to playhouses.

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church never had a more profound and religious Champion. She will there find that the Fathers did not onely declare against those bloody Spectacles, where the Gladiators fought with Beasts, and murder’d one-another to divert the people: But Pantomimes, and Comedians, the pompous and Vaine Ostentation of Scenes, and the bringing of Women to act, and expose themselves upon the stage, as repugnant to the Vowes, and natural Modestie of the Sex; insomuch as that lewd Calling (however of late patroniz’d and of late defended here) are reputed Infamous by the Imperial Constitutions to this day, and stand Excommunicated. What would those holy Men and Women have then esteem’d of our Theaters, which are fill’d with such abominable Obscenities; repetition of Oathes, filthy Communications and Jeasting which are not convenient: She tells you that Wise, and Christian States allow them: I deny it flatly; They are no-where allow’d, but conniv’d at, and permitted, as publique Courtizans are at Venice and Rome, the Repudiation of Wives was among the Jewes, for the hardnesse of their hearts, and deprav’dnesse of our Manners, but from the beginning it was not so: No, not in the beginning of our Reformation in England; ’til the Dissolut of King James’s Reigne brought it into practise: There were indeede some Sacred Histories, represented by the Boys of Paules Schole, after Evening Service, for the diversion of the Queene at White hall: but the Trade of Comœdians was infamous, and when their Theaters came to be frequented (though not a woman durst then appeare upon the Stage, no not during the whole reigne of the late King Charles the first.) The Casuists, and Divines writ against them, and they stand condemn’d, by all the learned and religious men of the times: See but the strictures in Bishop Taylors11 Cases of Conscience, where all the Arguments are clearly discuss’d, and then let that Lady defend them if she dare: I do not Electra affirme by this, that all Dramatic Poesie12 is un-lawfull, nor condemne I the exercise and culture of cleane and genuine Wit, upon moral, and chast subjects: They are a noble refreshment to Spirits tir’d with too much labour and intention; but to bring this upon the Theater, with additions of so much filthinesse, as I am certaine she has seene and heard, for so many precious houres, and with these alaying Circumstances is what nobody, who have given-up their names to Virtue; and becoming the sex modestly can modestly frequent: I confesse I said, I should unwillingly be found sitting at an Interlude, when the last Trumpet should sound Surgite Mortui:13 She reply’d, that for ought she knew, it might be as ill, to be Eating, Drinking, Marrying, and giving in Marriage on that day: But I am certaine she spake against her knowledge; and can tell well enough, that those were onely instanc’d, to shew that there should no external signes, 11 Jeremy Taylor, Ductor dubitantium, or The rule of conscience in all her generall measures (London, 1660; in the 1687 library catalogue) 12 Evelyn’s contribution to the second edition of Samuel Tuke’s The adventures of five hours (London, 1664), his own attempts at playwriting (Thersander. A Tragi-Comedy [Add 78358]; The Originals [Add 78359: ff 1–2]) and his notes on the theatre and “dramatic poetry” (Add 78359: ff 5–17) suggest that his position here is not one-sided. His reference to “Dramatic Poesie” also echoes Dryden’s Of dramatick poesie (1668) and suggests the three other treatises on the subject that Dryden wrote between then and 1676. Both Dryden’s poems and plays were in his 1687 library catalogue and there are also more than seventy volumes of plays listed there. See also Mary Evelyn’s praise of The Siege of Granada and her remarks on the theatre in a 1671 letter to Ralph Bohun (Add 78438: f 17 [May 1671]). 13 “Arise ye dead.”

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or extraordinary changes of the course of Nature give warning of that surprizing moment; for doubtlesse Eating, and Drinking, and Marrying, building and planting, are not onely lawfull, but absolutely necessarie so long as the World endures: I have not observ’d a more witty perversion of Scripture tell her: Without question Milions will be surpriz’d in worse actions, than the sitting at a play: but a religious Person would not choose to be no better employ’d at the Coming of the Bridegroome: For my own part, it has oftener come into my thoughts with some terror, when I have ben at a play, than in any other Assembly whatsoever: You will aske, Why then did I ever imploy my time so idly? ’truely, he who to see a Play, but once in 4 or 5 Years, may be said as good as not to have seene one at all: Yet neither do I excuse it, nor as you, my Friend (so rarely frequenting them) do I reprove it; but this I affirme, The seldomer the better, unlesse you be well assur’d, that there is nothing offensive to strict piety, and the seven virtues you professe in them; and therefore in my opinion (as I have sometimes hinted to you) You should diligently enquire, and be well advis’d of that, before you go to a new-play, and never be greedy of seeing it the first day of acting: But I have don, though I might add a greate deale more to shew the lewdnesse and danger of these luxurious entertainers of the senses, with the losse of time; improved, as now our Theaters are, to the most proflygate licence, and peoples being every day spectators of them, without any moderation, or distinction of Times, Fridays, Saturdays, Fasts and Festivals; Whence our Ladys and Gallants returne late with the Ideas and Images of of these vaine impertinences; when their thoughts and Meditations should be compos’d, and taken up with better things, more suitable to the solemne Day that follows: For how can they awake and rise with Spiritual addresses, who went to bed late the night before with thoughts prepossessd and fild with Carnal and fantastic delights? I add yet againe, that I would not have you think me so vaine, and singularly ridiculous, as to per fancy my selfe borne to correct and reforme the Age, which were to be more ridiculous than a Fellow of the Royal Society: I could turne my style, and say as much perhaps for Plays, as that diversion would honestly beare, to gratifie an Innocent Conversation: But when I speake or Write to You, upon a serious and religious account, the Merites of the Cause (as I realy judge, and am assur’d) I do it as to an holy and extraordinary Friend, who was wont to trust me, and whom I am sure I dare no more deceive, than my owne Soule: If therefore (as you write) you needes will know what my Opinion is (who naturaly and by particular inclynation, affect all kind of splendid, and ingenious things) I have sincerely declared it: which is, upon the whole matter as to Plays, that they are some very few of them onely (I hope) not sinfull Entertainments. But the Calling is absolutely unlawfull, and the much frequenting them un-Christian upon strict account, for the reasons produc’d: The Trade of mocking Mocking and Jeasting, Disguizing the Person, exposing a modest Sex, the pompous Expense, and other Voluptuary arts accompanying it, are not agreable to Christian and Evangelical perfection, and the time which is given us to workout our Salvation, and making our Calling and Election sure: But you affirme they alow greate almes to the poore: But you say know who says: Thou shall not bring the hire of a whore nor a price of a dog into the Tabernacle Sanctuary:14 We must not do evil that good may come of it. 14 Deuteronomy 3:18

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Now as to Paynting the Face, which is the next thing Electra, you require my opinion of: I shall onely say [words deleted] as to that Ladys Argument, that she thinks it as lawfull as Mouches or any other Ornament etc. She should consider that ’tis the Countenance which alures the Eye, not the dresse but that if undecent a Snare also: Men do not lust after Clothes, but after beauty; and painting the face is of the nature of a Lie, to make that appeare, which is not; and many do not distinguish it from the natural Tincture; so it is a deceit, and it is either to attract, or to delight the Eye of others, a mark of Pride, and what has in all ages ben reputed meretricious; and if it onely had the fame of an ill Report, it were enough to make a Christian Woman abhorr it; nor dos the Costome at all extenuate any sinn, but rather aggravats; and it is now, when ’tis a Costome, that one should the rather abandon it; for when it was no Costome, none but W Strumpets us’d it, and now it is in Use, what dos it signifie, but that the number of those Wantons are increas’d: But she Asks, how if my Husband like it? I have told you that in strict Religion she ought not to comply with him in it; If she believe she may; then doubtlesse she should onely use it at home, and not abroad, where she has no husband to please: In the meane time, Miserable is that Wife whose Husbands Affection is to be charm’d by Painting her face and thrice Wretched and Unworthy He, who having a Wife endow’d with the natural beauty, and agreablenesse of mind and Body whith which God has so eminently endow’d that Lady: his Satisfaction should receive the least improvement by so vaine and foolish an addition: Sure I am, he that is Yours is too holy and good and reasonable to place his Contentment in any Circumstance relating to you, but what is the Gift of God: and if you be not both satisfied and thankfull for that; You are both to blame: I would not for any thing my Electra should be lesse amiable. It is a Blessing, and peculiar favour, and the heart is pleasd (says the Wise-man) with nothing more. Beauty was ordain’d to kindle, and maintaine even Vertuous love, and therefore is not altogether to be neglected: But when God has already ben so bountifull, the additions of Art are reprochfull: Therefore, if Painting be Tollerable in any, it should be for the very Ougly, and those whose Faces are not onely displeasing, but Offensive and frightfull: And in that case, Patches, and Supposititious Eyes, Supplemental Noses, legs, and hands; helps to distorted bodys (because there is something of Monstrous, and ridiculous, and which Nature dos abhorr etc.) I think it very lawfull to supply defects: so Perruques to the bald, and thinn of haire, both for warmth and covering etc. But to daub Paint on a good, or tollerable face, can pretend to none of these: Now as to rich Clothing, Attires and Jewels, I pronounce them not onely very lawfull but necessary, appropriate to Persons and Degrees: Such as are in Kings-houses and Courts of Princes: For our Blessed Lord, dos not by that expression wholy condemne gorgious Aparell; no more than dos St. Peter,15 Embroidering of the haire, with Pearls etc., but with respect to those, to whome he indites his Epistle to; the time and circumstances consider’d, which was a persecuting and Calamitous Period: And when he sends you to those holy Women of Old Time to dresse your sex by, ’tis not by any positive prohibition of the use of Jewels (which certainly God from the beginning made to illustrate and decorate the wearer) but an Exhortation of your being rather carefull to adorne the soule 15 1 Timothy 2:9

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and better part, with the Ornaments of the interior and incorruptible Man, Meekenesse, Peace, and Chastitie, than with a studious dresse and gaudy dresse glittering with tinsel and hobby-horse. For ’tis evident, that even of old time the Patriarchs were Opulent and rich in Jewels: They sent their Spouses Eare-rings and bracelets; and that honest Servant of Abraham, carried a Present of Jewels, Rayment, and other precious things for Rebeccah and her relations, as you may reade in Genesis [LM: 24] and yet was this Lady so far from being reprov’d for this, that we find her celebrated as a patern for Virtuous Wives to imitate,16 as ’tis in our Matrimonial Office of our Church: To returne to painting again Tis certaine the that use of painting couloring the face is so far from improving natural beauty, that it exedes and decays even the remainders of it: rendring the skin more pale, old and yellow; for the Carmint17 has a mixture of Minium18 in it, which is of venemous nature; as for White-washes, the Mercurial are deadly and pernicious; and the rest of Slaps, Cerusse, Talk Talc, in pouders or liquid are perfect plastrings: As to what you aledge of the Use of Oyle to make the face shine: It was not to superinduce any Colour, or attract admirers, but to refresh, and lax the hardn’d skin of the face as the Custome was for Men in those parching and burning Climats: should I moreover add, the severe Declamations of St. Cyprian19 that holy Martyr, to the Ladys and Virgins of his time, they are so terrible, and yet with all so moving and pathetical, that you would even melt into teares of remorse, and abandon all thoughts of painting ever after: But why say I this to Electra, who never uses these Cosmetics, and has so greate a stock of beauty, and other perfections, and is I know so tender of doing ill, and so easily rebuk’d when she dos: She remembers that though she is a Wife to a Mortal Man, she is Espous’d to Christ, and that he is her first Love: I would have my deare Child without spot, or wrinkle or any such thing, that is, free from any the least thing that has any tincture or the: appearance of Evil, or be of the number of those who countenance an ill action, by being reputed Vertuous: but this dissolute custome has ben introduc’d by Outlandish Women, such as caused Solomon himselfe to sinn, and turn’d away his heart; whilst we of this Nation, have not so learned Christ: But I now returne to the Society,20 and after I have answered your Queries, and that of the Ladys your –21 proceede with my Apologie: It was Objectd our Experiments were trifling, and many of them Crude: I have said sufficient to shew you that there is nothing 16 In fact the marriage service says of this: “let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing gold, or of putting on apparel.” 17 carminite: an arsenate of lead varying from carmine to tile-red 18 red lead 19 Evelyn’s copy of John Fell’s edition of Cyprian’s Opera (Oxford, 1682; Eve.c.17) contains the essay De Disciplina et habitu Virginum (92–103) in which the section condemning the use of yellow colouring or black powder or rouge (101) has been scored with pencil in the margin. In Fell’s edition is a section called Opuscula vulgo Adscripta Caelio Cypriano, in which the first entry is an essay called De Spectaculis which also attacks the theatre. There is more pencil scoring next to Cyprian’s attacks on the obscenity and shamelessness of the theatre. 20 Many of the experiments listed below are described in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society before 1676 (see Eve.a.149 for Evelyn’s set). 21 sister, i.e. Henrietta Yarborough, Evelyn’s foil in this letter

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meane in nature, nor has she produced any thing in vaine: We are to ascend heights and sublimities by degrees, and one thing is made to illustrate another: What so more meane and vulgar than the Originals of the most usefull things productions? Is a building erected without Chalke, and Sand, and Water? Are not fruits and plants and grasse made to spring, and Consequently Catell fed, and our bodys nourish’d with the flesh, and all that from the most noysome Dunghill? And Are not all the Medicins of the Apothecarie artificial mixtures, of a thousand fulsome ingredients? Why is it not as ridiculous to think that Woodlice should cure the Jaundice, Horse dung the Pleurisie; That of Dogs, the Angina? A Ligature about ones finger, abate the accesse of a Quartan Ague, or the pouder of a post, the late famous Cortex,22 as that a little Chalk, with Cheeze-Cruds, should compose a Cement, durable as Marble: Charcole, Sulphur and a few graines of Niter, blow-up and tare to pieces the strongest bulwarks, and remove even Mountaines with its force: That the contact onely of a piece of yron, that has but touching an obscure and dirty Pebble, be the occasion of finding a New World, after so many ages that it had layn un-known? Would you not at first have laugh’t at an Assembly of grave and learned men, that should have laied their heads and long beards together in Expectation of such Stupendious Effects, from such trivial and sordid materials? I am perfectly asham’d at these pitifull Cavells. Suppose it true, as certainely it is, that no Creature strikes its limits so like a skillfull swimmer as a meadow Frog: What is in it of ridiculous?23 Has not the stork or some such Foule, taught the most skillfull Physitian the use of Clyster, to clense the Entrails in a much more ridiculous posture? Do they not apply young Puppies to ease the breasts of Women oppress’d with Milke, when they give the childrens Drink to Doggs? Yet no body reproches this, though there be none of all our Experiments on meaner subjects and more worthy of Laughter: Innumerable more as the Instances I could produce to convince you of the Unreasonablenesse and injustice of their Scorn, if these were not sufficient: For why may we not hope by the vanity of so many trials and rational Attempts, to find out at laste something of no lesse Use; since the most successfull, and excellent Inventions, have onely ben the Offspring of Chance and Mixture? Now for that of Infusing wholsome and incontaminate Bloud into a body where that humor is so absolutely necessarie to the Animal life is vitiated etc:24 I provoke any Age to produce a more rational and noble an Experiment: An attempt worthy ag’d Hippocrates, Æsculapius, and even Appollo himselfe; were he of the Coledge of Physitians for ’tis evident (by what has already appear’d, in more than one Instance) that this Transfusion has strangly, and almost miraculously reviv’d, languishing persons cured, and some of incurable leprosies; and could it be pursu’d with the same convenience, as the breaching of a Veine, and the transfusion made without perdition of spirits (as by our Sir Christopher Wrens Contrivance, it was to greate degree) It were worth the celebration of a renoun’d Invention, and deserve an Hecatomb to the Inventor, for the benefit of all Mankind: Besids tis by this apparent, that 22 a Peruvian bark 23 In The Virtuoso, Sir Nicholas Gimcrack attempts to imitate the swimming of a frog with the aid of a swimming-master. 24 Such an experiment, involving the transfusing of blood from a sheep to a dog, was performed at the Royal Society on 28 March 1667 (Diary III.478).

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the Bloud of the whole Creation is a liquôr of the same kind, elaborated and digested by the same Organs, and of the same Nature, in perpetual circulation; The discovery whereof was onely brought to light by the death and cruel Torturing of innumerable Animals, dissected and open’d alive by the famous Dr. Hervey and others,25 to establish and promote that usefull and luciferous doctrine: But was not even this a long time thought an idle dreame? and obstinately oppugn’d and oppinionated, that there was no such thing? and has it not yet succeeded to the Shame of all Contradiction? Would it not also have ben Scoff’d at, as ridiculous a thing as any our Society has attempted; To have expected such Effects from the medicina infusoria, that by injecting Narcotique or Emetic juices into the Veines, the patient should grow stupid, or sick to vomiting; an illustrious experiment, for the discovery of the operations of Medicines by the habite of the body, and that more effectualy, than by drinking large potions, and other nauseous Administrations? It shews what it is causes those alterations in the body, and that they proceede from the vicious ferment, affecting that Part, as the Circulation makes its progresse; so that one may promote Vomits, Purgations, Sweate, Intoxication, and the most-pernicious and deadly Symptoms, together with their Alexipharmacs and remedies by the same experiment: Poysons have ben by these Examin’d, as well to excogitate Antidotes, as to detect the danger of Several Drugs, and ingredients; and therefore an Extract of meere Tobacco (being of all other in the Vegetable family the most deadly and deleterious) those who debauch to an excessive Custome of using that vanity of perpetual Smoking, may be caution’d of the perill, because tis obvious, that it disposes to palsies and weakning of the Nerves: It is pretty, that one small drop of this extract, mix’t with the bloud of a living Foule, dos in a moment intenerate the flesh to miracle; so as no Mortification of the Poulterers art exceedes it; nor wonder we any longer at the King of Mucassars exquisite poyson,26 because this is so very speedy: having this quality with all, that so the part affected, being timely separated; the flesh may be eaten without any danger or inconvenience: But you demand farther What experiments of Use, we have made all this time? Though I told you, that the very examination of such as have imposed so boldly and long, upon the world already, is a worthy and most usefull designe; and that our buisinesse is not to raise a new Theorie of Philosophy, but collect a plenty of Materials, by new, and joint Attempts, for the Work, since there must be rough and unhew’d Timber, Stones, Glasse, Lead, Yron, and severall grosse Ingredients Material brought into the Field, before the foundation is layd, and any super-structure dream’t of: To these I might super-add a world of Inventions more, besides Pendule Clocks, and Watches, Cranes to draw-up huge and pondrous stones Weights and more exact levels; Instruments to examine the Saliences of Water, and its highest absent Ascent, Pumps and forces, several Mathematical Pieces Problems; Tryals on the spring of Aire, and Water; New discoveries in Anatomie, and the among innumerable other, the late

25 William Harvey (1578–1657; ODNB). Evelyn saw such an experiment at the house of John Barckman, the Swedish resident in London, on 10 October 1667. An experiment “of more cruelty than pleased me” he wrote (Diary III.497–8). 26 the gum of a Malayan tree used to poison arrows. This is the subject of a paper in Philosophical Transactions 2, no. 23 (1666), 417.

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Surprizing Phosphorus27 which deserves a particular and large Account, but I have quite tir’d both your selfe and my owne patience, with the little I yet have said, to the much behind: But I spare Electra, and should beg her pardon for this, had she not commanded me to give her this satisfaction, or at least endeavor it. Says-Court 18 July: –1676.

Elizabeth Mordaunt Letter 386 [383] January 16, 1677#1 f 199r–v

Epistle CCCLXXXIII To my Lady Vicountesse Mordaunt:

Madame, Besides the solicitude I have for your Ladyships health, and that of my Lord your sonn,2 and to know in what condition he is: The Commission you gave me for the distribution of your Charity,3 requires some account from me: I am now enquiring how, and when I may place your piety and bounty so as best may answer the qualifications you mentiond, and of which your Ladyship shall receive an exact particular: But because you seem’d to intimate that it might be emploid for the reliefe of poore prisoners, and to aleviate their debts; I would onely aske whither I might not cloth or relive a miserable Widow, or any other destitute and religious Christian in some small proportion, without diverting it from what you have design’d it chiefly; because without your expresse allowance therein, I am tender in what I would do: I know one or two very greate Objects of Charity, comparable, I dare say, to any I shall find among the Prisoners, especialy those of the London Prisons, who have the best allowanc: A small matter will refresh them, and I shall make it my care to dispense the rest I hope, to the honest discharge of your Trust, whilst I cease not to blesse and magnifie God, who has enlarg’d your noble heart to a work of so illustrious 27 Evelyn first encountered phosphorus in Rome and Bologna in May 1645 (Diary II.398, 422–3). A 1677 account of “Phosphorus fulgarans” is given in Philosophical Transactions 12, no. 135 (1677), 867, and Evelyn gives a much longer account of it at the Royal Society in 1681 (Diary IV.251–4). Most of the experiments in this list can be identified with Hooke and the public perception of him. Hooke had also just been appointed to oversee the refurbishment of the apartments of Margaret and Sidney Godolphin at Whitehall. 1 Possibly from the previous year. Evelyn notes in the Diary for 2 December 1675 that “After dinner this pious woman delivered me 100 pounds to bestow as I thought fit for the release of poore Prisoners, & other Charitable Uses” (Diary IV.81). 2 Charles Mordaunt. See Letter 384. 3 There is no evidence in the letters from Elizabeth Mordaunt to Evelyn to suggest what this was, but a letter of c.1677 from Ann Sylvius asking Evelyn to find help for a poor widow (Add 78309: f 28 [n.d. c.1677]) suggests a source of Evelyn’s inquiry in this letter.

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a name, so divine a charity vertue, in an age of so much coldnesse and want of it: This Madame is indeede an Evidence that you are a sincere Christian, and deare to God; ’tis a Grace he dos not bestow upon all; but it is the Character and Impression, of his peculiar favour to you. It is that for which at the greate Advent of our Lord, you shall be infinitely rewarded, and will (I perswade my selfe) procure for you not onely deliverance from all your present Sufferings, but an accumulation of Blessings for all your Patience and Resignation, your Piety, and Labour of Love in this Instance of your excellent Charity: It is long Madame, I do assure you that I have constantly praied for you, and remember’d you among some holy and devout Friends of mine, who for their love to God, and Fruite of Good works deserve to be celebrated, and are very deare to me; so as I cannot say you have by this largesse of yours acquird a new Votarie; because I was allwayes your Orator, and mindfull of you in my humble Addresses: But this I can say, that I have now a far greater Obligation to serve and honour you, and I will sincerely do it who am Madame Your etc. Says-Court: 16: January 1677.

Ann Sylvius Letter 387 [384] June 22, 1677 f 199v

Epistle CCCLXXXIV To Mrs. Ann Howard.

Deare Play fellow: This comes to make-good my promise, and to acknowledge the Receit of what you left for me with our good friend: If it had ben farther usefull to you, ’twas still at your service: I din’d at your Mothers1 the last Weeke with my Wife and some other friends of yours, who all remember’d you kindly, and I am restor’d to Grace againe: I can tell you no newes from London; but that having ben all this Weeke at home, I have had leasure to finish what you have so long injoyn’d me and what indeede I have so long ow’d you: I pray God it may be worth your Acceptance: There is nothing in the World which I love and seeke more to encourage, than the choice you have made, and the resolution you persist in, of preferring Virtue, and real Piety, before the false and fleeting Vanities of the World, and the tempting Circumstances of your Age and station which indeare you infinitely to my esteeme: Be assur’d, that though for the present you undergo some Anxieties, GodAlmighty will be your portion, Recompence your Patience and relyance on him. I believe you are by this time sensible that the Bath aire is almost as warm as the waters, and how you (that are neither Gosship nor Card-plaier) passe the time, I should be in paine, if you 1 Elizabeth Howard, née Dundas

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were not very devout, and neere a Cathedral where it is allways fresh, and has a Librarie of very good bookes to divert you with. Dr. Glanvill is an excellent Preacher,2 and I would be glad my service were presented to him (if you are acquainted with him, as I know not how you can escape it) who has don me so much undeserved honor in a Worke which he has lately publish’d;3 but (from my heart, I speake it) which I no whit have merited. Since I saw you here I have ben in Companie with an humble servant of yours:4 He tooke me fast by the hand, and in solemne manner repeated the kindest and most obliging expressions that could possibly flow from an heart full of love, honor, and respect, and I that have a natural pitie for sufferers (as having my selfe experienc’d that Bitter-Sweete) could not abstain from compassionating his Condition: What shall I add The Angel sighs: his Saint she Bleedes, See what Effects dire Love succeedes! But ah the diff’rence in the Smart; She bleedes at Nose, He at the Heart. Lovers are onely happy then When he who loves, is lov’d agen –

which rarely hapning in the Creature, and when attain’d the feare of loosing what we have love, is so tormenting; let us endeavor to place it upon God, where ’tis onely perfect and permanent, and whom we can never love too much Farewell Deare Play fellow. Says–Court: 22: June: –1677.

2 Joseph Glanvill was rector of the abbey church in Bath. 3 In his essay, “Modern Improvements of Useful Knowledge,” included in the collection Essays on several important subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London, 1676; in the 1687 library catalogue), Glanvill had said in discussing the Royal Society: “And another excellent Virtuoso of the same Assembly, Mr. John Evelyn, hath very considerably advanced the History of Fruit and Forest-Trees, by his Sylva and Pomona; and greater things are expected from his Preparations for Elysium Britanicum, a noble Design now under his hands: And certainly the inquisitive World is much indebted to this generous Gentleman for his very ingenious Performances in this kind, as also for those others of Sculpture, Picture, Architecture, and the like practical useful things with which he hath enrich’d it” (30). See also Letter 300. 4 Sir Gabriel Sylvius (de Sylviis) (c.1637–97; Diary). Born in Orange, he was first married (1669) to Mlle de la Garde, one of the dressers to Catherine of Braganza, who died in 1673. He corresponded with Evelyn in 1667 about Jan Kievit’s project to brick the wharves of the Thames after the Great Fire (Diary III.470, 476). Knighted in 1670, he married (partly through Evelyn’s offices – Diary IV.123) Ann Howard in 1677. Sylvius went in the same year to be master of the household (Hofmeester) to the Prince of Orange, who married Princess Mary on 4 November 1677. In 1680 he was sent as envoy to Brunswick in 1680, and in 1685 James II made him keeper of the Privy Purse and sent him as envoy extraordinary to Denmark.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Bennet Letter 388 [385] September 19, 1677 ff 199v–200

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Epistle CCCLXXXV To my Lord Chamberlaine The Earle of Arlington:1

My Lord ’Tis not in the Circumstance of a Letter to containe the acknowledgements of an heart so brimfull as is this of mine when I but think of Euston, My Lord Chamberlaine or but heare ’em nam’d:2 The Seate is like a finish’d piece of some excellent hand, which whether one reguards it neere at hand, or at distance gives the beholder an astonishing pleasure and contentment: But your Lordships Palace has this of more perfection, that ’tis within, what it appears without; not onely faire, beautifull and magnificent, but Usefully contriv’d and fitting indeede for my Lord Chamberlaine who has a Soule as greate and generous as is his house, and that dwells as nobly:3 My Lord, I tell you a greate Truth, and to which all who have the honor to know you are Suffragans; That You, of all the Greate persons who adorne this age and Court, are the most emulous Example of Civility, Humanitie, Friendship, Comitie, Obligingnesse, and a thousand Virtues which your modestie will not permit me to expatiate on. I beseech your Lordship to believe that I am your most faithfull and devoted Servant, and that my obligations to your Lordship have left impressions in me, not to be obliterated. The opportunitie of your Lordships Servants returne, and your generousnesse to accept of small Returnes, when the will is greate, makes me presume to send you the two Mapps of Rome, and the famous Judgement of Michael Angelo (which you mentiond that you wanted) because they are none of them to be had in this Citty; and are the more valuable for this, that they are of the hand of Tempesta,4 that celebrated Florentine: I meane Roma Antica, and Moderna, and because they are very usefull on occasion of comparing its present state to what it was when flourishing in glory: I brought them above 30 yeares since from Rome, and hope they may serve to make up that Gap, and cover the walls of your Gallerie of Mapps etc.: Pardon onely the meanesse of the present. For the rest my Lord, to tell your Lordship of our Expectation of the Prince of Orange,5 who ’tis said, meetes the King at New-Market, and comes to make Love to our Princesse, can be no new’s to you: This is believ’d the Addresse of our greate Minister here, to take the benevolence of the Parliament and people: but many things loose their Grace, when they come 1 Arlington acknowledged this letter on 25 September (Add 78678: f 21 [25.9.1677]). 2 Euston Hall. Evelyn first visited Bennet’s estate in October 1671 (Diary III.589–92). He returned in September 1677, and provided an extensive description of the house and grounds (Diary IV.116–18). 3 See the treatment of Bennet’s role as taste-maker in Jacobsen, “Luxury Consumption, Cultural Politics, and the Career of the Earl of Arlington, 1660–1685.” 4 Both works of Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) are listed in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue, f 120. Tempesta’s Urbis Romae Prospectus was first issued in 1593 and reissued in 1606, 1648, and 1664. 5 William III

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out of Season, or at least not when they first set their heart upon a thing, and discerne not the intrigue: Sir Robert Howard6 sits more uneasy than ever: but I presume not to passe any farther and speake of matters of state, to a statesman, who am so little a thing, and uninlightned: But your Lordship remembers the Commands you laid upon me, and so do I: And therefore continue to tell your Lordship that his Majestie went this Morning to Chatham to the Launching and Christning of Captain Gunmans new Yacht;7 and Mr. Godolphin8 (who parted hence to day towards New Market) will make his own excuse (if he can) why he did not carry his Lady9 to Euston, whither she has ben so kindly invited, for I have don your Lordships Commands to him, and he is sensible of the omission: My Lord, I must end this Letter with the most sincere accknowledgment of your servant, Sir Richard Brown, my Wife, and our intire family present our most obedient Submissions to your Lordship, my noble Lady,10 and the illustrious Dutchesse:11 I doubt not, but when Mr. Philips shall have read a little Philosophie to her Grace, I shall be in temper favour againe,12 which is the greate ambition of my Lord Your Lordships etc. White-hall: 19 September –1677:

Poore Mr. Oldenburg, being lately dead, the Royal Society have made an unexpressable losse; for we shall never meete with so industrious a Creature, and whose Talent was so extraordinarie: The few Bookes he left, were exceedingly Curious, as being the presents of all the greate Virtuosos abroad: If they were to be had, I could wish for them at Euston:13 I most humbly kisse the hands of Mademoiselle Beverward.14 6 Sir Robert Howard (1626–98; ODNB). A politician and playwright, he was at this time secretary to the Treasury, deputy lieutenant of Wiltshire and keeper of the royal game. He was a political opponent of the lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby. 7 Christopher Gunman (d. 1685; Diary). Evelyn describes Gunman as “that excellent Pilot, & sea-man, who behaved himself so valiantly in the Dutch-War” (Diary IV.432). The yacht Mary is referred to by Evelyn (Diary IV.80) as taking John Berkeley’s household (including Margaret Godolphin and Evelyn’s son John) to France. 8 Sidney Godolphin 9 Margaret Godolphin 10 Isabella Bennet, Lady Arlington (d. 1718).The daughter of Henry of Nassau, she was appointed groom of the stole to Catherine of Braganza in 1683. 11 Isabella Fitzroy, duchess of Grafton (c.1667–1723). The daughter of Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, Isabella became countess of Arlington in her own right in 1685. She first married Henry Fitzroy (formerly Palmer) (1663–90; ODNB), an illegitimate son of Charles II, in 1672 (a marriage confirmed in 1679), and in 1698, Sir Thomas Hanmer. 12 Evelyn reports on 16 September 1677 that “I preferred Mr. Philips to the service of my L. Chamb: who wanted a scholar to reade to & entertaine him some times: My Lord has a library at Euston full of excellent books” (Diary IV.120–1). Edward Phillips had been tutor to John Jr from 1663 to 1665, and had left to take up a position Philip Herbert, 5th earl of Pembroke (see Letter 238, note 2). 13 See Malcolm, “The Library of Henry Oldenburg.” Many of Oldenburg’s books entered the library of the earl of Anglesey. 14 a daughter of Louis of Nassau, and a friend of Lady Arlington and Amelia Osborne, the wife of Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby. She is referred to as being at a dinner party at Lord Arlington’s on 23 November 1676 (Diary IV.102 and n. 10).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Osborne Letter 389 [386] December 18, 1677 f 200

589

Epistle CCCLXXXVI To my Lord Treasurer etc. the Earle of Danby.

My Lord, When I had last the honor to waite on your Lordship speaking of the Earle of Bristols Librarie,1 your Lordship was pleas’d to say, that if you might cull-out and make choice of what Books you thought fit, you would deale for them, according to the Auction price of books at second-hand: My Lady Sunderland2 had before this put her Fathers3 Catalogue into my hands, desiring me if I could, to helpe the Countesse (her mother)4 off with them; but seem’d not willing to part with them, unlesse she could sell them all together: I tooke the papers home to me, and upon perusal of them, find, that though there are a competent number of Books, yet, there are many of the Classic and old Authors wholy wanting, which, even a reasonable Library cannot well be without; and such as are there, be for the greater part the old and first Impressions, most of them having bin since publish’d from newe and correct Copies, and with the Notes of learned-men upon them: The rest consist chiefely of Medicine, Poets, Plays, Romances, Chymical and Astrological Books, to which last study of figure flinging, I guesse (by the Collection) his Lordship was much addicted. There are some good Historians, but they are likewise imperfect, and not in any Series: Those of Physic are the most considerable: Manuscripts, scarce any, few of Tactics Militarie Discipline and Politics, of which I thought I should have found better store and of more choice: so as upon the whole Inventorie out of 2482 Volumes (The Titles whereoff I have read over) I could not mark with my pen above 500: worth the having, being not a quarter of the Total number, and cannot I conceive amount to any greate summ, and doubtlesse even of them, your Lordship may have a good part already: Whilst I was thus far, and intending to redeliver her Ladyships Catalogue againe, I receiv’d the inclosed 1 On 20 December, Evelyn reports “To Lond: din’d at Lo: Chamb: Carried my Lord Treasurer an account of the Earle of Bristols Librarie at Wimbleton, which my Lord thought of purchasing, til I acquainted him, it was a very broken Collection, consisting much in books of Judicial Astrologie, Romances & trifles &c” (Diary IV.126). This collection was sold on 19 April 1680 and catalogued as Bibliotheca Digbeiana, sive Catalogus librorum in variis linguis editorum. See also Letters 285 and 619. 2 Anne Spencer, née Digby (1646–1716; Diary). Married to Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland (1641–1702; ODNB), she was a close friend and frequent correspondent of Evelyn. Much of her continuous correspondence with Evelyn from 1674 to 1694 is contained in Add 15889. She was also a friend of both Ann Sylvius and Margaret Godolphin. 3 George Digby died in 1676. 4 Anne Digby, countess of Bristol (d. 1697). Daughter of Francis Russell, 4th earl of Bedford, she married (c.1635) George Digby, who became earl of Bristol (1653). She was the mother of Anne Spencer. The Digbys lived at Wimbledon House and Chelsea, the latter house formerly owned by Sir Thomas More. She too was a close friend and correspondent of Evelyn.

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Letter by which your Lordship will perceive she is now dispos’d to part with them in any sort; so as your Lordship may do what you please before St. Ebramants friend5 have made any proffer proffer: As to the price which is demanded, ’tis more by £200 than I should be willing to give, though I believe they cost a greate deale more: If I may be in any thing farther serviceable to your Lordship upon this, or any other occasion your Lordship will greately honour with your Commands My Lord Your etc. London 18 December –1677.

Adam Littleton1 Letter 390 [387] February 12, 1678 f 200v

Epistle CCCLXXXVII To Dr. Littleton etc.

[LM: When he sent me his Dictionarie]2 Reverend Sir, I have just now receiv’d your munificent Present by the hands of our good friend Mr. Hales:3 And though it certainely be the most consummate and accomplish’d Work of this kind, that has ever ben hitherto publish’d; Yet, give me leave to say, that I find not a Word in it comprehensive enough to expresse my Thankfullnesse, and Accknowledgements to you for this greate Civilitie. That I am more a stranger to your Person, than to your Worth (for who that has any veneration for Piety and Learning, but has heard of Dr. Littleton?) is my greate infelicity: But Sir, it shall not be long that I will live in this unhappy Circumstance, who have so often design’d to kisse your hands, and am now a-fresh ingag’d to assure you of my being Reverend Sir Your etc. Says-Court 12: February 1677/8

5 Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Saint-Évremond (1610–1703) lived in exile in England in the late seventeenth century and was a littérateur and an admirer of Hortense Mancini, Mazarin’s niece. He was active in her salon. Possibly she is the “friend” alluded to here. 1 Adam Littleton (1627–94; ODNB). He was a chaplain in ordinary to Charles II and received a DD in 1670. 2 Linguæ Latinæ liber dictionarius quadripartitus (London, 1678; in the 1687 library catalogue) 3 Edward Hales, 3rd baronet and Jacobite 1st earl of Tenterden (1645–95; ODNB, H). Hales was tutored by Obadiah Walker and further educated by travelling abroad (1657–64), where he matriculated at the University of Padua. His letter of 9 July 1667 to Evelyn suggests that he was in the army then (Add 78317: f 76 [9.7.1667]). In 1674 he bought Hackington in Kent and he became an MP in 1679. Hales was one of the few official converts to Roman Catholicism in James II’s reign. He was made a member of the Privy Council, lord of the Admiralty, governor of Dover Castle, and (as lieutenant of the Tower) the jailor of the seven bishops who protested against James II.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Richard Owen Letter 391 [388] April 11, 1678 f 200v

591

Epistle CCCLXXXVIII To Dr. Richard Owen etc.

Sir, By a late Intimation receiv’d from my Wife, I find how much we are oblig’d for your kind thoughts and intentions towards us: Indeede I should esteeme it a greate Blessing, that my Sonn were so dispos’d of, and daughters so provided for, as might free us from the usual anxieties, which in some degree affect all tender and just Parents, ’til their Children are settl’d in the World: But as my Fortune (however much greater than I deserve) cannot pretend to so ample a portion, as I heare the Lady1 has; so can there nothing but an extraordinary favour from God-Almighty (who disposes of all things) and the assistance of such worthy Friends as Dr. Owen, bring it to the desir’d accomplishment. It is not yet, that as greate matters as this are not don (severall of my owne Family and Relations having ben successefull upon as meane pretensions) but because they are rare in an Age, when people do not so much reguard the Person, as the Possessions, to which they sacrifice their flesh and blood, without respect to other Circumstances, which truely consider’d, are of more intrinsique value; and if that might be cast into the Balance; I should not doubt, but my sonn (whose nature and Education you so well know) would even for many endowments be thought worthy an excellent Wife; not to speake of a Family, wholy dispos’d to render their Children as happy as all the Circumstances of kindnesse, and decent living can make them, without exorbitance and wanton superfluitie, which, if we had the Indies, we should not be tempted to, having all of us ben bred to serve and feare God, and to passe through this world without reproch, and as becomes those, who have not set-up all their hopes and expectations in this life: This is, Doctor, honestly what we aime at; and I make the discoverie to you, as to a worthy Friend, to whom (however the Event of this prove) we must ever esteeme our selves exceedingly oblig’d and in particular Your etc. Says-Court: 11 Aprill: 1678.

1 Whatever this proposed match, it came to nothing and John Evelyn Jr married Martha Spencer (c.1661– 1726) in 1680.

592

Richard Talbot1 Letter 392 [389] June 22, 1678 f 200v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCLXXXIX To Colonel Richard Talbot:

[LM: Since Earl [insert: Duke] of Tyrconell in Ireland and Lord Lieutennant there.] Sir, I lately received an Obliging letter from Dublin, transmitted me by Mrs. Boynton:2 what my Industrie has ben able to procure you, her Ladyship3 can best informe you, though my successe has not hitherto answer’d my indeavors: But it is since, I find to your advantage; for though I do not particularly know the Person, yet he is so well recommended to me by those who do, that I doubt not of his performing what he shall undertake: I have therefore no more to add, but to wish him safe in Ireland, and you, and your most excellent Lady all prosperity, who am Sir Your etc. White hall 22 June –1678

1 Richard Talbot, 1st earl of Tyrconnell and Jacobite duke of Tyrconnell (1630–91; ODNB). He was in the service of the duke of York (James II) at the Restoration and fought in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1678 he wrote to Evelyn about the construction of his garden in Dublin (Add 15948: f 150 [27.5.1678]). He was arrested for supposed complicity in the “Popish Plot” (1678). In June 1686 he was appointed lieutenant-general of the forces in Ireland. Talbot supported James II in 1688 and commanded James’s forces at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. 2 Mrs Boynton was the wife of Lt. Col. Matthew Boynton of Burton Agnes and the mother of Katherine Talbot, Lady Tyrconnel. 3 Katherine Talbot, née Boynton, Lady Tyrconnel (d. 1679). She was maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza (1662–9) and married Richard Talbot in 1669.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Bennet Letter 393 [390] 1678 [after August 14]#1 f 200v

593

Epistle CCCXC To my Lord Chamberlaine

[LM: note deleted] My Lord, Your greate goodnesse, and to me particular Indulgence, will pardon this un-wonted presumption, if the infinite Concerne I have for my noble Lord Osserie2 alone, make me solicitous to know in what Circumstances things are abroad, after the Reports of a Conflict (at Mons) so surprizing and unexpected to us here. I beseech your Lordship that this Bearer may in one word from your Lordships mouth, relieve us of our suspence and apprehensions: I am my Lord Your etc. Says-Court –1678

Henry Hyde Letter 394 [391] December 3, 1678 ff 200v–1

Epistle CCCXCI To the Earle of Clarendon

My Lord If I had not ben extreamely afflicted with a cold which has detain’d me in my Cell, I should not have sent my proxy to accknowledge your Lordships good intentions towards me: It is now from my Lord Chamberlaine1 I learne, that your Lordship is dispos’d to Oblige me; but it is from my Lord your Father2 (who whilst he lived was my patron) and from a long series of yeares, in which I had the honour to be cherish’d by him, that I was assur’d your Lordship who succeeded him in dignity, would do no lesse in kindnesse towards me: My Lord, this is ingenuously my Case, God, has of his goodnesse ben 1 Not dated, but after the battle of Mons (14 August 1678) 2 Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory (1634–80; ODNB) had been appointed general of the British forces in the pay of the States General of Holland by the Prince of Orange’s patent, and in that capacity was at the battle of Mons in 1678 where two shots struck his armour. 1 Henry Bennet 2 Edward Hyde

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pleas’d to give me such a Competency, as on which I have hitherto subsisted decently in the world; but a vast Debt due from his Majestie to my Father in Law, contracted for the many yeares he so l[o]yally served his Majestie and Prædcessor of Blessed Memory3 during his Ministrie abroad at the French Court; amounting to neere £12000, has ben so far a weakning to us; that I find it absolutely necessarie to seeke (by all honest endeavors) to obtaine his Majesties gracious reflection on his services, for some effectual supplies, if not the payment of the intire debt: My Lord, my Daughters4 grow upon me apace, and it is on their behalfe that my Lord Chamberlaine and (my ever to be honored friend) Mr. Godolphin5 have I heare bespoken your Lordship in my behalfe concerne; Be not then forgetfull of me when you have power, that I may eternaly remember your favour, and devote myselfe intirely to your Lordship who am My Lord Your etc. Sayes-Court 3: December –1678.

Flower Hyde1 Letter 395 [392] February 21, 1679 f 201

Epistle CCCXCII To the Countesse of Clarendon:

Madame, It were but just and reasonable, that I should suffer in your Estimation, could you have believed it was in the power of any mortal thing, to make me forget, and abandon this favorite of your Ladyships and the Inclination which I beare to the sweete and innocent Recesses of Groves and Gardens.2 I am almost tempted to say (as sometimes the Inspired King)3 Let my Right hand forget its Cunning, if I Remember them not above all earthly contentments, for the Assistances they afford me in Contemplating the Works of God, and of Nature in her highest splendor and varietie. You have seene Madame, the Contents of another Discourse upon this Subject, as it comprehends the intire Mysterie:4 Judge then 3 Charles I 4 Mary was 13, Elizabeth 11, and Susanna 9. Evelyn was clearly concerned that his financial situation might endanger their propspects. 5 Sidney Godolphin 1 Flower Hyde, née Backhouse (1641–1700; Diary). First married to William Bishop and then to Sir William Backhouse, Flower married Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon in 1670. Hyde’s possession of Swallowfield came through his wife and she was a frequent correspondent with Evelyn about the gardens which he describes in Diary IV.481 and celebrates in a Pindaric poem in Letter 625. 2 Cornbury in Oxfordshire 3 David; “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning” (Psalms 137:5). 4 “Elysium Britannicum,” particularly II.16, “Of Coronary Gardens”

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by this Volume, the paines I have taken, and the amplitude of the Work; when I assure your Ladyship the Book I now present you,5 containes not above 3 or 4 chapters of that laborious, and (I hope) usefull piece: Though this (as happly of more immediate concerne and benefit to the publique) I have thought fit to send abroad before it (tanquam explorator) to discover by its Entertainement in the world, whither it might be worth my while to gratifie, or trouble it with any more. But, I should then receive the greatest Encouragement, might the passion I retaine for a diversion, you know so well how to Cultivate, procure for me some of your Ladyships choice Observations about the parterr, and the Coronary Garden over which you præside with so just a Title; since that were indeede, to Crowne my Labours, and add the last and inimitable hand, even that of your Ladyships, than which nothing is more Faire. etc.

Sayes Court 21 February –1678/9

Sidney Godolphin Letter 396 [393] February 1679 f 201

Epistle CCCXCIII To Sidny* Godolphin Esquire

[RM: *perswading him to accept of his Majesties choice of him to be one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, which he would have declind upon the death of his deare Wife]1 Sir, Though I have very little to add to the Topics I made use of in my Last, and which I am confident your own reflections would have improv’d to another, beyond any-thing I am capable to say more; Yet the present Occasion, and publique Exigency, as well as your Friends intreaties seeme (in my Opinion) to call upon you for your assistance at this very period: In such a case there’s nothing so deare and precious to us, which we should 5 This must be the 1679 edition of Sylva which included for the first time, a translation of Rapin’s Nemus by Evelyn’s son, John, and Evelyn’s Philosophical Discourse of Earth. It also included Cowley’s poem, “The Garden,” Evelyn’s poetic response to which (Letter 279) was later modified and addressed to Lady Clarendon. See Letter 629 (of late spring 1690). 1 Margaret Godolphin had died on 9 September 1678 (Diary IV.148). Godolphin and Evelyn were both deeply affected by her death. See Godolphin’s letter of 22 September (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]). Godolphin had withdrawn from public life, but was being urged to return (see Letter 396). See Harris, Transformations of Love, 282–302, and Sundstrom, Sidney Godolphin, 28–30. Evelyn alludes to what became the Exclusion Crisis, which would lead to the collapse of the earl of Danby’s ministry and the rise of Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland. Charles II had dissolved Parliament in January, and new elections were held in February. Godolphin’s return to active politics happened at the end of the following month.

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not readily sacrifice to the common good, and to our Country; for if the pulchrum pro patria mori (as from a universal principle, it appears to be) quam pulchrum ē vivere2 and do it Service! And though there may happly be some collateral Advantage by it to your Friends, which may (innocently enough) move them to wish you in some more active Station; Yet even those who have no other prospect but the publique benefit, would, I am assur’d, rejoice, that his Majestie were inviron’d with such a worthy and able person as you are known to be, in spight of all your modestie, and humble thoughts: And therefore for Gods-sake, strive to compose your present sadnesses, and oppressed spirit, and submitting to the will of heaven, neglect not this; or any just Occasion of serving so greate an Interest as you may do, by filling up a place with a sincere and honest man, if you be summon’d to it. I easily suppose the resistences you may have to proposals of this nature, especialy at this time; but, consider, ’tis at this time onely, that you ought to overcome them: Who knows whither you are not come into the Court for such a time as this? [LM: 1 Hester] And though you have no inclination to the trouble, and may be ready to answer with the inexorable Friend. Molest me not, the dore is shut, I cannot rise, [LM: 11 Luke]3 and that you will not be perswaded, because it is your Friend; yet (with him) suffer his importunities to prevaile: More I was writing, not intending to have troubl’d you ’til the Evening: But by my Lord Sunderland4 (who sent in the morning to speake with me) dos now at this instant ingage me to deliver you a paper immediately with my own hands; believing the immerited Interest I have in you, may contribute to what he has suggested: I wish I were so worthy of that share you have given me in your Esteeme and Friendship; that my Request in general (that you will not decline to lend your uttmost assistance in this Conjuncture, upon any private, or passionate consideration) may be received as proceeding from the sincerity of my heart, upon reflection of the greate good, you may be instrumental in, by the Interest you deserv’dly have in his Majesties Grace and Favour, and as it may minister aboundant Opportunitie of recommending to him the Virtues of Justice, Benificence, and other princely dispositions toward his people in a juncture of so universal a concerne: And so I beseech God to direct you in all your undertakings, who am Your White-hall February –1679.

2 “It is beautiful to die for one’s country – how beautiful it is to live.” An adaptation of Horace, Odes 3.2.13. 3 The text from Esther 1 refers to the refusal of Queen Vashti to show herself in the court of King Ahasuerus. The text from Luke 11:7 refers to the necessity to help a friend when asked. 4 Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland (1641–1702; ODNB). Son of Henry Spencer, 3rd Baron Spencer and Dorothy Sidney, and husband of Anne Spencer. He was a secretary of state (1679–81; 1683–8) for Charles II and James II, and lord chamberlain for William III (1697–9). See Kenyon, Robert Spencer.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 397 [394] [March 1679]# f 201v

597

Epistle CCCXCIV To the Countesse of Sunderland

Madame, My Lord1 meeting me this morning as I was going to waite on your Ladyship, and speaking to me concerning Mr. Godolphin2 what pass’d betweene us yesterday, receiv’d from me an account of the greate difficultie I find to perswade him to what your Ladyship and the rest of his friends have suggested: The truth is, the Sense of this late repeated affliction, has at present so intirely possess’d him, that he dos most unwillingly entertaine any mention of buisnesse; and this Evening being appointed for the Burial of the sister he loved,3 puts me out of all hopes of being able to perswade him to indure the Court, and as much more, of being there tomorrow morning; which is the thing my Lord so earnestly desires: I will yet do all that lies in my power, if there be the least Interval betweene this and that, in which I may interpose with any decency, or hopes of successe, by adding any thing to what I have already atempted: I find he is so jealous and diffident of the Complexion and stabilitie of Publique Afaires, that whiles they remaine in this tremulous posture, he will never be of himselfe induc’d to seek for any kind of Employment; rather I believe, he would have nothing at all to do in the world, but intirely resigne himselfe to Thoughts which will certainely consume him, if the importunity of Friends, and some Buisnesse, forc’d, as it were upon him, do not interpose. I do not hope to succeede perswade prevaile with him to be at Court to morrow; but my opinion is, that if his Lordship get his Majestie to nominate him, whither he be present or no (being inform’d of the occasion of his absence) he will not onely not decline his Majesties favour, but receive it with all readinesse, and as becomes him: For to appeare in publique so soone after this lugubrious Night (which will put them all into a fresh fit of mourning) he will not be brought to: Wherefore, I could wish he might be engag’d this way; and then if his Majestie send for him, I am perswaded it will succeede to his friends desire: When I heare your Ladyship is return’d out of the Citty, I will come and receive your further Commands to Madame yours:

1 Robert Spencer 2 See Letter 396. Sidney Godolphin was made one of the lords commissioners of the Treasury on 26 March 1679. 3 Anne Godolphin, sister of Sidney, was buried on 15 March 1679.

598

Charles Bertie1 Letter 398 [395] February 15, 1679 f 201v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCXCV To Charles Bertie Esquire

[LM: Secretary to the Earl of Danby2 Lord high Tressurer] Sir Though I might with no ill grace Supplicate his Lordships favour, and hope for some successe, in the concerne of my salarie, after so many of my Collegues have tasted of it: Yet I choose to seeke it through your Mediation; because as you have ever ben my worthy, and noble Friend; so you will (I am perswaded) take a little to heare the nature of my pretence, and acquaint his Lordship with the Justice of it; that so at last, I may receive some effects: You may remember that I was nominated of this Council,3 and intitled to the salarie of five-hundred pound a yeare, not purely as a largesse from his Majestie but as a Compensation for my resigning the reversion of Cleark of the Council, which was then devolving on me from my Father in Law Sir Richard Brown, by his Majesties Consent, to Sir Joseph Williamson now principal secretary of state:4 Tis true we had a competent summ besides from Sir Joseph, but that should not have prevaild, had it not ben to gratifie the importunity of a Grandeè then, first Minister at Court,5 who would not be denied: Sir Richard had given almost £2000, neere 30 yeares since, for it, and was twenty yeares in banishment for his Loyaltie to the Crown: What in that time he spent in his Majesties Service, and recompences receiv’d, I have no mind to say; but his Lordship (who was in those daies almost domestique with us at Paris,6 and a witnesse of his Sufferings) cannot forget it. My Lord Clifford7 (to whom I was related) as well to compensate my defeat in this, as the indefatigable paines I tooke in the deduction of a Subject his Majestie commanded my service in,8 procurd his Majestie to nominate me to one of the Council of Plantations, and was so obliging as to tell me, he would see me paied himselfe, and he was (for all his time) as good as his Word: Since that patron of mine is gon, there is due to me a very considerable arreare; and though I know you are at present in unpleasant

1 Charles Bertie (1640/1–1711; ODNB, H). Bertie prepared himself for a diplomatic career by travel abroad, chiefly in France (1660–2). He was an attaché at Madrid (1664–5). Subsequently he was also an envoy to the German states and to Denmark, and he was frequently an MP after 1678. He was secretary for the Treasury from 1673 until the impeachment of the earl of Danby in 1679. 2 Thomas Osborne 3 the Council for Trade and Plantations 4 Williamson resigned the office on 20 February. 5 the lord chancellor in 1672 was Anthony Ashley Cooper. 6 See Evelyn’s account of meeting Osborne in Paris on 28 October 1650 (Diary III.21). 7 Thomas Clifford 8 Evelyn’s account of the Second Anglo-Dutch War and naval history resulting in Navigation and ­Commerce (1674).

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circumstances, and upon the brink;9 yet, I also know it is in his Lordships power to do me a kindnesse: You may yet make friends of the Mammon.10 I will not add the rest, because it were ingratefull; but favour is deceitfull, and stations sliperie, and daily changes render all things uncertaine: Think then sometimes of your ould friend and do him now a real kindenesse, who is Sir Your etc. White-hall 15 February 1679

Henry Capel1 Letter 399 [396] February 16, 1679 f 201v

Epistle CCCXCVI To Sir Henry Capel Knight of the Bath and one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty

Sir, The Bearer hereof Mr. Hosier2 (a dextrous Officer in his Majesties Yard here) is the Person I recommended first to you, and then to Sir Humphry Winch;3 and I am assur’d you may rely upon his Abillities to serve you, in all concernes relating to the Navy, and especialy this station: Sir Humphry has his character from me at large, and now he also comes to me to bespeake your favour, which I do, upon assurance you will find him highly capable of informing you of all things: He is an Excellent Cleark, and perfect Accomptant: Cherish and receive him then on the word of Sir Your etc. Says-Court 16 February – 1679.

9 Bertie was several times called to the Bar of the House of Commons and required to explain his disbursements under threat of being censured. 10 Luke 16:9. The verse concludes “that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” 1 Henry Capel, Baron Capel of Tewkesbury (1638–96; ODNB). A younger brother of Arthur Capel, Henry was created Knight of the Bath in 1661, appointed first lord of the Admiralty (1679–80), made Baron Capel of Tewkesbury in 1692, and lord justice of Ireland in 1693. He was a keen gardener and his garden at Kew, which became the nucleus of the Royal Botanic Gardens, contained “the Choicest fruite of any plantation in England” (Diary IV.144). 2 Frank Hosier (Pepys Diary) was clerk of the cheque and muster-master at Gravesend (1665), where Eve­ lyn probably first encountered him during the Second Anglo-Dutch war. He rose to be victualling agent at Dover and finally to clerk of control at Deptford (1669–79). 3 Humphrey Winch, 1st baronet (1622–1703, H). He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1660. In the same year he became an MP and was so again in the late 1670s and 1680s. He was a fellow of the Royal Society (1663–85) and on the Committee for Plantations (1670–2) and for Trade and Plantations (1672–4). He was also a commissioner of the Admiralty.

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Samuel Pepys Letter 400 [397] February 27, 1679#1 ff 201v–2

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCXCVII To Samuel Pepys Esquire

[LM: Late Secretary of the Admiralty] Sir, I have to my uttmost, endeavor’d to Vindicate our disconsolate Neighbour Mr. Turner2 befor the Admiraltie, who I find have ben prepossessd to his prejudice by the subdolous undermining of one,3 who promisd me with many asseverations, that he would never so much as attempt any thing in that nature, and protested he had no other ambition than to serve his Majestie in some more inferiour Office, and attend advancement; if I would but do him the kindnesse to recommend him to some friends of mine in the Admiralty, and think himselfe the most obliged to me in the world: Since he is taken into place (and by their favour and for my sake, relievd from the very ill circumstances he was in) forgetful of his promise, he now ungratefully, seekes to supplant the good old man: Of this, I have loudly complaind, and perhaps displeasd some of them for appearing so zealous, when I plainly told them I should be sorry any body whom I recommended to them, should tread on my back to get into that saddle: They confess’d they had nothing to accuse Mr. Turner of, but that of being Superannuated, and are sensible that he is sufficiently capable to sustaine the charge; and yet are meditating to put this Sycophant over his head; which as I take very hainously from Hosier; so I looke upon as unjust and rigorous in the Commissioners. Wherefore you ought to interpose in this concerne for the good man, who has ben Master to those who now abandon him, and is yet able to teach the proudest of them: You see I am in some passion upon this account, and cannot forbeare this complaint, and I hope you will joine with me in it, even to his highnesse the Duke himselfe, who certainely will never suffer so injurious and ungratefull a example, without due resentment: which is all I have to desire of you in his behalfe who am Sir Says Court 27 February –1679.

1 probably misdated; See Particular Friends, C3, 98, where it is redated 27 February 1680. This is the only text of this letter. 2 Thomas Turner (d. 1681) rose from a purser in 1642 through clerk-general of the Navy Office and purveyor of petty provisions (1660–8) to clerk to the comptroller and finally storekeeper at Deptford (1668–?80). 3 Frank Hosier. See Letter 399.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Sidney Godolphin Letter 401 [398] February 28, 1679 f 202

601

Epistle CCCXCVIII To Sidny Godolphin Esquire

That the very soules of Friends are in common is not hard to believe, that their thoughts are alike, your kind returne to my letter confirmes: For as you writ what I desir’d, so was I before hand assur’d you would, and that you writ what you thought. I am therefore still where I was, and whose I was; though every line of yours is a band that ties me in more knots and obligations, and ô that I knew how to deserve this Love, this continual accumulation: This, I confesse, is now the onely thing which I feare I shall never overcome: All I can do is, to love you again (but so do the Publicans) and to wish I were capable of serving you, or yours in any capacity, even the greatest, that ever Friend did serve another. – M[a]y the Lord Jesus assist you in this weighty Charge,1 and in all your Undertakings; may he be still restoring comforts to you, after all your Sorrows; for he is able to do it even here, not onely in what he has spared you in that deeare pledge;2 but aboundantly more through the Influence of his grace upon your Soule, and the assurance of his favour, which cannot but be of infinite joy, and Satisfaction to you. God seemes by this, to have chosen you an Imployment worth of that time, you have ben so often apprehensive you should misemploy if you stay’d at Court, and without receesse, reserving you (as it were) for the repaire of a ruinous Nation, and consequently of a Church, which also ought to encourage you, and he will give you strength to go through it as the return of your Prayers, and of that Saints3 in heaven, and I trust, of your poore Friends. And now that I have satisfied the desires of my Relations here in writing to you yesterday; I am where I was, in perfect repose, and in the same thoughts of you, and therefore believe you also pardon this repetition.4 Says-Court 28 February – 1679.

1 Unless this letter is misdated, this must be an early intimation of Godolphin’s decision to return to public life as one of the lords commissioner of the Treasury. 2 Francis Godolphin, 2nd earl of Godolphin (1678–1766; ODNB, Diary). The son of Sidney Godolphin and Margaret Godolphin, Francis’s early education was superintended by Evelyn before he went to Eton and Cambridge (MA 1705). He became an MP (1702–12) and held various offices at court before becoming lord privy seal 1735–40. As earl of Godolphin (1712–66), he married the daughter of the duke of Marlborough who acceded to that title in her own right as duchess. 3 Margaret Godolphin 4 The star was Evelyn’s symbol for Margaret Godolphin in his diary.

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Flower Hyde Letter 402 [399] March 6, 1679 f 202

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Epistle CCCXCIX To the Countesse of Clarendon etc.

Madame, To have doom’d the Favour I this day receiv’d from your Ladyship to that mercilesse Element, would have ben to deprive me of the greatest honor, I could ever have receiv’d, and the noblest Recompense of all my Labours: But so my Lord,1 like the great Augustus, has rescu’d what I ought with justice to esteeme above a thousand Æneads, if upon so trivial a merit, I durst pretend to the meanest Elogie you there dignifie me withall: Can you believe Madame, I had the vanity (in presenting my Impertinences to your Ladyship) to think of erecting a Trophy? or that I sent my Book2 to Instruct the most knowing Person in the World in the profoundest Mysteries of Nature, which I pronounce to be the Offspring of the Parterr, when cultivated by your faire hand? not as a Weeder, or inferior Labourer, but an Intelligence who has no superior save the Cause of Causes? Madame, This Acknowledgment is due to your Ladyship not as a Complement, but of Justice, and by the Suffrages of all who have the honour and the hapinesse to receive your Dictates, whensoever you are pleased to Write, or Discourse upon this, or any other Subject; since those Perfections which lie scatter’d amongst the rest of your Illustrious Sex, are united in your Ladyship, and amongst them, that of your Humility and Condescention in Accepting so meane an Oblation from Madame, your etc. Says-Court 6 March 1679.

1 Henry Hyde 2 probably the 1679 edition of Sylva, which also included the Kalendarium Hortense

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 403 [400] March 12, 1679 ff 202–3

Epistle CCCC To Sidny Godolphin Esquire one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and Privy Counselor etc.

My dearest Friend, Since a private Buisnesse of my owne, which I expected would have ben dispatch’d in a day or two, has necessitated me to linger here a full Weeke: I have without any greate Industrie, or the least designe, casualy met with divers Gentlemen of my Acquaintance, some of them Members of Parliament; others, who about this Season of the yeare, come of Course from their several rural quarters to Winter here in Towne: And as ’tis impossible to converse a moment with then, without falling into discourse of the Publique Affaires; I cannot but with some astonishment, take notice, how persons, some of them (in other matters) of such different Interests, yeares and distant aboades; should so universaly be tainted, or inspir’d with the same zeale (I shall not undertake to determine, whither according to knowledge or no) against the Court, Poperie, and Plots, Designes of introducing Arbitrarie Government etc., which the looke upon with dreadful apprehensions.1 They tell us, nothing can secure the Nation, or satisfie the People in any sort, but such a settlement of the Protestant Religion, as may leave no more place, or cause for future jealosie: That that noxious Weede must be totaly extirpated, and not a fiber left to repullulate and take roote againe; which, I preceive, they thinke can not be effectualy be don, without qualifying the Successor, profounding the bottome and very Abysse of the Plot (as they call it) and passing a Bill for a kind of Comprehension:2 These are the Three signal Articles, the soberest, and most moderate I meete with (as at least they would be thought) seeme to insist upon, and in good earnest they are Material ones, and speake alowd: Now well remembring what you and I discours’d of at Windsore I frankly put the question: Well Gentlemen be it so, will all this serve your turne? Where will you be next? Did ye ever erect Hercules’s Pillars,3 or put stop to New Discoveries, when after ye were past the Termes of your first pretences, you have wandred in a botomlesse Ocean, and 1 Evelyn describes the political climate of the Exclusion Crisis. A new Parliament had assembled on 6 March, and the impeachment proceedings against Danby, which had been suspended when Charles II dissolved Parliament in January, were revived. The political alignments to which Evelyn alludes led to the emergence of what would shortly be known as Tories and Whigs. Evelyn’s brother George was returned to Parliament as a soon-to-be Whig in the February election, and the letter may well reflect conversations with him. This Parliament lasted less than ninety days, and was dissolved by the king after the House of Commons passed the first Exclusion Bill, which Godolphin opposed. 2 the inclusion of non-conformists within the established church 3 i.e., moving into uncharted political waters, but also alluding ironically to the title-page of Bacon’s Instauratio Magna, and its emblematic representation of the expansion of knowledge

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never made Harbour, without indangering a total Wrack? Are ye so soone unmindfull of the horrid Confusion this Church and Nation was so lately involv’d in, that rather than suffer a present tollerable Inconvenience, ye will hazard all? What’s the felicity ye promise yourselves? in a popular state or Republique, or what advantages gain’d ye by it, when not long since, this Nation groan’d under pressures exceeding the Exorbitances of the most despotic and arbitrary Tyrant?4 These, and the like were my Enquiries. We abominate (Reply they) the sound of a Common-Wealth, and think our-selves infinitely happy under our Laws[,] his Majesties gracious Government, and present Constitution. A Republique is unpracticable in a Nation of such vast Territories in land: Dissonant to the Ingenuity of our Births, and would put the reynes againe into meane and Mechanic hands, mercenarie, and ambitious men, Debase our dignitie. A Lord, and a Common-wealth are Non-sense, and incompatible, and we are Gentlemen, and will never submit to any thing but Monarchy, nor desire wee the least alteration of the present frame, but its perpetuity and establishment: We onely seeke that our Religion may be secur’d, by such Expedients, as the present Exigences require; since upon long, and deare Experience, we find, that no Medium will forever reconcile that of the Church of Rome, to what we English-men, call the Protestant Religion; They are totaly inconsistents, and though hitherto we have born with that restlesse, and tretcherous Party; ’tis now ariv’d to a decisive Crisis, the Peoples Eyes are open’d, and will no more endure it. Well, but I persist to urge, what will you be at next, and what would ye have don? That’s not the Question now (say they) but pray tell us, How will his Majestie be able to beare the weight, which the people charge him with, and the Court? Will they indure the burden on them still, which every day accumulates, and must in all appearance Crush the Weake Support under its pressure, rather than fling it quite off at first once? Let his Majestie ease himselfe first of this burden, and he has nothing to feare, though Hell itselfe should joine their force against it: If the bare, and causelesse suspicion of it onely (when there was not the Thousandth part of the present discontent on foote) was more than that excellent Prince5 could sustaine, who had a rich, a numerous, a glorious Party; many Friends, and the flower of the whole Nation; How think you, will his present Majestie, whom we know to stand single, and is infinitely short of his Fathers Circumstances, be able to stemm the Torrent of a prejudic’d and exasperated people etc.? Let his Majesty (say they) once meete his Parliament freely, cherefully, and without tricks, he shall not needs bespeake our purses; the publique exigencies of the whole Nation, and generous nature of the people, will be sure to open them, with the greatest alacrity, and gratefull resentments. ’Tis the putting of us off, with little tricks of Court, and to gratifie Interests, and those who hate this Nation, and the Religion, that we are not suffer’d to search things to the bottome and which has bred this universal jealosie, and alienated the hearts of a loyal and honest people: Behold Friend, what is the universal crie, the World is full of it; and what was I to Answer? having so freshly seene the Effects of not halfe so loud a Clamor: Realy the Clowds gather a pace, the whole Horizon’s coverd with it, and the billows rise so high, that I can find no Anchorage: You who sit at Helme doubtlesse heare, and see all I say; and they may be Scandals, and false Alarmes, 4 Oliver Cromwell 5 Charles I

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605

Graunt it be so, ’tis certaine a storme’s at hand, and it will become the skillfull Pilot in so over-grown a sea, to Tack a little, and rather make some harbour, with Wind and Tide, than by struggling against ’em both, hazard the Vessel Intrusted to him. To this they add another Ingredient to the securing of Religion, and its tranqilitie, a Bill for Comprehension, if that may be so call’d without Solecisme, which shall onely affect the Presbyterian and Independent party: Men (say they) sober in their Morals, Rich and Opulent in their Purses fortunes; Numerous and Indefatigably Industrious: Restlesse in their present Circumstances and Condition: What my private thoughts are of all these Matters; you pretty well know: I have hitherto spoken Voce Populi, and in the Universal Language: It were, I confesse, an happy day, should Reconcile that sort of People, so considerable part of the whole; or leave them at least without excuse, should they not be satisfied with what they tell the world would forever charme them. ’Twere heartily to be Wish’d, they did all Conforme; and we must pray for, and hope it: But in the Interim (to declare my thoughts freely) that meere circumstantials should thus perpetualy divide Christians, give Advantage to our Adversarie, and molest the publique Repose eternaly; since there is no Remedy why we should not inlarge our Pomeria6 for so greate a work, setting all prejudice aside, I cannot well comprehend:7 Were it requisite they should so nicely have conform’d, Why was not Discipline Vigorously exercis’d according to Law, when time was proper for it? Who are we to blame for this? Dos the Credit, or Activity of the Bishops, the Zeale and Humility of the Cleargy, the Morals and Virtues of Court give us any hopes of Proselytizing a Party, who are every day more and more scandaliz’d? Is there the least Appearance of retriving them to the purpose, as was in those early daies, when his Majestie came in, and might have don what his heart desir’d: Judge you then, What is to be don in this Conjuncture of Afaires. Subjoyne to this the perill from Abroad, whilst our Potent and Ambitious Neighbours, are daily Incroaching, and the whole Nation in this restlesse Ferment, who will depend upon us? Who will trust us? Who believe us? The Weake and harrass’d Countries about us must in all appearance shortly Truckle under that hauty Monarch,8 and shall we not then be looked-on as the Common Enemie? If we at last succomb, Actum est, Never must poore England expect to Rise forever: How sad then, and deplorable needes but that Scene ruine be, and how unpitied! What will have drawn all Europe into the heape, and buried in its demolition the best of Governments, the purest Church, and the happiest People under heaven; and all this through the false Politics of not bravely, openly and honestly owning an excellent Religion, and the real Interest of the Nation; so as not to neede Intriguing with those who under-mine us (as Moab did the Israelites)9 with so bare a face; ô how easy, how blessed a thing is plaine honest dealing,

6 i.e., Pomerium, the sacred boundary of Rome (Tacitus, Annales 12.24) 7 Evelyn’s willingness to contemplate some compromises over “meere circumstantial” matters in religion, in the face of the dangers of Roman Catholicism, suggests something of a shift in his attitudes to issues of church discipline. See Spurr, “‘A Sublime and Noble Service’: John Evelyn and the Church of England,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 145–63. 8 Louis XIV 9 Although the Moabites were closely related to the Israelites, there are several instances of their perfidiousness in the Old Testament, and they are denounced in Isaiah 15 and 16.

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beyond all the little springs and engagements, and seacret Resorts of State, which have ben made such a profound Mysterie, but are in truth a Name and little else. I know yo’l Smile at this, nay say I am turn’d Enthusiast, and perhaps call it strange Ignorance and Temerity Temerarious: But Friend, though I am a man of the Shade, yet I sometimes look abroad, something I have read, with many I have convers’d; strange Viscissitudes have seen in above 80 50 yeares; and he must weare a very thick Scull, who clearely apprehends not, that unlesse we alter the intire scheme of our late Politics, and go upon another hypothesis, we shall run into suddain, and inevitable Confusion which God avert.10 This Friend is the feare, and I pray heaven it prove not the fate of this distracted Nation. But I am not yet desponding; you may call to mind, when I zealously resisted your aversion to concerne your-selfe in the publique Trust; nor do I repent my selfe: since the probity of your life, your real Worth and Judgement, has indeard you to his Majestie and to all good men; and you are taken Notice of to be One, upon whose Advice his Majestie relies as much as any who has the honour to approach his Sacred Person. The Nation, the Church, and (for ought [I] see) the intire protestant Interest of Christendoome, is at stake: Earnestly then contend and beg of Almighty God to direct you, and then strenuously put to your helping hand. Wisemen think that the time draws neere, when his Majestie throwing off all Reluctancies, should cheerefully meete his Parliament, concurr with it to probe the Wound, and apply a Sovraine and healing Remedy Balsome. May he owne the publique Interests of his oppressed Alies; Put himselfe into Capacity to take them into his Care; May he prevent the Designes of those Potentates, who evidently combine for the Extirpation of all they brand with Heresie in Europ. Assure your selfe, nothing could succeede more glorious to his Majestie than to find himselfe Establish’d in the hearts of his people, the Reconciler of our domestic jarrs; the Patron of his Afflicted Neighbours, and a real Defender of the Faith we all professe: Nor were this hard to accomplish: God Almighty seemes to Offer it; the whole Nation, as one man, to desire it, and Necessity (which though it have no Law seemes in this Conjuncture to have the greatest Reason) dos require it: O if we omit the Opportunity, ’twill shortly be too late to recall it back. Now as to those Extravagances, and fitts (as I may call them) of passion, which they are subject to, should they obtaine these concessions; I confesse, not so much to apprehend them: For, though some warmer heads may possibly make bad Attempts; It cannot reach to anything considerable; such as should weigh with the soberer part of the Nation, or their Representatives. They are not so un-mindfull of late confusions, and the Ruines attending them in twenty yeares of Blood and Rapine, as to precipitate themselves againe for trifles: And if they should be so mad; his Majestie can dismisse them without reproch, and all the world must justifie him. London 12 March – 1679

10 Evelyn’s demand to “alter the intire scheme of our late Politics” anticipates the program he puts forward in Letter 597 (November 1688) as Charles’s successor lost the throne.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Ann Sylvius Letter 404 [401] April 4, 1679 f 203

607

Epistle CCCCI To my Lady Sylvius at the Hague

If I had not the Obligation on me of Acknowledging the honor you lately did me in writing to me, I should yet have that of allways believing, that I am sometimes in your thoughts: As for my ever forgetting your Ladyship, that is surely Impossible, whilst you stand inseparably joyn’d with that excellent Friend1 of ours here in my daily prayers to God: I do assure you, there’s not a day passes, in which I do not more than once solemnly recommend you and your Interests to him, and that not transiently, but with as serious and earnest desire of your happinesse, as becomes one who looks upon you with an extraordinary reguard, for that true Christian Piety and Virtue which addorn your other personal perfections; and which is to me instead of a very neere Relation. Now if on that Account, I would endeavor to aleviate the excesse of that sorrow, which Nature allows you moderately to shew for the Death of your Mother:2 You will not charge it on me as an Impertinence; whilst in the meane time, I also condole with you: It ought to be your Consolation that she was not surpriz’d, but long prepar’d for a better state, after she had so little more to do in this transitorie aboade, and was sure of a better: And now after you shall have wiped off those becoming teares (the Continuance of which, can do the Dead no service) you will think it necessary to looke after your Concernes on this side the Sea, which I am perswaded will justifie, as well as require both your-selfe and Sir Gabriels3 presence and application. You have to Assist you a solid, and discreete Friend in Sir Stephen Fox, who will be able to advise you upon all Occasions, and for the rest, am assur’d, you have taken such prudential measure of the things of this World, and are so intirely resign’d to God; that nothing can render you unhappy: As to the circumstances of your being here (where there are so many who truely love and honour you) you are a more consummate Christian, than to set your heart on the Aboundance of things which some possesse, whilst you may live, and serve God without anxietie; and with that interior Comfort you will continualy derive from the Fountaine of it, which is the Love of God, and the providential Care you may be sure, he has allways of you. Madame, the putting you in mind of this, as ’tis all the Service I can do you; so it is the best; because I am confident it dos but confirme and meete your owne Resolutions. I beseech you present my most humble service to Sir Gabriel, to whom I would have likewise written; but that as I hope we may shortly

1 Sidney Godolphin 2 Elizabeth Howard, née Dundas, who died in 1679 3 Gabriel Sylvius

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meete, so I had no other subject to entertaine him with, than that I have here profess’d to his Lady, which is that I am to both A very humble   and faithfull servant My wife sends her Condolences.

John Evelyn Jr Letter 405 [402] [n.d.]# f 203r–v

Says Court 4 Aprill. 1679.

Epistle CCCCII To my Son1

Son, You have had from your Childhood (by the peculiar goodnesse and providence of God, and the Care of your Parents) such Education, as the condition and circumstances of your Friends have ben able to give you, and they have omitted nothing which might conduce to your future happines, not onely instructing you in the general Principles of Religion, but endeavouring to plant in you an early feare and love of God in practical duties, without which all other advantages are of no solid price upon a due estimate of things, I say, farther, than they are subservient to Religion and a Virtuous life; because that has permanent blessings attending it: We have (you know) ben carefull to improve your Capacity in Academic and humane literature, for the culture of your mind, as it may become usefull to you in your dealing and Conversation with the World, and the common duties which you owe to your Country, no man living to himselfe; and God has indow’d you with strong natural parts, and furnish’d you with an Understanding capable of the noblest Impressions, and you have had layd in you the foundation, and made some considerable progresse in most of the Usefull Sciences, and divers of more polish’d; so as now being no longer under the pædantrie of Tutors and Masters, ’tis expected, and very reasonable, you should daily advance in Piety, knowledge, and all that is truely excellent and noble, ’til these Dispositions are improv’d, and grown to real habites, and that you be fitted to appeare, and make a usefull figure in the World, by serving God, and your Generation in something becoming an honest and 1 Evelyn’s second exercise in the epistolary genre of a father’s advice and admonition to his son (see Letter 381), although in this instance the criticism is more harshly formulated. John Jr had not been able to establish himself after his return from Paris. Although he had been admitted to the Middle Temple in May 1672 (Diary III.613), his legal studies had not been a great success. He was finally called to the Bar in February 1683, and decided in April 1684 to remain in London “upon pretence of his applying himselfe more seriously to his studying the Law, but wholly without my approbation” (Diary IV.375). Evelyn returned to the genre in “Testamentum in Procinctu” (Add 78453), giving advice to John Jr on his departure for Ireland in 1692.

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609

Worthy Man. The Way to arive at this, is by a sedulous and sober Progresse, towards the End you propose; be it to serve God, or your Country as a Divine, Lawyer, states-man, or whatever other laudable Profession you most incline to; and for the rest, with the use of common prudence, and Industry to rely on God for the Event. You have also already pass’d through the greatest difficulties of Instrumental Learning, and know by what methods to improve your selfe in it; you have attaind a good style in Writing, and there’s nothing that I know remaining but to furnish your selfe with plentifull materials to work upon, by reading, meditatinge, comparing, collecting, and by exercising your Judgement and Invention, for the apt employment and disposal of them, as occasion offers: This, I say, you will attaine (and with infinite delight) by reading good Histories, and other Authors of the politer Literature, proceeding upon sure and usefull things, as well as ornamental: for which end, I advise you to mix your studies with some of the Mathematics, which will fix your Judgement, and gratifie your Industrie with a thousand Satisfactions; and all this you may accomplish with ease, and pleasure, so you set out in a good method, be dilligent constant in it, for some competent time, before the troubles and impertinences of the world, or the too much indulgence to youthfull and sensual pleasures corrupt you, which they will strive to do, if they find ye remisse, but which will end in extreame bitternesse, and pay you with nothing but sorrow and anxiety; and therefore I advertise and warne you against it. I had once hoped, you had taken a firme deliberate resolution of fixing upon a profession (namely the municipal Laws of your Country) and that in order to it, you would have set your selfe seriously to that study, that in some competent time, you might have reaped the fruites of it, which had ben very well, and indeede, the best and most necessary thing you could have don, and it was your owne proposal, and an extraordinary comfort to me, having allways deplor’d the condition of those Gentlemen (of what state or fortune soever) that take not to some calling or other, or at least fit themselves for it, if there be occasion. The neglect of this, or rather the Calamity of the times interrupting, has ben no small affliction to me, as to my owne failing, when time was, which ought to be a document to you. This resolution of yours to prevent the time, was I say a great consolation to me; but how you have faild as to that, and trifl’d to and indeede (to passe by other follys) and deceiv’d both me and your selfe, you should call to mind, mithinks, with no small regret, and that God has ben displeas’d with you for it: He yet gives you an opportunity to repaire your losse of time, if you be so truely sensible of it, as you ought: I know not what to add, which you know not as well as my selfe, and yet I cannot but put you in mind of what you know, namely that all sinfull and vitious courses end in misery and will at one time or other find you out, and reproch your huge ingratitude, nor is it possible to evade his Judgements, by any cunning or contrivance whatsoever; the remembrance of your Ingratitude and misspending your precious time and youth will of all things be most bitter to you, when ’tis perhaps too late. Therefore be sincere, modest and temperate, and believe that he sees all you do, and even your most inward thoughts: Resolve then upon a Virtuous Course, and keepe quiet within, and a Conscience pure, what ever it cost you. Above all, fly Sloth, and Idlenesse, nourish no uncleane imaginations or speculative lusts; but be allways employ’d, and often meditating on the presence of God, and the dignity of your nature; that you are a Christian, and a devoted person, by solemn vowe, and

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are not your owne, but his who redeemed you: Such thoughts and resolutions will incline you to a love of vertue and holinesse, and make it easy, and delightful to you, and is the noblest satisfaction our nature and being is capable of in this World, and will repay you with inward injoyments and a complacency superior to all the poore pleasures of sense, poore and imaginary things as they are, and perishing in the fruition, and leaving that hell and sting behind them which is the summ of all misery: I wish you well assur’d of this, that you would be so wise and as to believe the experience of above 5000 yeares; and that vice and folly have allways had the same catastrophe, and that Religion, and the virtuous employment of our youth, dos in all events, gratifie their our endeavors, with something of interior satisfaction, and very often with outward prosperity too, if we be not wanting to our selves, which (if seriously considerd) is the cause of all our miscarriages, as to that particular. Having wisely, and deliberately weighed these particulars, and consenting to them, as you cannot but do, if you consult your reason, and for the future resolving to improve your selfe, I am not averse to your looking a little abroad into the world, to se what Conversation with industrious, and worthy persons, will add to your accomplishments; and by it, to take off that meanenesse and poorenesse of spirit, indifference and inactivity, which either natural Constitution, low Company, or any other unhappy impressions may induce, now in the flower of your age, and when it is expected, that you should exert your selfe, and give presage of being a Wise and usefull man: These Thoughts I had long-since in my heart, that I might quicken you, and breake you off from idle habits, unprofitable and giddy designes, and shew you the difference of Culture, and good Education, from the abject and poore pursuites and designes of young and dissolute men who trifle away their time and their health in low and unworthy pleasures. Upon this account I gave you liberty to Travell, and you have had the best opportunity in the world to improve your selfe that way likewise; and now that you are safely return’d from abroad, I cannot but expect you should render some fruites of the cost, and care I have bestow’d upon you, because it is your dutie both to God and your Parents, whose vigilancy and endeavors for you can not be recompenc’d sufficiently, but by your following their Instructions and advancing in Virtue: It is this Sonn, I now expect from you, as the returne of all my kindnesses, and the dutie which you owe both to God, your Parents and your Country, and even to your selfe.2

See the Table at the end of the Second Volume.

2 The letter lacks the usual valediction, but the manuscript ends with a flourish and the authorial editorial note.

THE LETTERBOOKS OF JOHN EVELYN

Volume II

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BOOK IV British Library Add Ms 78299

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BL Add Ms 78299

*  corrected date #  questionable date ff 1-115

‘Epistolarum Liber Quartus’

Fol f 1 f 2 f 2 f 2v f 2v f 3 f 3 f 3v f 4 f 4 f 4v f 4v f 5 f 5 f 5 f 5v f 6 f 6 f 6v f 7 f 7 f 7 f 7v f 7v f 8 f 8

NAME/PLACE/DATE Anne Spencer, London, 15 April 1679 Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 4 May 1679 Stephen Fox, Sayes Court, 12 June 1679 John Beale, Sayes Court, 11 July 1679 Stephen Fox, London, 14 Nov. 1679 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 17 Dec. 1679 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 30 Jan 1680 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 12 April 1680 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 22 March 1680 John Stonehouse, Sayes Court, 3 March 1680 William Godolphin, Sayes Court, 28 April 1680 Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 12 March 1680 William Sancroft, Sayes Court, 8 April 1680 Amelia Butler, Whitehall, 5 June 1680# Anne Digby, Sayes Court, 17 July 1680 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 13 Aug. 1680# Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 24 Aug. 1680# Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 28 Aug. 1680 Anne Montagu, Sayes Court, 30 Aug. 1680# Gilbert Burnet, Sayes Court, 30 Aug. 1680 Stephen Upman, Whitehall, 11 Jan. 1681 Anne Douglas, Sayes Court, 14 Feb. 1681 Stephen Fox, Sayes Court, 13 May 1681 Anne Spencer, Whitehall, 16 May 1681 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 21 May 1681 George Morley, Sayes Court, 1 June 1681

Ms Num 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429

Num 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431

616

f 8 f 8v f 9 f 9 f 9v f 10v f 10v f 11v f 11v f 12v f 13 f 13v f 14v f 15 f 15v f 16 f 17 f 17 f 17v f 17v f 18 f 18 f 18 f 18v f 19 f 20 f 20 f 20 f 20v f 21 f 21 f 21 f 21v f 21v f 22 f 22v f 22v f 22v f 23 f 23v f 23v f 24 f 24 f 25

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 5 June 1682* Robert Spencer, Whitehall, 12 June 1681 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 20 July 1681 Christopher Wren, Sayes Court, 23 Sept. 1681 William London, Sayes Court, 27 Sept. 1681 Stephen Fox, Sayes Court, 3 Dec. 1681 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 5 Dec. 1681 Henry Howard, Sayes Court, 10 Dec. 1681# Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 19 Dec. 1681 Daniel Colwall, Sayes Court, 11 Feb. 1682 John Fell, Sayes Court, 19 March 1682 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 23 March 1682 Mary Evelyn Jr, Whitehall, 31 May 1682 Thomas Creech, Sayes Court, 4 Aug. 1682 Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 12 Aug. 1682 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 19 Sept. 1682 Isabella Fitzroy, [Cranbourn], 29 Sept. 1682# Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 19 Nov. 1682 Thomas Creech, Whitehall, 29 Nov. 1682 Thomas Butler, n.p., n.d.# Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 13 Feb. 1683 Mary Tuke, Sayes Court, 13 Feb. 1683# William Prettyman, Sayes Court, 3 March 1683 Thomas Creech, Sayes Court, 4 March 1683 Robert Plot, Sayes Court, 16 March 1683 John Fitzgerald, Sayes Court, 23 March 1683 Sidney Godolphin, London, 5 April 1683 Jonathan Taylor, n.p., n.d [after mid-May, 1683]# John Evans, Sayes Court, 31 May 1683 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 1 June 1683 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 1 June 1683 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 10 Aug. 1683 Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 21 Sept. 1683 Christian Berkeley, Whitehall, 26 Nov. 1683 John Fell, Villiers Street, 27 Nov. 1683 Christian Berkeley, Villiers Street, 1 Dec. 1683 John Fell, Villiers Street, 2 Dec. 1683 Francis North, n.p., 7 Feb. 1684 Richard Holden, Villiers St, 11 Feb. 1684 Henry Slingsby, Villiers Street, 13 Feb. 1684 Johan van der Does, London, 29 March 1684# Thomas Lynch, Sayes Court, 4 April 1684 Francis Aston, Sayes Court, 12 April 1684 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 22 April 1684

430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473

432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 25 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 22 April 1684 f 25v Elizabeth MacCarty, Sayes Court, 18 May 1684 f 25v Thomas Keightley, Sayes Court, 18 May 1684 f 25v Commissioners of the Navy, Sayes Court, 23 May 1684 f 26 Richard Anderson, Sayes Court, 23 May 1684 f 26 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 30 May 1684# f 26v Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 4 July 1684 f 26v Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 26 July 1684 f 27 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 31 Aug. 1684 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1684 f 27 f 27 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 11 Sept. 1684 f 27v Henry Bennet, Sayes Court, 15 Oct. 1684 f 27v Peter Fountaine, Sayes Court, 25 Oct. 1684 f 28 Sidney Godolphin, Whitehall, 8 Dec. 1684 f 28 John Evelyn Jr, Sayes Court, 22 Dec. 1684 f 28v Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 8 Jan. 1685 f 28v Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 12 Jan. 1685 f 28v Elizabeth MacCarty, Sayes Court, 15 Jan. 1685 f 29 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 9 Feb. 1685 f 29 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 11 Feb. 1685 f 29v George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 23 Feb. 1685 f 30 Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 19 March 1685 f 30v Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 20 March 1685 f 31 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 23 March 1685 f 31 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 23 March 1685 f 31v Christian Berkeley, Sayes Court, 25 March 1685 f 31v Sidney Godolphin, Whitehall, 22 May 1685 f 31v Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 29 July 1685 f 32 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 3 Aug. 1685 f 32 Mary Evelyn, Sayes Court, 18 Aug. 1685 f 32v Ralph Bohun, Sayes Court, 14 Sept. 1685 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 15 Sept. 1685 f 32v f 32v Henry Frederick Thynne, Sayes Court, 22 Sept. 1685 f 33 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 23 Sept. 1685 f 33v Thomas Hyde, Sayes Court, 7 Oct. 1685 f 33v Anne Spencer, n.p., n.d. [Oct. 1685] [incomplete] [Letters 512 and 513 to Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn Jr have been removed from the manuscript] f 34 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 31 Dec. 1685# f 34 Edward Hyde, n.p., 31 Dec. 1685 f 34v Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 1 Jan. 1686# f 34v Richard Raines, Sayes Court, 12 Jan. 1686 f 35 William Halford, Whitehall, 22 Jan. 1686 f 35 Sidney Godolphin, n.p., 22 Jan. 1686

617

474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509

476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511

512 513 514 515 516 517

514 515 516 517 518 519

618

f 35 f 35v f 35v f 35v f 35v f 36 f 36 f 36 f 36v f 36v f 37 f 37 f 37v f 37v f 38 f 38 f 38 f 38v f 38v f 39 f 39 f 39v f 40 f 40 f 41 f 41 f 41v f 41v f 42 f 42 f 42v f 42v f 42v f 43 f 43 f 43 f 43 f 43v f 43v f 44 f 44 f 44v f 44v f 44v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Hyde, n.p., 2 Dec. 1685# Henry Hyde, Whitehall, 1 Feb. 1686 Flower Hyde, Whitehall, 1 Feb. 1686 Mary Evelyn, Whitehall, 3 Feb. 1686 Henry Hyde, Whitehall, 13 March 1686# Flower Hyde, Whitehall, 13 March 1686 Edward Hyde, Whitehall, 15 March 1686 Anne Spencer, Whitehall, 14 March 1686* George Legge, Whitehall, 3 May 1686 Anne Spencer, Whitehall, 6 May 1686 Henry Hyde, Whitehall, 6 May 1686 Thomas Jenner, Whitehall, 6 May 1686 Robert Phelips, Sayes Court, 18 May 1686 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 23 May 1686 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 8 June 1686 Richard Parr, Sayes Court, 8 June 1686 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 29 June 1686 Laurence Hyde, Whitehall, 7 July 1686 Ann Sylvius, Sayes Court, 9 July 1686 Laurence Hyde, Whitehall, 13 July 1686 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 16 July 1686 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 20 July 1686 Flower Hyde, Sayes Court, 14 Aug. 1686 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 12 Sept. 1686 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1686 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1686 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 17 Sept. 1686 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 21 Sept. 1686 John Venn, Whitehall, 8 Oct. 1686 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 22 Oct. 1686 Richard Parr, Sayes Court, 4 Nov. 1686 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 9 Oct. 1686 Sidney Godolphin, London, 16 Oct. 1686 Henry Howard, n.p., 27 Nov. 1686 Samuel Pepys, London, 28 Nov. 1686 Thomas Osborne, Sayes Court, 3 Dec. 1686# James Stephens, London, 6 Dec. 1686 Flower Hyde, London, 27 Dec. 1686 Henry Howard, London, 11 Jan. 1687 Thomas Povey, Sayes Court, 10 Jan. 1688* Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 10 Jan. 1688# Robert Berkeley, London, 15 Jan. 1687 Richard Holden, London, 17 Jan. 1687 Samuel Pepys, London, 19 Jan. 1687#

518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561

520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 45v f 45v f 46 f 46 f 46 f 46v f 46v f 46v f 46v f 47 f 47 f 47v f 47v f 47v f 48 f 48v f 48v f 48v f 49 f 49v f 49v f 50 f 50 f 50 f 50v f 50v f 51 f 51 f 51 f 51v f 51v f 52 f 52 f 52v f 53v f 54 f 54 f 55 f 55 f 55v f 56 f 56 f 56v f 56v

Henry Arundell (Wardour), London, 12 March 1687 Charles Mordaunt, Deptford, 21 March 1687 Sidney Godolphin, Deptford, 21 May 1687 Samuel Pepys, Deptford, 20 June 1687 Henry Hyde, London, 23 June 1687# Sidney Godolphin, London, 3 Aug. 1687 Jael Boscawen, Wotton, 6 Aug. 1687 Dorothy Graham, Cranborne, 8 Aug. 1687 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 10 Aug. 1687 Elizabeth MacCarty, Sayes Court, 16 Sept. 1687 Jael Boscawen, London, 19 Sept. 1687 Anne Spencer, Deptford, 30 Sept. 1687 Henry Hyde, Sayes Court, 11 Nov. 1687 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 14 Nov. 1687 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 20 Feb. 1688* Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, Sayes Court, 29 Feb. 1688# Edmund Dummer, Deptford, 21 May 1688 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 15 June 1688 Anne Spencer, London, 23 July 1688 Samuel Pepys, Deptford, 31 July 1688 Anne Spencer, London, 6 Aug. 1688 Jael Boscawen, Deptford, 11 Aug. 1688 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 14 Aug. 1688 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 29 Aug. 1688 Jael Boscawen, Sayes Court, 31 Aug. 1688# Charles Porter, Sayes Court, 4 Sept. 1688 Robert Berkeley, Sayes Court, 18 Sept. 1688 Anne Spencer, Deptford, 9 Sept. 1688 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 9 Sept. 1688 William Sancroft, London, 10 Oct. 1688 Flower Hyde, Sayes Court, 12 Oct. 1688 Samuel Pepys, London, 2 Nov. 1688 Ann Sylvius, London, 4 Nov. 1688 [Incognitu], London, Nov. 1688 Anne Spencer, London, 7 Dec. 1688 John Chapman, Deptford, 12 Dec. 1688 John Evelyn Jr, London, 18 Dec. 1688 George Evelyn, Deptford, 19 Dec. 1688 William Strengfellow, Deptford, 20 Dec. 1688 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 23 Dec. 1688 Gilbert Burnet, London, 23 Jan. 1689 Anne Spencer, London, 22 Feb. 1689 Charles Spencer, London, 22 Feb. 1689 Anne Spencer, London, 28 Feb. 1689

619

562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604

564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607

620

f 57 f 57 f 57 f 57v f 57v f 58 f 58 f 58v f 58v f 59 f 59 f 59 f 63 f 63v f 64 f 64v f 64v f 65 f 65 f 65 f 65v f 66 f 68 f 68v f 69 f 69 f 69v f 69v f 70 f 70 f 70v f 70v f 70v f 71 f 71 f 71v f 71v f 72 f 72 f 72v f 72v f 72v f 73 f 73

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Strengfellow, London, 26 March 1689 Paul Rycaut, London, 26 March 1689 Anne Spencer, London, 29 March 1689 William Glanville, Sayes Court, 3 April 1689 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 4 April 1689 Richard Holden, London, 25 April 1689 William Sancroft, Sayes Court, 10 May 1689 Anne Digby, Westminster, 21 June 1689 J Ps, Maidstone Assizes, London, 16 July 1689 Charles Mordaunt, London, 17 July 1689 John Harwood, Sayes Court, 1 Aug. 1689 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 12 Aug. 1689# Susanna Draper, Deptford, 14 Aug. 1689 Jael Boscawen, n.p., n.d.# Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 1 Oct. 1689# Anne Spencer, London, 12 Jan. 1690 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 20 Jan. 1690 Robert Berkeley, London, 26 Jan. 1690# Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 1 Feb. 1690 Francis Godolphin, London, 4 April 1690 Samuel Pepys, Soho Square, 7 April 1690# Flower Hyde, Sayes Court, 16 June 1690 [Samuel Pepys], Deptford, 21 June 1690# Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 23 July 1690 Thomas Tenison, Sayes Court, 4 Aug. 1690 Francis Godolphin, Deptford, 9 Aug. 1690 Henry Hyde, London, 18 Sept. 1690 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 20 Sept. 1690 Samuel Pepys, London, 2 Oct. 1690# Nicholas Crisp Jr, Deptford, 15 Oct. 1690 Anne Digby, Dover Street, 21 Nov. 1690 Anne Spencer, Dover Street, 26 Dec. 1690 Charles Spencer, Dover Street, 15 Jan. 1691 Thomas Osborne, Dover Street, 4 Feb. 1691 George Evelyn, Dover Street, 23 Feb. 1691 Richard Chiswell, Sayes Court, 15 May 1691 William Glanville, Sayes Court, 20 May 1691 John Bemde, Sayes Court, 23 May 1691 George Evelyn, London, 25 May 1691 Samuel Pepys, Sayes Court, 12 June 1691 William Glanville, Sayes Court, 20 June 1691 Sidney Godolphin, Sayes Court, 26 June 1691 Anne Spencer, Sayes Court, 27 June 1691 George Evelyn, Sayes Court, 21 July 1691

605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648

608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 73v f 74 f 74v f 74v f 74v f 75 f 75 f 75 f 75v f 76 f 76v f 76v f 77v f 78 f 78v f 79 f 79 f 79v f 79v f 80 f 80 f 80 f 80v f 80v f 80v f 82 f 82 f 83 f 83 f 83v f 83v f 83v f 84 f 84 f 84v f 84v f 85 f 85 f 85 f 85v f 85v f 85v f 86 f 86

Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, 31 July 1691 Anthony Wood, Sayes Court, 29 May 1691 Anne Spencer, Dover Street, 14 Oct. 1691 William Godolphin, Sayes Court, 20 Oct. 1691 Anthony Bowyer, Dover Street, 5 Nov. 1691 Ralph Bohun, Dover Street, 5 Nov. 1691 Charles Chamberlain, Dover Street, 10 Nov. 1691 Anne Spencer, Dover Street, 10 Nov. 1691 George Evelyn, Dover Street, 13 Nov. 1691 Lawrence Staughten, Dover Street, 23 Nov. 1691 Thomas Berenger, Dover Street, 30 Nov. 1691 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, London, Dec. 1688# Mary Tuke, Dover Street, 12 Jan. 1692 Charles Spencer, Dover Street, 15 Jan. 1692 George Evelyn, Dover Street, 16 Jan. 1692# Dudley Cullum, Dover Street, 24 Feb. 1692 Samuel Pepys, Dover Street, 12 April 1692 Mary Wyche, n.p.; n.d.# John Tillotson, Dover Street, 3 May 1692 Thomas Tenison, Sayes Court, 16 July 1692 Elizabeth MacCarty, Dover Street, 30 July 1692 Anne Spencer, Dover Street, 2 Aug. 1692 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 9 Sept. 1692# [Lord N. N.], n.p., 12 Oct. 1692 Thomas Tenison, Sayes Court, 15 Oct. 1692# Henry Hyde, Dover Street, 4 Jan. 1693 John Bemde, Dover Street, 21 Feb. 1693 Richard Bentley, Dover Street, 3 March 1693 George Evelyn, Dover Street, 16 April 1693 Ann Sylvius, Dover Street, 26 April 1693 George Evelyn, Dover Street, 16 May 1693 Charles Spencer, Deptford, n.d.# Mary Tuke, Deptford, 10 June 1693# Henry Compton, Sayes Court, 23 June 1693 William Strengfellow, n.p., [c.23 June, 1693]# Henri Justel, Deptford, 21 Aug. 1693 John Churchill, Sayes Court, 23 Aug. 1693 Robert Plot, Sayes Court, 27 Aug. 1693 Charles Spencer, Deptford, 4 Sept. 1693 Thomas Tenison, Sayes Court, 24 Oct. 1693 Susanna Draper, Dover Street, n.d.# Isabella Fitzroy, Dover Street, 28 Nov. 1693 Thomas Tenison, Dover Street, 23 Feb. 1694* George Evelyn, Dover Street, 28 March 1694

621

649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692

652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695

622

f 86 f 86v f 86v f 86v f 86v f 87 f 87 f 87 f 87v f 87v f 88 f 88 f 88v f 88v f 89 f 89 f 89v f 89v f 90 f 90 f 90v f 90v f 91 f 91v f 92 f 92 f 92 f 92v f 92v f 93 f 93v f 93v f 94 f 94 f 94v f 94v f 94v f 95 f 95v f 95v f 95v f 95v f 96 f 96

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys, Dover Street, 2 April 1694 Thomas Gale, Dover Street, 4 April 1694 William Blathwayt, Dover Street, 4 April 1694 Thomas Tenison, Sayes Court, 12 April 1694 George Evelyn of Nutfield, Sayes Court, 13 April 1694 Richard Waller, Wotton, 8 May 1694 Anne Spencer, Wotton, 8 May 1694 Edmund Gibson, Wotton, 8? May 1694 John Walker, Wotton, 12 May 1694 Daniel Parke, Wotton, 12 May 1694 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 29 May 1694 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 30 May 1694 Benjamin Tooke, Wotton, 2 June 1694 Commissioners of the Navy, Wotton, 17 June 1694 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 7 July 1694 Charles Spencer, Wotton, 6 July 1694 William Wotton, Wotton, 11 July 1694 Edmund Gibson, Wotton, 15 July 1694 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 5 Aug. 1694 Anne Spencer, Wotton, 5 Aug. 1694 Susanna Draper, Wotton, Aug. 1694 Charles Spencer, Wotton, 2 Aug. 1694 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 2 Sept. 1694 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 7 Jan. 1695 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 7 Jan. 1695 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 7 Jan. 1695 Charles Spencer, Wotton, 28 Jan. 1695 Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, 13 Feb. 1695* William Lloyd, Wotton, 5 Feb. 1695 Edmund Gibson, Wotton, 6 Feb. 1695* James Chadwick, Wotton, 8 Feb. 1695 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 25 March 1695 Ann Sylvius, Wotton, 7 April 1695 Edward Strong, Wotton, [1695]# Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 15 April 1695 William Glanville, n.p, n.d. [c.15 April, 1695]# Henry Capel, Dover Street, 4 July 1695 Mrs Draper, Wotton, 23 July 1695 Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, Aug. 1695 Anne Spencer, Wotton, Sept. 1695 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 14 Sept. 1695 Samuel Morland, Wotton, 18 Sept. 1695 William Courten, Wotton, 18 Sept. 1695 John Williams, Wotton, Sept. 1695

693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 831 832 833 834 835 836

696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

f 96 f 96v f 96v f 96v f 96v f 97 f 97v f 97v f 98 f 98 f 98 f 98v f 98v f 99 f 99 f 99v f 99v f 101v f 101v f 101v f 102 f 102v f 103 f 104 f 105 f 105v f 105v f 106 f 106 f 106v f 106v f 106v f 107 f 107 f 107v f 107v f 108 f 108v f 108v f 109 f 109 f 109 f 109v f 109v

Edward Strong, London, 8 Oct. 1695 John Chardin, Surrey Street, 9 Oct. 1695 Ralph Bohun, Surrey Street, 11 Oct. 1695 Jael Boscawen, Surrey Street, 25 Nov. 1695 Henry Capel, Surrey Street, 6 Dec. 1695 Samuel Travers, Wotton, 29 Dec. 1695 William Vanbrugh, Wotton, 9 Jan. 1696 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 14 Jan. 1696 Henry Hunt, Wotton, 14 Jan. 1696 William Draper, Wotton, 24 Jan. 1696 Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, 7 Feb. 1696 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 16 Feb. 1696 Ralph Bohun, Wotton, 24 Feb. 1696* Richard Bentley, Wotton, 26 Feb. 1696 Mrs Draper, 13 March 1696 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 22 March 1696 William Wotton, Wotton, 30 March 1696 Roger Wye, Wotton, 30 March 1696 Thomas Tenison, Surrey Street, 29 April 1696 William Wotton, Surrey Street, 12 May 1696 Richard Holden, Sayes Court, 18 May 1696 John Williams, London, 14 June 1696 Sidney Godolphin, Surrey Street, 16 June 1696 John Place Jr, Surrey Street, 17 Aug. 1696 Sidney Godolphin, n.p., 3 Aug. 1696 Officers of the King’s Yard, London, 8 Sept. 1696 Thomas Tenison, Surrey Street, 9 Sept. 1696 Sidney Godolphin, Surrey Street, 12 Aug. 1696 William Bridgeman, Surrey Street, 15 Sept. 1696 Mrs Draper, n.p., 16 Sept. 1696 Sidney Godolphin, n.p., 18 Sept. 1696 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 18 Oct. 1696 Thomas Tenison, n.p., n.d.# William Wotton, Wotton, 28 Oct. 1696 John Evelyn Jr, Wotton, 6 Oct. 1696# Stephen Fox, Wotton, 15 Nov. 1696 Samuel Pepys, Wotton, 3 Dec. 1696 Jael Boscawen, Wotton, 3 Dec. 1696 Anne Spencer, Sr, n.p., n.d# Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 6 Dec. 1696 William Draper, Wotton, 10 Jan. 1697 Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, 10 Jan. 1697 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 10 Jan. 1697 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 18 Jan. 1697

623

837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 770 871 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882

740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783

624

f 110 f 110v f 110v f 111 f 111 f 111v f 112 f 112 f 112v f 112v f 113 f 113 f 113 f 113 f 113v f 113v f 113v f 114 f 114 f 114 f 114v f 114v f 115 f 115 f 115v f 115v f 115v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Richard Bentley, Wotton, 20 Jan. 1697 Anne Spencer, Wotton, 7 Feb. 1697 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 10 April 1697 John Evelyn Jr, Wotton, 11 April 1697 William Wotton, Wotton, 13 April 1697 Henri Ruvigny, Wotton, 19 April 1697 Sidney Godolphin, London, 1697# Jael Boscawen, Berkeley Street, May 1697 Anne Spencer, Wotton, 4 May 1697# William Wotton, Berkeley Street, 26 June 1697 Charles Trimnell, Wotton, 19 Aug. 1697 Thomas Tenison, Wotton, 26 Sept. 1697 Elizabeth MacCarty, Wotton, 3 Oct. 1697 William Bridgeman, Wotton, 28 Sept. 1697 Susanna Draper, Wotton, 14 Oct. 1697 Anne Spencer, n.p., n.d.# Mary Tuke, Surrey Street, 1 Nov. 1697 Anne Spencer, Surrey Street, 23 Dec. 1697 Sidney Godolphin, London, 23 Dec. 1697 William Wotton, London, 23 Dec. 1697 Richard Bentley, Wotton, 25 Dec. 1697 Mrs Draper, Wotton, 25 Dec. 1697 Christopher Wren, Wotton, 20 Feb. 1697# Thomas Tenison, Wotton, Feb. 1698 John Batteley, Wotton, 4 Feb. 1698 Sidney Godolphin, Wotton, 6 Feb. 1698 Henry Godolphin, n.p., 8 Feb. 1698 [incomplete]*

883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 805 806 807 908 809 810

784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810

Z 2 EI EPISTOLARUM LIBER QUARTUS.1

Anne Spencer Letter 406 (403) April 15, 1679 ff 1–2

Epistle CCCCIII To the Countesse of Sunderland.

Madame, There is nothing I would with more Joy, and cherefullnesse Contribute to, than the Education of that hopefull Gentleman, my Lord Spencer,2 [RM: How much this young Lord degenerated from these hopes, has since sufficiently appeard. Nulla fronti fides3 Since dead of his debauchery, and a wound at Paris[.] His Brother Charles succeedes him in honour, and infinitely exceedes in Vertue and Learning:] in whose very Countenance there is a mixture of so much tendernesse, Ingenuity, and Inclynation to Virtue; and certainly your Ladyship cannot do a nobler thing, nor justifie your care and Indulgence in any sort so much; and for which he ought to think himselfe more oblig’d both to GodAlmighty and your selfe (from whom he derives that honor which distinguishes him) [words deleted] as by your early endeavor to Sow, and Cultivate those seedes of Piety and goodnesse, which is so illustrious and highly excellent in the nature of things, and so conspicuous in your Ladyship – Verily this is to give God the Glory and Praise, which he expects, for having bestow’d upon you a Child endow’d with a Capacity to serve and honor him, and adorne your Titles in this sad declension of all that’s truely greate, and [word deleted] eminent among so many Persons of Birth and noble qualities (which I cannot but looke upon with infinite regret, and as fore-runners of much calamitie) that I know of nothing which is possibly likelie to secure and recover the Youth of this Nation from becoming totaly degenerate, after they shall once enter into Conversation with one another, and looke abroad into the World (as the Sonns of greate persons commonly do

1 Book IV opens with the same device that precedes Books II and III (a superimposed I and E). Evelyn also assigns the numbers 1–6 to the first six letters of this volume. 2 Robert Spencer Jr, styled Lord Spencer (1666–88). Spencer lived a profligate and wastrel life and died in Paris in 1688. Evelyn had high hopes for him as he subsequently did for his brother Charles. See Diary IV.245–6. 3 “[Place] no trust in appearances.”

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sooner than the vulgar) if the Foundation which is studiously laying of and imprinting in their hearts a timely feare of God, love of Goodnes, and emulation of Virtue, do not arme and prevent them: It is certaine a Youth so Innitiated for the time he is yet to be within under your Ladyships more immediate Inspection, cannot (by the Grace of God) rush with that Carriere into the Vices either of the Times, or his owne Inclinations, without a marvelous Check, and consideration how unbecoming it is to staine his honor; how ungratefull to displease Almighty God, and ruine what has ben superstructed with so much Cost and Care: In all events, this will be your Ladyships Consolation, that you have not ben wanting in any sort, to have don the part of an Excellent Mother and a Christian: And I am perswaded that thus endeavouring, and thus praying (as I am assur’d you do) for the Divine Assistance (without which all we endeavor is in vaine) my Lord your Sonn will emerge in every period of his Course, worthy his illustrious Birth and Education, and repay your Care with all imaginable Comfort. I know of nothing in the World of so greate Importance on this occasion, as besides continual Documents of those who are about them, to preserve them from ill and Lew’d Companions: It is not imaginable how Susceptible Youths are of to be took in nets evil in one minuts time, with prophane and filthy Communication, Atheistical, negligent and extravagant Talke, which passes now amongst our most generous Youth, fit neither for Christians nor Heathens to speake or heare: What then can we expect from the Generation that now is entering, but Gods abandoning it to all manner of Sensuality, and consequently destruction? Unlesse a mighty mercy, and almost miraculous Reformation interpose and prevent it: There are Excellent People who think it very severe, when ’tis thus denounc’d; because not onely their Charity, but their more happy Station, and Manner of life dos not engage them to heare, and see, and indure the Persecution which others must abide, who have never so little to do in the World: They compare our owne to what they are in forraine Countries, how mercifull God had ben to a populous Citty if but Ten Righteous had ben found in it;4 but they do not (in my Opinion) sufficiently Consider, that it was Heathen, nor what Obligations we of this Nation, from the Greatest to the Least have received above other Nations and people [word deleted] under the cope of heaven; whither we contemplate the Miraculous Restauration of the King and Church, the planting of so sound and pure a Religion amongst us, and Constitution of a Government the most Christian, Equal, Rational, and preserving us in his boosome as it were, when all the Countries round about us, are were in a flame: Are we Madame, one jot the better for the late Chastisements of Pestilence, Fire or Sword which as yet (though greate, very greate) have ben but gentle reprofes,5 considering our prodigious Ingratitude? Where is our Reformation in one point? after all the powerfull Preaching, Sacred Ordinances, and a milion of Distinguishing favours accumulated on us? Madame, you will pardon this Zeale, or rather Affliction of heart, and let it not sadden yours, which is allways prepar’d to submit itselfe to the will of God, and to pray that he would be pleased to worke a thorough change in all our Lives, and reverse that the

4 “And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake” (Genesis 18:32). 5 i.e., the Civil War, the plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of 1666

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Decree, which being is already gon-out amongst our Neighbours (much lesse oblig’d than we are for infinite greater favours) may not terminate at last in us;6 nor think me impertinent, and so buisily zealous, if whilst you so peremptorily exact of me a Service (which you may with much better Advantage receive from others) I endeavor to shew by the deplorable wickednesse of this age, and especially amongst the most flourishing and hopefull noble Youth of it (which are to be the hopes and props of both Church and State) how highly important it is, Your Ladyship should pursue your Care of my Young Lord, and Especially whilst his tender Yeares admit of all the most choice Impressions: It is not Madame out of the least disobedience (which were want of good Manners) that I have so long resisted your Ladyships reiterated Commands upon this Subject; but seriously from the Contemplation of my Incompetency, and for feare of arrogating that which dos not so well become me in point of Function: For though since I had the happinesse to be known to an Excellent Christian or two in this place, who would needes condescend now and then, to entertaine their thoughts with my weeke Recollections, and that at first very accidentaly; though not without a signal providence to me (who have learn’d so many better things of them)[.] Yet had I never once the Confidence, or designe to recommend them to any others whatsoever, but on their account: If they have ben of any benefit, I blesse God for it with all my heart: They are very humble, but have extraordinary endowments, Talents far above my reach even in this heavenly Commerce, and I do not envy it; I wish (with Moses) the whole Congregation of your fat Prophetesses,7 and all the world were like them: In the meane time Madame, let not their Charity lead your Ladyship into an Opinion that I am more capable to furnish directions for my Lord, than those who are our Guides in Spiritual matters; or what ever your Ladyship can, and I believe do yourself suggest upon all occasions; though, to pacifie your Ladyships so irresistible commands, I do at present force my-selfe to comply, and then to Implore your Pardon for what I may come short of Expectation. And now Madame, there is but one thing more which I will indeede take the boldnes to give my private thoughts of, as to the Education of my Lord; in which if I seeme to contradict the costome of the World, I hope I shall give faire satisfaction upon what inducement I do it: It is (your Ladyship knows) the usage of greate Persons, to send their Children abroad, with [word deleted] a raw, and altogether unexperienc’d Governor (as they call him) whom soone they learne to despise, or debauch; when in truth, the chiefest care should be taken of them: For what are Youths sent out at 16, 17 or 18 (even to twenty) yeares of age, during the first fervours of their natural and impetuous Appetites (unlesse where they are bred with an early, and extraordinary feare of God, and the ­deepest pow

6 This is presumably a reference to the attack on French Protestants that intensified in 1679 and culminated in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. 7 Probably a reference to Mother Shipton, a mythical prophetess of the sixteenth century who was said to have prophesied Wolsey’s fall and the Civil War and was usually depicted as an ugly old woman. This might also be a reference to Massinger and Fletcher’s (1622) play The Prophetess which was republished in 1679. See Oldridge, “Mother Shipton and the Devil” in The Extraordinary and the Everyday in Early Modern England, ed. McShane and Walker, 211–23.

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Impressions of Religion) but to a very precipice of destruction for most part? Of this I have had the Experience of in so many fatal Instances; that I cannot but declame alowd against the Practise, and would Advise greate Persons that are Parents, carefully to prevent it; by sending them abroad rather at Ten, or Eleven ’til 14 or 15 at farthest; whilst they are yet Innocent, tender, and flexible, and of more aptitude to acquire the Languages, and learne the Exercises of a forraine Country, and to speake genuinely, than those who go later: Thus, they will not onely have gain’d the Tongue, but by the Assistance of an able and Discreete Governor, be fitted as well for the University, as if they had spent their time at the Grammar Schole, when they returne home: And if after this, and that they first have seene some parts of their native Country, and read our owne Descriptions, it be necessarie, they should go abroad againe; let it be at an age of more Steadynesse, Maturitie, and when you may trust them; and they will then be able to gaine Experience, and make sober and Profitable Observations of what they see and heare; forme their Addresses amongst the best Conversations, with more assurance, as being now past the Tyrannie of Learning Words, when they should be learning Things: How many I have seene Ship-wrack’d, that were Noble, and hopefull Youths, for want of this Method, and care in their Education, is unpleasant to remember: Many of the most Illustrious Families might I name yet living, and sundry more that might have liv’d; but are long-since dead, that have Miscarried, and ben broaken here, by being expos’d (as I may say) to this destructive and pernicious Course, of Travelling abroad, when they should have stay’d at home. They come rarely out from the Discipline and veneration of an Observing Mother or Father, into a desired Liberty, as well as Country; and for all that the strictest Academies or Tutors can prevent; make their Excursions and take their Swinge without Comptroll. Better, much better, never they had learn’d a forraine Language, than a forrain Vice: and I have known so many much-more Virtuous Persons, and good Subjects, yea, ex politely bred, that never went abroad for it, than I have of such Travellers, that I am confident it were much better and happier for the Nation, if more had staied at home: The greatest and most proflygat Vices of all ages, and Countries having still ben such, as were introduc’d by those who went Young from home to fetch their Lading: Witnesse Italy, and the state of Rome, by fatal Experience, after their Asiatic Conquests; the Lux, and Softnes of those Nations, Effeminated the most glorious Empire under heaven, and brought it to ruine: What another neere us has don (which was first debauch’d from by Italy), allmost through all the Courts of Europe I wish we had not pregnant Instances before our Eyes: and this is so Evident and fatal, that as to our Concerne, the Lading (when all is don) is so far little and very trifling, which our featherd Gallants commonly bring home, besides a little Mixene, and to Court a Misse, that ’tis not to be named, with the irreparable hazards of Soule and Bodye of the many Misadventures: Madame, you will pardon this plaine and honest period, and all the other Imperfections of Madame Your etc. London 15 April 1679

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Ann Sylvius Letter 407 (404) May 4, 1679 f2

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Epistle CCCCIV To my Lady Sylvius at the Hague

Madame, I will not go about to extenuate a fault1 you pronounce to be one; but certainly if rightly you consider’d it, you have no small Obligation to me for not Writing to you first: Do you not know that in puntillo of this commerce, the Inferior is allways never to begin to his Superior, unlesse some urgent affaire countenance his presumption? the good manners is therefore on my part, and on your Ladyships the good nature, which I will most thankfully accknowledge ’til you are weary of my Impertinencies, and command me to be silent. The truth is when I call to mind the Affliction I have suffer’d by the losse of so many deare Friends, amongst whom I was to reckon you for one (whilst you were so long silent, as well as absent)2 I often lay’d my hand upon my Mouth; and have neither Spirit to write, nor almost to speake: But it is the Lords doing: Deare Play-fellow, do you not deplore with me, that we have lately lost as many Friends, as there are Moneths, since the death of that precious Saint?3 I neede not reckon them who they are, they are but too well knowne to us both: That blessed Creature in England, Mrs. *Talbot4 [RM: *hir husband was afterward Duke of Tyrconnell a papist: she a zelous protestant and late Maid of Honor to the Queene] in Ireland, and my Lady *Mordaunt5 [RM: *Mordaunt mother to the Earle of Monmoth]6 in France make up three of the number, for whom I am in sorrows unexpressable, and it would be unconsolable were it not that I consider how advantageously they are translated from a sinfull wretched age, to Joyes unspeakable and full of Glory: Methinks I cannot but sometimes deeply reflect upon it, how our deare Saint leading the way, God seemes to have sent after her so many of her holy and belov’d Acquaintance and Relations as additions to her infinite happines: For if Joy there be among the Angels at the Conversion of one Sinner in Earth, how much greater the Joy, among both Angels and Saints, when excellent persons meete in Heaven! I acknowledg to you this Contemplation is amongst the greatest Consolations I have, and that shortly and in Gods good time, he will make me fit, and bring me to joyne in that heavenly Society, where I shall behold his Glory, and the blisse of these our departed Friends, never more to be separated from each other: It is what I daily beg I may be prepared for: If the memory of that blessed Creature, 1 Ann Sylvius’s reply of 26 May (Add 78309: f 33 [26.5.1679]) calls this letter a “Lectuer” and laments the deaths of Margaret Godolphin and Elizabeth Mordaunt. 2 Ann Sylvius had been at The Hague with her husband since 1677. 3 Margaret Godolphin 4 Katherine Talbot 5 Elizabeth Mordaunt 6 Charles Mordaunt

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her holy Conversation, and the good I have deriv’d from her Example etc. do so deeply affect me, as oft as I but think of past Circumstances: how can I but wish for that Consummation I speake of ? But this is a sad Lecture, not a Letter you’l say: Madame, I know you are not seldom in these Thoughts, and Comfort your selfe with the same reflections; and it is an Ease, and a Charity in you to suffer me to breath them forth into a boosome, where I know her Memory continualy dwells. Indeed Mr. Godolphin [RM: afterwards Lord Godolphin and one of the Lords of the Treasury] is exceedingly kind to me; and these Topics are our often Entertainement; and if his signal Friendship to me, did not in some measure supply my losse beyond what I ever expected, I should be very Miserable: He Says, and Writes the same to me; but in the meane time we are both Miserable Comforters. – My Wife presents you her most humble service, and returnes you thanks for your Charity to that poore Man you often relieve. We are both Madame Your etc. Says-Court 4 May, 1679

Stephen Fox Letter 408 (405) June 12, 1679 f2

Epistle CCCCV To Sir Stephen Fox one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury etc.

Sir, Hearing (since I lately waited on you) that Continuing your Inclinations of purchasing something neere the River, and within sight of White-Hall, and that you were inquiring about Chelsey,1 I cannot but renew what I (not long since) suggested to you concerning the Countess of Bristols,2 to which there is nothing preferable within the prospect of the Citty, nor in Chelsey3 it selfe; [RM: Since purchasd by the Duke of Beaufort for £5000] situated with that advantage for the Air, and Commodiousnesse of the Water, it being the very outmost house west of that Towne, and Contiguous to all those fresh Gardens

1 See Letter 410. 2 Anne Spencer wrote to Evelyn on 12 June 1679 to thank him for his assistance in “this afair of Chelsey,” i.e., trying to sell her mother’s house (Add 15889: f 37 [12.6.1679]). Evelyn and she kept up a frequent correspondence throughout this year and continued to be frequent correspondents. 3 The Digby house had been the home of Sir Thomas More and was famous for its garden. It was subsequently owned by the duke of Beaufort, whose duchess, Mary Capel Somerset, was herself a famous gardener and a friend of Evelyn. A letter of 16 July 1679 from Anne Spencer states that her mother “had better take 6000 for it then live a melencholy life” (48v) (Add 15889: f 41 [16.7.1679]). Solomon Foubert, a Huguenot refugee and master of horsemanship, offered unsuccessfully to buy it for £4000 in 1681 (Add 15889: f 71 [3.9.1681]).

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and Pastures, and wholy separate from the crowds of other houses, streetes and incumbrances, and as it were alltogether in the Country: I do assure you Sir, I have no other Interest in recommending this place to you, then the disposition which I long have had of doing you some little service, by the acquaintance which I have with that Lady: For the rest you being so much a better Judge of the Value, and other Circumstances (when you shall have well survei’d and consider’d the Particulars) I neede say no more: I onely add, that I certainly know you may have a peny-worth, and that ther’s nothing to be objected which you may not most reasonably owne, whither it be for your selfe, or any other of your Relations4 whom you would settle in that Sweete place: I should be glad you would command me to waite on you thither some time before you quite give over thoughts of proceeding in it; because I know it is so fit for you, and will not stand long without some noble Chapman:5 Sir I am Your etc. Says-Court 12: June: 1679

John Beale Letter 409 (406) July 11, 1679 f 2v

Epistle CCCCVI To the Learned Dr. Beale etc.

Sir, By Mr. Greene1 I have lately receivd an obliging letter from you, with the Confirmation of your health, and continuance of your mindfulnesse of me, which are greate Refreshments in these dismal times, and highly acceptable to me: It is very true, that I have sometimes thought of Publishing a Treatise of Acetaria,2 which (though but one of the Chapters of Elysium Britannicum)3 would make a competetent Volume, accompanied with other accessories, according to my manner: But whilst I as often think of performing my so long-since promis’d (more universal) hortulan work, I know not how to take 4 Evelyn was to be engaged as a go-between in 1681 in a proposal of marriage from Robert Spencer Jr to Jane Fox who wisely declined and became Jane Compton. 5 purchaser 1 unidentified, but see also Letter 517; Beale refers to “My intelligent friend, Mr. Green, whom yu first bestow’d on mee” in his letter of 16 June (Add 78313: f 92 [16.6.1679]). 2 Acetaria. A Discourse of Sallets was published in 1699. In the letter of 16 June (Add 78313: f 92 [16.6.1679]), Beale had urged that Evelyn “give us your Sallats,” noting “Both young & old call aloud for them.” As Evelyn points out, Acetaria, is part of the then unpublished “Elysium Britannicum.” Beale responded on 28 July (Add 78313: f 94 [28.7.1679]). 3 This is one of the rare occasions on which Evelyn refers to this work by its title.

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that Chapter out, and single it from the rest for the Presse, without some blemish to the rest. When againe I consider into what an Ocean I am plung’d, how much I have written, and collected, for above these 20 yeares, upon this fruitfull and inexhaustible Subject (I meane of Horticulture) not fully yet digested to my mind, and what insuperable paines it will require to insert the (dayly increasing) particulars into what I have already in some measure prepar’d, and which must of necessitie be don by my owne hand; I am almost out of hope, that I shall ever have strength and Leasure to bring it to Maturity, having for the last ten-yeares of my life ben in perpetual motion,4 and hardly two moneths in a yeare at my owne habitation, or conversant with my Family. You know what my Charge and Care have ben during the late unhappy War with the Hollander, and what it has cost me as to avocations, and for the procuring monye, and attending the Lord Treasurer5 etc. to discharge the Quarters of many Thousands: Since that, I have upon me no fewer than three Executor ships,6 besides other Domestique Concernes; either of them enough to distract a more steady, and composed Genius then is mine. Superadd to these the publique Confusions7 in Church and Kingdome (never to be sufficiently deplor’d) and which cannot but most sensibly touch every sober and honest man: In the middst of these Disturbances, who but Dr. Beale (that stands upon the Toure, lookes down unconcern’dly on all those Tempests) can think of Gardens, and Fishponds, and the Delices and Ornaments of Peace and Tranquility?8 With no little Conflict, and Force upon my other buisnes, I have yet at last, and as I was able, publish’d a Third Edition of my Sylva,9 and with such additions as occur’d; and this in Truth, onely to pacifie the Importunitie of very many (besides the Printer)10 who quite tired me with calling on me for it; and above all, threatning to Reprint it, with all its former defects, if I did not speedily prevent it: Something therefore I have ben oblig’d to do, as you will see, when the Book (which stays onely for an opportunity and addresse how to send it) comes to your hands: I am onely vex’d, that it proving so popular, as in so few-yeares to passe so many Impressions, and (as I heare) gratifie the

4 In 1670 Evelyn was asked by the king to write an account of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, a work for which only the preface was published in 1674 as Navigation and Commerce. He published A Philosophical Discourse of Earth (Terra) in 1676. He was also on the Council for Foreign Plantations (1671–4) and commissioner for the Sick and Wounded in the Third Anglo-Dutch War (1672–4). His intense relationship with Margaret Godolphin between 1672 and 1678 also consumed a great deal of his time. 5 Sidney Godolphin 6 These included the wills of William Howard (Evelyn’s former neighbour, the son of the earl of Berkshire and the father of Ann Sylvius), the will of Margaret Godolphin (1678), and the estate of Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey (1679). 7 These included the Popish Plot (1678) and its aftermath – the passage of the Test Act, the arrest of Pepys, and the impeachment of Danby, and the Exclusion Crisis. 8 See Chambers, “ ‘Wild Pastoral Encounter,’” in Leslie and Raylor, Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England, 173–94. 9 It appeared in 1679, “Printed for John Martyn.”  10 John Martyn (1617/18–80; ODNB, I) who became a freeman of the Stationers’ Company in 1643 and a liveryman in 1657. He had a bookshop in London at the sign of the Bell in St Paul’s Churchyard (1649–80). Martin was a partner of James Allestry with whom he was named printer to the Royal Society in 1663, and with whom he published the first two editions of Sylva (1664, 1670). Martyn continued in this role after Allestry’s death in 1670. He is last recorded in the Term Catalogues in 1680.

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avaricious Printer with some hundreds of pounds; there had not ben some Course taken in it, for the benefit of our Society;11 It is apparent that neere £500 has ben already gotten by it: But we are not yet Oeconomists: You know what Pillars we have lost: Palmer, Morray, Chester, Oldenburg12 etc., and through what other discouragements we still labour; and therefore you will excuse the Zeale and fervor of what I have added to my Epistle to the Readers if at length it be possible to raise up some generous Soule to free us, or Emerge out of our difficulties: In all events You will soone see where my Inclinations are fixt, and that Love is stronger than Death; and Secular affaires, which is the Burial of all Philosophicall Speculations and Improvements; Though they can never in the least diminish the greate Esteeme I have of your Friendship, and the infinite Obligations I dayly receive from your favours To Sir Your etc. Says-Court 11 July 1679

Stephen Fox Letter 410 (407) November 14, 1679 ff 2v–3

Epistle CCCVII To Sir Stephen Fox etc.

Sir, I do not value my selfe for anything more than that ’tis my good fortune to put Sir Stephen Fox in possession of a place1 becoming one so worthy of it, and every way suitable to the Circumstances of a Family and Relations which God has blest (I think) with the greatest felicity this world can afford: Riches without Envy or Oppression, and an heart to use them Generously, and as a good-man should: I may not speake it without greate Satisfaction, that I am assur’d you will never have Cause to repent you of this Bargain and my Lady (the Countesse of Bristol),2 highly sensible of how worthy a Person she has to deale, coming to your owne offer, puts into your hands, absolutely the sweetest spot any-where neere this Towne, and capable of being render’d the most delicious and refreshing, as well as ample and commodious; so perfectly well situated, such excellent Aire, so good an House, so easy a Purchase; in a word so far superior to any thing of this nature that I can heare of within any tollerable Distance, that upon second and impartial 11 the Royal Society  12 Dudley Palmer (d. 1676); Robert Moray (d. 1673); John Wilkins (d. 1672); Henry Oldenburg (d. 1677) 1 the countess of Bristol’s house. See Letter 408. Evelyn notes on 8 November that “At Sir St: Foxes, & was agreeing for the Countesse of Bristols house at Chelsey, within 500 pounds” (Diary IV.185). 2 Anne Digby

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Consideration, you can no where fit your selfe and family so conveniently: I have never in my life eaten better fruit of all sorts, then I did there this summer and could not imagine there had ben such abountant variety, especialy of Figgs, Grapes, Peaches, Nectarine and Peares of the choycest kinds: There is a goodly Collection of Orange Trees and other Greenes; and ’til you are Owner of the adjoining Park3 (which I am sure you may be) there is Pasture in plenty for your Horses and Cowes Contiguous to your Ground: Sir, ’tis a rich penyworth, to keepe, or part with: You have in a manner for £5500, what cost at the first peny £7000, and has ben lately improov’d by 2000 more: Besides a considerable rent, and in any better time it would yeild double the Purchase: And now you have Sir, nor more to Command when I shall waite on you, Upon this Occasion; My Lady Bristol being wholy dispos’d to give you all the satisfaction you can desire on her part as well as on Sir Your etc. London, 14 November 1679

Sidney Godolphin Letter 411 (408) December 17, 1679 f3

Epistle CCCCVIII To the Right Honourable Sidny Godolphin Esquire one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and of the Privy Council etc.

My Dearest Friend You employ all your Moments, and dispose of yourselfe so profitably to the benefite of the Publique, that I cannot regret the infinite losse I have lately made, by being depriv’d of the most sensible effects of that indeard Friendship I once enjoy’d, without envying the felicity of one that is now in Heaven,1 and injuring one of the best, and most usefull 3 This is probably the garden of Sir John Danvers (c.1588–1655), which was by this time in the possession of his daughter. See Strong, The Renaissance Garden in England, 176–80. 1 Margaret Godolphin’s death and character (including a poem in her memory) is the subject of a (draft) letter of 9 September (Add 78307: f 117 [9.9.1679]) to Godolphin on the first anniversary of her death. Godolphin’s reply of 11 September 1679 asks that Evelyn never scruple to call upon his services (Add 78307: f 118 [11.9.1679]): Deare Mr. Evelyn there is nothing I take soe much Comfort in, nor value soe much, as the Continuance of the kindnesse and assistance in all the occasions of my life, and therefore let mee beg of you that whenever your thoughts are soe kind as to prompt you to say any thing to mee upon this, or any other subject what soever, that you would not let your selfe be discouraged from it either by an apprehension of my want of kindnesse or leisure to entertayn it as I ought, or by any other yett more slender pretence which your own modesty may perhaps

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men upon Earth, should I trouble you with my Impertinences but halfe so often, as I think of you, and that blessed Saint: ’Tis, I assure you, this Consideration which dos often protect you from the Importunities of those who are told I have some Interest2 in you: But I confesse, there are Misfortunes, which since I cannot but commiserate, I cannot but recommend the sufferers to one whom I think as vulnerable as my selfe, that is, as pitifull, and ready to do good-offices, especially where the Instance is just, and realy Meritorious: The Case is this; I am by a neere relation of mine to bespeake your patience and charity in behalfe of a Gentleman3 (one *Mr. Glanvill) [RM: *a Merchant of London that had Sustaind extraordinary losse for the service of his Majesty etc.] who having lately (it seemes) applyd himselfe to the Lords Commissioners (your Collegues) conceives his Cause and Sufferings, capable of more Comfort, and Encouragement, than that of a cold indorsing his Petition; That for ought you know, what it containes may be true: I presume not to interpret what that signifies, nor enter into the merites of the Cause, farther than not having long known your Petitioner for a person of good Credit, and worth, and one who as a very intelligent man, has no inconsiderable Interest in the Citty, as to what an agrieved and imbitter’d Spirit anxiously distress’d may influence. I could therefore wish (as things now stand) he might not alltogether languish, or be reduc’d to extremitie, if by any meanes you can favour him with your assistance at your board: I have already acquainted him under what Circumstances and difficulties you every-day labour under; and then his pressing wants, and the sad historie inclos’d, forces me to comply with his opinion, that his pretense honestly consider’d, ’twere impossible but some expedient should be found to rescue him at least (if not fully to satisfie him) from his present wants: What shall I say more? What neede I to you? But certainly the Case is singular, and extraordinary, and who knows but you are plac’d where you are by God Almighty for such a time as this? Si quid potes, succurre nobis,4 so sayd he in the Gospel, to our Blessed Lord, and so say I to him, who I am sure desires to Imitate our Lord, if it be in his power: Give the Gentleman at least a kind reception, that he may feele some of you have bowels,5 and are dispos’d to do him right. I acknowledge I am overcome; but upon the faith of a Christian, and your Friend, I have no other inducement

suggest to you, but bee assured that it is impossible for mee ever to forgett, not only your kindnesse and obligations to mee, but those which I hold my selfe more engaged for by a thousand degrees than any thing that can bee done for my selfe, and that wherever I am and whatever becomes of me in the world, you, or any thing that comes from you shall always bee most welcome to mee; Evelyn wrote annual letters commemorating her death, including those of 1680, 1682, 1684, 1689, 1690, 1695, 1697, 1698, 1699, and 1700, which are Add 78307: f 125, f 129, f 131, f 134, f 137, f 140, f 142, f 146, f 151, and f 153. 2 something to gain from 3 The syntax here appears confused. William Glanville had written on behalf of another gentleman, who may be the Captain Fowler (Thomas Fowler [c.1648–85/8; Diary]) who appears in Letter 413 as a successful petitioner. 4 “But if thou canst do any thing … help us.” Mark 9:22 5 compassion

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of to what I write, besides the Impression which his Sufferings have made in me: Farewell most excellent and deare Friend: pergo amare6 – Yours etc. Says Court 17 December 1679.

Samuel Pepys Letter 412 (409) January 30, 1680 f 3r–v

Epistle CCCCIX1 To Samuel *Pepys Esquire

[RM: *Late Secretary to the Admiralty] Sir, I wish with all my heart I were any-way capable of being subservient to you, in any thing you mention: I accknowledge it has ben greately in my wishes, and hope, from some little hints, let fall from you now and then, that upon this Recesse, and Calme from publique busines,2 furnish’d (as you are) with a noble Library, and Instructed by the greatest experience, joyn’d to an Industrie and Capacity beyond any Mortal, that I know, of Understanding so usefull and desir’d a Work; that from You, the learned and Curious World, might one-day receive that hitherto desir’d, but conceal’d Arcano del Mar3 with the most consummate perfection and advantage. I am sure there is no Subject more worthy your Choice, more illustrious for its dignitie; more capacious for the exercising all the parts of Historical, Mathematical Mechanical; yea Critical and politer Erudition, than what lies fairely within the Circle of that Mysterie, and within your ample Sphere: Macte, Macte ergo Vir Clarus4 and give Your Prince, Your Countrie, and your Friends this Treasure, which ’tis certaine you have improv’d, and, owe, if not to the whole ungratefull world, yet to a number in it who love and

6 “I continue to love.” 1 The text of this letter printed in Particular Friends, C1, 94–6 derives from Huntington HM25797, the version sent to Pepys. The letter incorporates research undertaken by Evelyn for his suppressed history of the Anglo-Dutch War and subsequently published in part in Navigation and Commerce (1674). Evelyn obviously continued to hope that the rest of this material might be published. 2 Pepys had been falsely accused of misdemeanors as secretary of the Admiralty and was committed to the Tower, then to the Marshalsea, and released on bail on 9 July 1679. He was not finally discharged until 28 June 1680. 3 Presumably this is a sequel to the work by Dudley cited below, a work that Evelyn was continually urging Pepys to complete in this period. The only book that Pepys did publish was Memoires relating to the state of the royal navy (London, 1690). 4 “Well done, well done, noble man.”

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honor you, and by a generositie becoming your better nature, diffuse that good amongst us, which must convince it, that a Person so virtuously Employ’d, may be the Emulation, but cannot be the Envie of any worthy Person, without the greatest affront to merit, and the and vertue it selfe: As to Books and Multitude of Authors subsidiary to this Attempt, they may possibly serve others (as me they have, and the little Smatterers like me) for incouragement, and to divert ’em) whilst you have at once but to recollect your owne Experience, and methodize those rich and inexhaustible Materials, which I am confident you have prepar’d in aboundance, and dispos’d for such a structure. You have ben sometime pleas’d to enquire of me What Authors and Books I knew that treated on this Subject: It were but to cast in a Mite to your opulent stock, should I undertake to enumerate any you have not already consulted: In a trifling Essay,5 I cursorily made use of some, and I cannot call to mind any of Importance Antient or Modern, after I nam’d Duke Dudly, Furniere, Morisotus, The later Architect Navale written in French; De Witteser6 in Dutch, which I looke upon as the very best we have extant, as to the Mechanic part; with some of the historical, and for ornament; which are to be sought for in Athenæus, Vegetius, Frontinus, etc. amongst the antients: and for the later you have Lazius, Baÿfius, Cresentius, Meibonius, Selden, Grotius7 to whom may be taken in considerable fragments out of Herodotus, Strabo, Polybius, Mela, Diadorus, Livy, Pliny, Justine, Plutarch, Bochartus, The Notitia Imperii, The English, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese Navigators and Journals etc. For what should I speake of Simeon Admirandus, his laws and Ord’nances of the Admiralty: Gli Navigationi di Nearcho: De Telonio Marino and the varius Tract de Dominio Maris8 to be found amongst the Manuscripts of Mr. Selden in the Bodleian Library: All the Greeke and Latine Historians furnish to this Work, all the forrain, and domestic Navigators and Adventurers upon discoverie etc: Whilst the greate and useful part will be the Mathematical and Mechanic both for the Structure and Government of these stupendious and goodly Machines for War, and Peace, in a Rationale of all the particulars that concerne a Royal Navy, Onerary Vessels for Trafique, the Admiralty, and other Officers, with the universal Navy Oeconomie, of all which You can certainely give the most 5 Navigation and Commerce (1674) 6 Sir Robert Dudley, Dell’Arcano del Mare (Florence, 1646–7); George Fournier, Traité des fortifications, ou Architecture Militaire (Paris, 1648); Claude Barthélmy Morisot, Orbis Maritimi sive Rerum in Mare et Littoribus Gestarum Generalis Historia (Dijon, 1643; Evelyn Library, no 1050, “Ex dono D. Ri Browne Militis, Soceris, Magg. Britt:”); Jan de Witt, A Relation of the Passages at Sea, Between the Fleet of England and the United Provinces (1666). 7 Veteres de re militari scriptores quotquot extant, nunc primâ vice in unum redacti corpus (Wesel, 1670; in the 1687 catalogue) contains: Ælianus, De Instruendis Aciebus liber unus (for which Athenæus is probably a mistake), Flavius Renatus Vegetius, De re Militari libri quatuor, S.I. Frontinus, De Strategematis libri totidem; Lazar Baif, De re navalli libellus (Louvain, 1537); Bartolomeo Crescentio, Nautica mediterranea (Rome, 1607); Marcus Meibonius, De Fabrica Triremium Liber (Amsterdam, 1671; Evelyn Library, no 1009); John Selden, Mare Clausum (London, 1635; in the 1687 library catalogue); Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum (Leiden, 1618; in the 1687 catalogue). Selden’s argument for an exclusive British title to the seas was a rebuttal to Grotius. 8 Samuel Bochart, Geographia sacra (Frankfurt, 1674); [Carl Scharschmidt], Notitia Imperii Romani (Strasburg, 1679). Thomas Hyde, Catalogus impressorum librorum bibliothecæ Bodleianæ (Oxford, 1674), 140, lists De Dominio Maris Tract. varii (1615) and De Telonio Marino (1639) as being in the Jur. Seld. holdings. Selden’s manuscripts had been transferred to the Bodleian in 1659. Nearchus was a boyhood friend of Alexander the Great whose memoirs were used extensively in the works of Strabo and in Arrianus’s Anabasis.

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Usefull and accurate Account of any person living. Sir, I wish intirely, I might serve you in this, as the meanest of your labourers: I confesse in reguard that Providence has cast my lot so neere Zabulon, a station of Ships,9 I could have wish’d I had ben worthy some inferior Employment, which might by this time of day, have rendr’ed me more fit to serve you; but it has not ben my fortune; and however you may have heard that I am now a Candidate for some such thing, in this Shuffling of the Cards: Yet my Prospect10 gos I asure you no farther, than the good wishes of some Friends, who I have heard to have named me; but, ’truely, without any concerne of my owne seeking, farther than not to refuse any honourable Service of my Prince and Country, which I might undertake without Envy or reproch. Since as to the discharge of such an Employ, as the most skillfull had a beginning, so ’tis possible an Extraordinary Industrie and Integrity might have supplied my Want of profounder Science; And he that has given Hostages to Fortune, as I have don, cannot, I perswade my selfe be reproved by so worthy a Friend as I esteeme you to be, without whose Suffrage, you may be sure I should never attempt any thing of this nature: This is Sir, the Just Apologie I make to encounter the Reports, which my Neighbour here told me yesterday went about, and I take this occasion as to Answer your most Civil Letter, so to assure you that I am Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 30 January 1679/8011

Sidney Godolphin Letter 413 (410) April 12, 1680 f 3v

Epistle CCCCX To Lord Godolphin1

Sir, I acquainted Captaine Fowler2 what you said to me, and that you thought he should not neede your good word to the Duke3 for him, being assur’d his Royal Highnesse was 9 Genesis 49:13; Matthew 4:13, 15 10 It is not clear what Evelyn’s “prospect” was at this time. De la Bédoyère suggests that Evelyn may be referring to attempts by Pepys to have him appointed to the Navy Board (Particular Friends, 96). 11 The copy sent to Pepys is identified as “White-hall 30: Jan: after Supper” (Particular Friends, 94). 1 This is written over: John Brisbane, Esquire. 2 Evelyn is subsequently thanked (3 November 1685) by his brother-in-law William Glanville for “the Service you have done him with Mr. Pepys” in speaking to him on behalf of Thomas Fowler, the husband of his niece, presumably to ensure his promotion to captain (see Letter 414). Although Glanville also describes him as a “sowre Gentleman,” he seeks Evelyn’s intervention so that “there may bee some Latitude and Libertyes left him, which being no way prejudiciall to the Kings service, may much contribute to the benefitt of the Captains Voyage” (Add 78305: f 67 [3.11.1685]). He also thanked Mary Evelyn for her intervention (Add 78434: f 53 [14.12.1685]). 3 duke of York

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already dispos’d to favour his Request, and (as I understood) had in a manner Granted it: This he desires to Learne from your owne mouth, and therefore modestly requir’d this Addresse to you: Pray receive him kindly for my sake: he is a morose, resolute, yet good-natur’d honest and perfect Sea-man: I have not observ’d any of his rank (which is Gentleman of a good familie) addicted to the Salt Water, better qualified for a Tarpaulin:4 His Unkle5 is that Staffordshire Divine, who has so convincingly asserted the Discipline of the Church of England, a Treatise which I doubt not but you have seene: Few words expect from him. Importunity (after this) you will never have; but he is worthy your Patronage, as you’l find if you enter into discourse with him: He writes well, and thinks well, and has don very well and bravely: This is the Character of Captaine Fowler to my right honorable Friend: Vale;6 Says Court On Easter Monday 1679/80

Jael Boscawen1 Letter 414 (411) March 22, 1680 f4

Epistle CCCCXI To Mrs. Boscawen

Madame, You have earnestly spoken both to me, and since (I heare) to my Wife, that we should inquire how Captaine Fowler2 might be gratified for his Civilities to your Nephew3 in the Voyage whence he lately return’d with so much Satisfaction to his Friends: Being yesterday at Green-wich to Visite the Captaines Wife4 (after hir sore Travell) we did not forget to let him know, how sensible the Gentlemans friends were of the kind treatment and the care was had of him; and that they desir’d nothing more, than to know how they might

4 sailor 5 Edward Fowler (1631/2–1714; ODNB), author of The Resolution of this Case of Conscience (1683) 6 Farewell 1 Jael Boscawen (1647–1730; Diary). Sister of Sidney Godolphin, and “step-mother” both to her nephew Francis Godolphin and “Jack” Godolphin when they were at Eton, she married Edward Boscawen in 1665, and was the mother of Hugh, Viscount Falmouth and Anne, the wife of Sir John Evelyn (1682– 1763; ODNB), the son of John Evelyn Jr. Evelyn saw and corresponded with her frequently. Her letters to Evelyn are in Add 78309 (ff 79–143). 2 Thomas Fowler 3 This is probably the nephew of Jael’s husband, Edward Boscawen, i.e., one of the sons of Hugh Boscawen (1625–1701), as Sidney Godolphin is referred to as his uncle. 4 Anne Fowler, née Cowse. The daughter of James Cowse of All Hallows (London) and Jane Glanville, the sister of Evelyn’s brother-in-law William Glanville, Anne was married to Captain Thomas Fowler.

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return it. The Captaine reply’d, that he could not wish for a greater recompense, than the honor of having it accepted by those who did recommend him. I told him this Answer was very respectfull, but would by no meanes be agreeable to the Persons, who did not use to receive far Smaller Courtesies, without due Accknowledgements, minding him also, how dearely his Modesty to Lord Berkeley5 cost him the yeare before: After much Civil debate on this Chapter, he told me; that since we did presse him (understanding to how worthy a Person the Gentleman was related) he hoped he it might not seeme an immodest Request, that his Unkle6 would be pleas’d to moove his Majestie he might go to New-found Land, Convoy to the Fishing Ships, which were usualy ready to set saile towards the end of May: This sayd he, by his Unkles your Brothers favour in bespeaking his Majestie and Mr. *Hides7 [RM: *afterwards Earl of Rochester and Lord Treasurer] interest with the Duke8 may certainely be procur’d for me, provided they speake in time, and obtaine a promise before others intervene, and so forever oblige me, without any prejudice to his Majestie or reproch to the favour of him who shall be pleas’d to recommend me: I assur’d him I would instantly write to you to move your Brother in it (whilst he was at New-market9 with his Majestie) to prevent the time; and Madame, if you think fit to inclose this letter to him when you write, and fortifie it with your owne Request, you would exceedingly oblige both the Captaine and my selfe; One by a generous Recompense of his Civility to your Nephew, and the Other, by rendering me Instrumental in doing a kind office to a stout Industrious, and very deserving honest Sea-man: He is a Gentleman well-born, and from a child addicted to the sea, where he has laudably serv’d his Majestie on all Occasions, and ben since a successful Convoy severall times: The Duke has also a Value for him, and he wants no qualifications to intitle him to this Employment but what your Brother can create by a word speaking in time: Madame, I neede not, nor will I say more; but leave it to Gods providence and to your Ladyships good wishes, who am Madame Yours etc. Sayes-Court 22 March 1679/80

5 Robert Berkeley (1607–78) was a navy commissioner. 6 Sidney Godolphin 7 Laurence Hyde, 1st earl of Rochester (1642–1711; ODNB, H). The second son of Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon, Hyde was created Viscount Hyde in 1681 and the earl of Rochester in 1682, having first been the king’s favourite and appointed first lord of the Treasury and a privy councillor. 8 duke of York; Laurence Hyde was his brother-in-law. 9 the fashionable race-course frequently attended by Charles II

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John Stonehouse1 Letter 415 (412) March 3, 1680 f 4r–v

Epistle CCCCXII To Sir John Stonehouse Baronet of Radley in Oxfordshire

Sir, The Assurances you gave me from the very first, that we should find my Daughter in Laws2 Portion, if not full £5000, yet within £100 of it, makes me have recourse to you at this time for your Advice and Assistance; it falling short of the £4900 (which was the least you were pleas’d to say it would appeare) by £230. Whether there be any Error in the Accompt you will best be able to Judge: That which makes me the more to insist upon it, is both yours and Mr. Mellicots3 and Sir Gabriel Roberts’s4 joynt Computations from the Portions of the other lately Married Sister5 (Wife to Sir Richard Anderson of Pendley) which was affirmed to be so little lesse than £4900, that this would undoubtedly amount fully to that summ, upon a reasonable Calculation of the time: This (you may please to remember) was so speciously made out, upon Sealing of the Writings, that I was not unwilling the full summ of Five thosand pounds should be particulariz’d for the Reputation of my Daughter in Law, as was desired, nor do I at all repent it; not doubting but you and Sir Gabriel will make some nicer inquiry concerning it, at your leasure; for I do not signifie this, that I may give you trouble, now you are buisie in the Countrie; but that you will please to take it into your Consideration when you come to Towne, and have better opportunity: The assurance of your worthy Intentions, and the sincerity of your our dealing in all this Treaty, having not in a title (to my knowledge) conceil’d the true, and solid Estimate of what is settl’d, according to your largest proposal makes us the more Confident, we shall find the same among the Relations of my Daughter in Law, and therefore I do (without farther inspection) assure my selfe also, that the Land in Stafford-shire is to the full value of £500, and in good Tennants hands: But if I should fall short of what was mention’d for the Certaine Portion, it would light somewhat hard upon us, as you have ty’d us to such very difficult termes of Joynture, Portions to future Children, and other circumstances of Bond from my sonn, which do by no meanes answer upon the nicest bargaines.6 I am not willing to mention the excessive Charges of the Marriage, and what was so positively requir’d, and insisted on for Ornament and Equipage; because I reckon’d the Portion would in some sort have aleviated the Expense: But I assure you Sir, it has come to little less than £800, 1 Sir John Stonehouse, 2nd baronet and MP for Abingdon (c.1639–c.1700; H) 2 Martha Evelyn, the wife of John Evelyn Jr. 3 Thomas Medlicot (1629–1716; Diary). Like Evelyn a member of the Middle Temple, he became a barrister in 1653 and was retained by Evelyn as counsel for the marriage settlement of his son in 1680. 4 Sir Gabriel Roberts (c.1629–1715). Deputy governor of the Levant Company (1690–1715), he was susceptor at the baptism of Martha Evelyn, the daughter of John Evelyn Jr, who died in infancy. 5 Elizabeth Spencer (c.1657–1724) married Richard Anderson of Penley (d. 1695). 6 The details of this agreement are given in Diary IV.194.

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that we might comply with your Expectations. This was a large proportion, considering how often it was suggested, that all might be carried privately, and without Ostentation: Nor do I mention this as regreting any thing which has ben don on our parts; but that I think it becomes me to render you an Accompt of the Particulars, who cannot but Conclude we shall have ben a little too severely tyed, if we must sit-down by a dissappointment of so much of the portion, as is yet fall’n short: In the meane time, as nothing which may happen to the prejudice of our reasonable expectations, shall in the least diminish of our tender kindnesse to our Daughter in Law (from whose owne mouth I had rather you should heare how she is satisfied with the respect we give her, and the Contentment she finds amongst us) so, I assure, you I shall allways endeavour to remaine worthy the honour you do me, in giving me leave to stile my selfe Sir Your most humble Servant and Brother in Law. Says-Court 3 March 1680.

William Godolphin1 Letter 416 (413) April 28, 1680 f 4v

Epistle CCCCXIII To Sir William Godolphin of Godolphin Baronet

[LM: About setting-up a Light-house upon one of the Isles of Ork Scilly, of which Sir William is Governor] Sir, These will neede no other Arguments to Obtaine the Assistance of Sir William Godolphin, in a Request of this Nature, than the Charity of the thing, and promotion of so publique a Concerne: And therefore Sir Richard Browne (who humbly kisses your hands, and will himselfe waite on you) has desir’d me to transmit the inclosed to you, and recommend it to your favour: I remaine Dear Cousin Have you seen a Treatise or Manuscript of Padre Paulo’s concerning Beneficiaries,2 newly published in England?

28 April: Says Court: 1680.

1 Sir William Godolphin (c.1640–1710; Diary). The eldest son of Sir Francis Godolphin, and brother of Sidney and Jael, he was created a baronet in 1661 and elected to the Royal Society in 1664. He was unmarried. 2 A Treatise of Matters Beneficiary [tr. W. Denton] (London, 1680) is a work on the distribution of alms by Pietro Sarpi (Padre Paolo).

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Henry Bennet Letter 417 (414) March 12, 1680 f 4v

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Epistle CCCCXIV To my Lord Chamberlaine:

[LM: Earl of Arlington:] My Lord: I did according to your Lordships late advice, renew my Addresses to his Majestie who was pleased to give my Wife a gracious Audience, but which has neither permitted her to hope or dispaire, either of which had ben a greate mercy after so long, and so reasonable Expectations: I am bold to name it reasonable, my Lord; because it was never from my owne presumption, that I durst aspire to so greate an honor, but from the Sole Goodnesse of his Majestie who had twice sent me assurances (by Sir Samuel Tuke, then Colonel, out of France) that when God should restore him, and that he had a Royal Consort, my Wife should have the honor to be neere about her Majestie1 in some Condition2 [LM: Keeper of the Sweete Cofers, given to my Lady Killigrew]3 which might become her; and if his Majestie had observed no indemerit in my Wife sick since, which might now render him her more uncapable of his favour; she could not without disobeying it, diffide of the successe: She might yet my Lord without much vanity exaggerate from the Nineteene yeares services, and ruine of her Fathers Estate, his Constant and untainted Loyaltie, and after all this, and the returne of his gracious Master, that to not one beame should shine upon him with equal lustre, as it has upon the rest in his forme; with whom yet she makes no comparison: She might also reinforce it by my her selfe, being almost borne and bred up (as she was) in the Exile, and the no inconsiderable services I have performed during his Majesties Persecution, though my modesty (let me presume to say) and the Conscience of my duty has not yet put them into a Catalogue: But my Lord I would not recommend my Wife by any thing which should beare the shadow of a pretence; but the graciousnesse of his Majestie and the Interest of your Lordship which she still continues to hope in; since it is certaine, his Majestie has the same power, as he had once the goodnesse to make her hope it, and will call to mind that she was the very first that Petition’d, and have the least importun’d him: I shall add no more to your Lordships trouble at this time, but that you will please to remember her, and your promises to My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 12: March 1680

1 Catherine of Braganza 2 In his diary entry for 31 March 1661 (Diary III.275) Evelyn notes that Charles II promised Mary Evelyn the office of lady of the jewels but gave it subsequently to Lady Scrope. 3 Charlotte Killigrew, née de Hesse (1629–1716; P). Married to Thomas Killigrew, she held the sinecure of keeper of the sweet coffers.

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William Sancroft1 Letter 418 (415) April 8, 1680 f5

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Epistle CCCXV To his Grace my Lord Archbishop of Canterbery

[RM: Dr. Sancroft late Deane of Paules] My Lord, My late Indisposition not as yet permitting me to expose my selfe to the severity of the season; the Bearer hereof Mr. Evans2 (whom I once brought to do his Duty to your Grace at Lambeth, with a recomendatorie Letter from the *Deane of Canterbery) [RM: *Dr. Tillotson3 afterward Archbishop] perswades me, that the Interest I have in your Grace were Sufficient to obtaine your Graces favour in a suite he humbly makes, for your Graces favour and Suffrage to succeede the present incumbent of Bow in Cheapside, now supposed to be voide: My Lord, though I can by no meanes encourage him under that greate presumption, yet the Character which Dr. Tillotson gives of his abillities and worth, and which made me obtaine St. Hellens for him of my Lord of London4 (and that will not neede any farther inducement from me) is the occasion of my giving him this Adresse to your Grace; if (as he is pleasd to think) it may be of any Consequence and Advantage to him: I beg your Graces Pardon for this presumption, and your Blessing to My Lord Your Graces etc. Says Court 8th July April 1680

1 William Sancroft (1617–93; ODNB). A graduate of Cambridge (DD 1662) where he was also master of Emmanuel (1662–4), he spent part of the Interregnum in Padua and returned in 1660 to be chaplain to both Bishop Cosin and Charles II (1661) and dean of St Paul’s (1664). Subsequently he became archdeacon of Canterbury (1668–70) and archbishop (1678). 2 John Evans (c.1645–after 1685). Having come to Evelyn’s notice when preaching at Abinger near Wotton (Diary IV.111) in 1677, at Evelyn’s instigation he was made rector of St Ethelburga, London, from which he resigned in 1685 to become rector of St Helen’s Bishopsgate. 3 John Tillotson 4 Henry Compton (1631/2–1713; ODNB). The youngest son of Spencer Compton, 2nd earl of Northampton, Compton studied at both Cambridge and Oxford (MA, 1666; BD and DD, 1669). He became bishop of Oxford in 1674 and in 1675 bishop of London and dean of the Chapel Royal.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Amelia Butler1 Letter 419 (416) June 5, 1680#2 f5

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Epistle CCCCXVI To the Countesse of Ossorie: etc.

Madame, I cannot account my-selfe to have worthily discharg’d my Duty to the Memorie of my noble Lord,3 without deepely condoling the losse your Ladyship has sustain’d in the Death of that Illustrious Person: Never did a Greate man go-off this earthly stage with more regret, and universal sorrow: Never had Prince a more Loyal Subject, never Nation a more publique losse; and how greate my owne was in Particular, the un-interrupted Obligations of above Thirty yeares ( joynd with a most condescending and peculiar Friendship) may serve to declare, that nothing could have happn’d to me more Calamitous: But all this dos but accumulate to your Ladyships Affliction, which were indeede deplorable, had you not besides the greate and heroic Actions of his Life, the glorious Name he has left behind, which will be Immortal, the hopefull branches that remaine to Imitate his Virtues; the Consolation, above all of his being safe, where he has received the a Crown brighter than any Earthly Princes: It was my duty and (as well as good as honor) to be with him night and day, ’til I closd his Eyes, and to joyne in those holy Offices which were so devoutely perform’d by the Bishop of St. Asaph4 to the last article, and during all his Lordships sicknes; which was pass’d through with such Christian Patience and Resignation, as that alone ought to give your Ladyship Exceeding Comfort: I am sure it dos to me; and your Ladyship is to blesse Almighty God for it, who after so many honorable hazards in this wicked world,5 would have him to a better, and that he is departed hence as a Greate Man, and a true Christian should do, though for the Present to our infinite losse: And now 1 Amelia (Emilia), countess of Ossory (d. 1688). The daughter of Louis of Nassau, baron of Beverweerd, and illegitmate son of Prince Maurice of Orange, Lady Ossory was a sister of Lady Arlington. She married Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory, in 1656. 2 This letter is misdated by about two months. Butler died on 30 July. The diary also records Evelyn writing to Butler’s wife on 30 July (Diary IV.211). 3 Thomas Butler, 6th earl of Ossory, whom Evelyn had first met in France in 1650. Nominated as governor of Tangier, he became ill before he could leave England. Evelyn attended his deathbed and gives a moving account of him in Diary IV.208–11. 4 William Lloyd (1627–1717; ODNB). A graduate of Oxford (BA 1642, MA 1646, DD 1667), Lloyd became chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles II in 1667, dean of Bangor (1672), and vicar of St Martin-in-theFields (1676–80). Subsequently he became bishop successively of St Asaph (1680), Lichfield (1692), and Worcester (1699), and was one of the seven bishops imprisoned in the Tower in 1688. 5 Butler was nominated governor of Tangier on 23 June, and was to have been sent to defend Tangier with an insufficient force, at (he believed) the earl of Sunderland’s instigation, and with Charles II’s connivance. Evelyn provides a lengthy account of Butler’s mission and of his final illness and death, which may be incorrect in some details (see the entry on Butler in the ODNB).

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­ adame, I should beg Pardon for entertaining you so long on this mournfull occasion, M did I not assure my-selfe that the Testimony I give your Ladyship of the religious and pious Circumstances of his sicknesse, would afford your Ladyship some Consolation, as well as to shew how sincerely devoted I was to his Lordships Service, how much obliged for his constant and generous Friendship to me, and how much I am Madame, Your etc. White-Hall 5 July June 1680

Anne Digby Letter 420 (417) July 17, 1680 f5

Epistle CCCCXVII To the Countesse of Bristoll:

Madame, I[t] had ben impossible to have describ’d the greate sense I have at your Ladyships Concerne for me (so infinitely surpassing what they call civilitie) in so few words, and so very short a time, as the servant you were pleas’d to send to enquire of my health, had to stay; for it was very early on Sunday morning, and I was in so greate a sweate, that I durst not rise to write, as you injoyn’d me; but with my most humble accknowledgements and thanks, was forc’d to dismisse him, without obliging him to stay for a letter, who had so far to go:1 Madame, it were enough to make a very indifferent man to set a far higher value on himselfe, than became him, to find so greate, and such excellent Persons as your Ladyship (and some others are) to be so much Concern’d for him: I will pray to God, that this may not exalt me above measure; but rather make me humble, who best knows my Imperfections, and how little I deserve; and to Reward your Ladyship for your exceeding Charity: I cannot say I was sick, but very ill at Ease, by an Inconvenience which has not happen’d to me in above Twenty yeares before to any purpose; nor am I yet so perfectly free, but that a little exposure this hot season is apt to prejudice me: For the rest (I thank God) I am in health, and top-full of thanks to your Ladyship for all your favours: I frequently send to Suffolck-Streete2 to enquire how those excellent people do, and our hopefull deare child:3 My Lady Sylvius4 (from whom I lately receiv’d a letter) is I perceive got 1 2 3 4

Lady Bristol lived at Wimbledon House, about nine miles from Evelyn’s house at Deptford. Anne Digby was by this time living at Windsor near Jael Boscawen, several of whose siblings lived in Suffolk St in London. Francis Godolphin Ann Sylvius’s sister, Dorothy Graham, lived a quarter of a mile from Bagshot, near Windsor. A letter from Ann Sylvius of 26 August (Add 78309: f 35 [16.8.1680]) suggests she had been in London in July but had not seen him before going to Althorp on 16 September.

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neere to Winsore: My Sonn and his Wife5 is with his Unkle at Wotton: The remainder of our little Family (without noise or newes) are I (blesse God) in health, and all of us extreamely oblig’d to your Ladyship for honoring us with your so kind remembrance, especialy Madame, Your etc. Says-Court 17 June July 1680

Sidney Godolphin Letter 421 (419) August 13, 1680# ff 5v–6

Epistle CCCCXIX To the Right Honorable Sidny Godolphin, on of the Lords Commissioners of his Majesties Tressury

My Friend, I know ’tis to little Purpose to Expostulate, when a thing is allready determin’d, and I should certainely forbeare, could I imagine, that upon deliberate Consideration of the Premises, Your Collegues1 should Scrupule (or at least One of them, who it seemes has ascendent over the rest, for sure I am, they are all too sensible of the justice of my cause)2 the granting of so equitable a Request, and a thing so much my due: Had we petition’d for it as a meere favour, or Superabundant Gratuity of present advantage to our selves, or prejudice to his Majestie the Refusal had not strucken us so unexpectedly; but that after a Royal Promise, under hand and Seale, not surreptitiously obtained; but, yearely repeted, formaly, deliberately drawn, by the mature Advice of his Majesties Council, and in particular my Lord Chancellor himselfe, and Lord Treasurer, who was then Lord Cottington3 (a person not at all fond to do things of this nature rashly) it should be thought much with Mr. Hyde4 to give us his Suffrage, who was pleas’d (at Sir Richards first application, and declaring   5 John Evelyn Jr married Martha Evelyn, née Spencer on 24 March. 1 The commissioners of the Treasury at the time, besides Godolphin, were Laurence Hyde, Sir John Ernley, Sir Edward Deering, and Sir Stephen Fox. From Letter 440 (19 December 1681), also to Godolphin, it seems likely that the “One” objecting was Laurence Hyde. 2 The “cause” is the Evelyns’ petition to the Crown for £11,846 for Sir Richard Browne’s expenses while in France. Against this would be set the £4181.17s + interest that Browne’s brother-in-law, Sir William Prettyman, was seeking to recover from Browne and Evelyn. It seems likely that this letter was written on 7 September 1680 after Evelyn gives an account in the diary (IV.217–19) of meeting with Sir Stephen Fox. See also de Beer’s account of the suit (Diary IV.394 n. 3), and Letters 440 and 443 to Godolphin. 3 Francis Cottington (1579?–1652; ODNB) was lord treasurer from 1643 until his death in 1652. The lord chancellor at that time was Edward Hyde, later 1st earl of Clarendon. 4 Laurence Hyde

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his Case) to encourage him with assurance of his favour in it dos not a little trouble us: Not to exaggerate the merites of a Loyal, and honest Gentleman[.] Sir Richard Browne (my Father in Law) came to Court with no despicable Fortune; Serv’d his Majestie fourtyyeares; Suffered the Indignitie of a Prison, even when he was a Publique Minister for debts contracted to support that Character, after he had humbly besought his Majesties letters of Revocation from that Chargeable Employment (at the French Court) and when he might (among others) have sav’d his Estate at home: But all this (his Majestie representing to him, how prejudicial the quitting his service and station would be in that Conjuncture, and when so many of his friends and subjects deserted him) he cheerefully hazarded, when for his Encouragement, and in no lesse than two Severall and Successive Grants promis’d him, what he now so reasonably sues for: As to my owne Concern: It was upon this Consideration and Confidence, that I furnish’d Sir Richard with mony (out of my owne fortune) when having engag’d his Patrimonial Estate, and Ladys Joynture (of which there was ’til then remaining neere five-hundred pounds per Annum) I purchasd these Leases, inabling him to continue in his Majesties Service, to keepe-up the House, the Chapell, and the Service of the Church of England (when it was almost no where else in all his Majesties Dominions) confidently relying upon his Majesties Promise to make it an Inheritance: And if ’til now we were not solicitous about passing the Grant, whilst we had any Prospect of having a much more considerable Dept [debt] pay’d (which had ben stated, gon through all the legal formes, and wanted onely the Lord Tressurers Warrant for the payment of the Mony, to the Auditor of the Exchequer; or at least, admitting it into the late Schedule) yet upon the disposal of my Sonn in Marriage, and the necessarie Settlements it has engag’d us in; It cannot certainely be thought unreasonable we should now apply ourselves to this Expedient, or Revive our Clayme: To Promise that if any-thing else of this Nature passe, This shall not be forgotten, is as much to say, as it shall never Passe; because there is no body else can present you with the like pretence. To tell us there shall be no grant made of it to any other during your present power, is to reserve for, and expose it to the next Favorite that shall succeede you; and how soone, who can tell? in such slippery places: That can never render you Obnoxious to the reasonable solicitation of others, whose real pretences are not accompanied with the same just Circumstances; and the particular is so very small, all things Consider’d (we seeking no Royalties, but the being his Majesties perpetual Tennants) that mithinks you should not suffer any who may possibly succeede you, to defraude you of the Merite of so just and equitable a Concession. Is it not an absolute Promise and Engagement, under the Royal hand, and seale, and reiterated Word of a King? with this solemn and Sacred Condition (If ever God should please to Restore him to his Crownes againe?) What? and When is Justice to be expected if not from this Instance? If not from you? To whose onely decision this Affaire is reserv’d? Because much has perhaps ben too frankly given away, to such as had no pretence to favour, shall a Royal and sacred Promise, upon Stipulation, Merite, and due-debt; yea upon Purchase on Valuable Consideration, modestly, deservdly, and long waited for be made void? This is in good Earnest so hard measure, that I should be almost as sorry to find so little Justice, among those who have the power, and reputation of Justice, to distribute it, as for those who are like to suffer by this obstruction. I could add, that halfe such a Promise from a Private Man, were sufficiently Obligatorie, and shall not the Judge of all the Nation do Right! Consider then,

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those who lost their Estates in his Majesties Service, lost them when there were yet hopes of Victorie, and Consequently of Reward or Recompense: Sir Richard his, to obey and serve his Majestie when all was desperate and when those who had Remainders secur’d them by Compositions or meaner Complyances: Besides, he purchas’d his Place of Cleark of the Council, and for Nineteene yeares had no benefit of it: He being sent into France by King Charles the First, his owne Choice, not Sir Richards seeking, with assurances of being recall’d within 6 monethes, as experimentaly knowing the unprofitablenes of Forraine Employments, and after Twenty yeares Service of Two Kings received £200: This Land is the Place of his Birth, and whence his Dignitie of Baronet is denominated. Ô how many of his Majesties Enemies have ben made Noble, Rich, and Happy, whilst he is suing for a Being onely after an hundred yeares, for the Settlement of his Posteritie? who might without immodestie expect it not onely this small boon, but Satisfaction for the considerable Remainder of his Arrere (the whole amounting to Twelve thousand pounds more) his Gracious Masters farther Bounty and promised Reward, in Consideration of his inviolable Fidelity, his Sufferings, his Forbearance, the Justice, Favour, Friendship of those honorable Persons, your Collegues, who have so particularly promis’d to do him right, and he hopes likewise they will. I have written enough to make a Friend Concern’d, and perhaps a Passionate Greate man, angrie: But is there not a Cause? It is Certainely in your power to Revive it yet, and fix it, by going to Mr. Hide etc. Sir Stephen Fox having generously promis’d us his cherefull Concurrence, and I am as Confident of the rest: I am sure the Thing is Just, and proofe against all Apprehensions: In a word, Remember I am your Friend, You Mine, and now do like a Friend.5 Says-Court 13 August – 16806

Anne Spencer Letter 422 (420) August 24, 1680# f6

Epistle CCCCXX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame Greate Favours don’t become a short letter and a very long-one could not containe the sense of the Obligation we all are under for the noble Entertainement we received at

5 Evelyn recalls the language of Godolphin’s letter to him in response to his commemoration of the first anniversary of her death (Add 78307: f 118 [11.9.1679]). He had written again in September 1680 (Add 78307: f 125 [9.9.1680]). 6 date overwritten; original not legible

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­ insor,1 and that your Ladyship (who knows so much better how to passe her time in that W delicious Court) should dedicate an whole summers day to comply with poore Country People: I beseech you Madame to receive this Accknowledgement of mine in the name of the whole Tribe: We are told how his Majestie is going by Sea to Portsmouth (according to his wont) and at his Return, to New-Market, and then your Ladyship will be in your Sweete Recesse of Althorp:2 Whereever you are, I beseech God to blesse you: We have lost here my Lord Ossory,3 more than 30 yeares my Acquaintance, and as long my Generous Friend: I never left him from the time of his Sicknesse, ’til his Eyes were clos’d: Yes Madame, I have lost, a tried, and generous Friend: He was an honest worthy Gentleman. He that fear’d not Bullets, yeilded to Anxiety and Ingratitude, which kil’d him more than his Feavor: I am Madame Your etc. Says-Court 24 August–16804

Christian Berkeley Letter 423 (421) August 28, 1680 f 6r–v

Epistle CCCCXXI To my Lady Berkeley etc.

Madame, I perceive by Mr. Aldrich,1 that your Ladyship has thoughts of nominating me a Trustee for the Concernes of your Children, in the Alteration you think fit to make: There is nothing certainely in which I may serve the Commands and Interests of your Ladyship which I should not most cherefully Embrace, could my Abillities, and the Circumstances of my present Condition possibly justifie my Undertaking: I have at present no fewer than Three

1 Evelyn had gone with his wife and daughter to Windsor on 24 July to see the restoration of the castle, and had dined with Lady Sunderland (Diary IV.207–8). This letter may be misdated as Lady Sunderland’s letter to Evelyn of 20 August says “I deserve no thanks” (Add 15889: f 51 [20.8.1680]). 2 the Spencer estate in Northamptonshire. Evelyn had first visited it in July 1675 (see Diary IV.69–70). At that point, he thought “above all are admirable & magnificent the severall ample Gardens furnish’d with the Choicest fruite in England, & exquisitely kept” (70). He also knew “that rare piece of Vostermans …  which was a View or Landscip of my Lords Palace &c: at Althorp in Northampton-shire” (128), which is still at Althorp. Evelyn describes Althorp more extensively after a visit in 1688 (see Letter 587). 3 Thomas Butler; see Diary IV.208–11 and Letter 419. 4 overwritten Aug.; original date illegible. 1 Henry Aldrich Sr

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Trusts of this Nature upon me,2 and the very least of them has for neere these 14 yeares perplex’d me in so many Suits, for want of my Collegues Compliances, that though I have all the Legal Security to indemnifie my-selfe (usual in Such Cases) yet the Trouble, and Molestation has ben so Intollerable, that if I had no other Instances to Oblige, it were sufficient to deterr me from putting my-selfe into a possibilitie of the Like, though it should never happen: But, besides this, my Lady Vicountesse Mordaunt,3 unknown to me, by her last Will has lately ingag’d me in another Trust; which though among so many Greate and honorable Persons, as were in all appearance, likely to take off much of the difficulty, I might apprehend; yet I find it so burdensome to me, that nothing but a Thirty yeares Friendship, and the last, obliging, dying-Words at her departure (when she tooke her fatal Journey to Paris) could have overcome me: There is likewise another Friends Concerne, that lies hard upon me, and with all these (besides the Circumstances of my owne Familie, and other unavoidable Impertinences) I find my selfe so miserably Incumber’d, that it were to deale unfaithfully with your Ladyship to undertake a Trust in which I could not be so Assistant and Industrious as I ought, and most sincerely wish were able to be. Wherefore I beseech your Ladyship not to receive this which I write as an Excuse proceeding from any other Cause, than the Diffidence of my being Capable of doing you Effectual Service in an Affaire of this Importance; since I must ever esteeme my selfe infinitely Obliged to your Ladyship that you would think me worthy of putting so greate a Trust into my hands: In the meane time, though for these, and many other Impediments, I find my selfe uncapable of this charge; If I might recommend a Person, whom I have had neere fourty yeares experience of to be every-way qualified; it should by Mr. Philip Packer: He is (your Ladyship knows) a plaine, well temper’d discreete Man, and of greate Integrity, Extraordinary Dilligence, and of no ordinary knowledge in the Law; besides he is Related to your illustrious Family; habitualy in Towne, and one, who I am sure, will serve you with that affection and application I would my selfe do, if I were as Capable, and master of Opportunities: For (as I comprehend the Circumstances) your Ladyship has no neede of an extraordinary subtile; but of an honest, dilligent and prudent person; that would be active and neere at hand: Madame, I am Confident I have not fail’d in Mr. Packers Character, though happly, I may have don in presuming to Advise you, who cannot but have aboundance of Choice friends and Servants, who truely honour you, besides Madame: Your etc. Says – Court: 28: August 1680

2 These are to do with the estates of his brother Richard, and William Howard, as well as the ongoing suit about Sir Richard Browne’s estate. 3 Evelyn describes himself as one of the “trustees” of Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey in Diary IV.259. There is also a letter from Andrew Newport, one of the other executors, to him on 20 April 1680 (Add 78318: f 2 [20.4.1680]).

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Anne Montagu, née Evelyn Letter 424 (422) August 30, 1680#1 f 6v

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Epistle CCCCXXII To my Niepce Montague:

Deere Neece: Though I have ben by long, and much Experience, both Acquainted with, and prepar’d for the Vicissitudes and Changes of Worldly things; Yet I cannot but be very sensibly touch’d with the Sufferings of those, who, accostom’d all their lives to prosperous things, may not have the fortitude to support some more piercing Calamities; amongst which, I esteeme the Losses of Children, and Friends; and in both which, mine has not ben a little aggravated, for so many Yeares, as (amongst the rest) I am fall’n into your displeasure; which, I assure you, has ben a kind of Moral Death to me, depriv’d thereby of so neere a Relation: God has taken from me divers Children,2 and some Friends (whom I loved better than my life) and there are so few remaining (especialy of our Paternal Family) that I cannot but extreamely regret, and deplore the losse of your pretty Daughter: For I have often Enquir’d after her, and much rejoic’d that she was likely to live, and be every way so hopefull: But since it is the will of God to take her from you, I doubt not but you have Sufficient Courage to support it, with resignation to his Pleasure, who can repaire your losses with advantage, when he thinks good; and perhaps gives us these Interruptions, to mind us all of our Dependance on him, and re-call us from placing our Comforts too much on temporall enjoyments, which are so uncertaine: And now Neece, I am not solicitous, whither you terme me Philosopher or Divine, for this; so you but believe (what from my heart I professe) that I am exceedingly sorry for the Late Cause of your Mourning: Nor do I question, but you have Piety and Virtue enough to direct you how to comport your-selfe in this Accident, without any assistance from your Unkle; But, it being all I am able to contribute, you will be pleas’d to accept the part I beare in your sorrow, and the hearty Prayers I make that God will (in his good time) restore these Comforts to you: This, I should my-selfe in Person have come to assure you of; but for some unhappy Circumstances, and misunderstandings, which have so long (you know) discompos’d that Interest, which I once believed I had in you, and your Relations: And how either I myselfe, or any of Mine, have ben so unhappy to loose, I protest, to this moment, I cannot at all comprehend; since, as I knew nothing of a Crime; so when I came to know what was (but injuriously, very unworthily) pretended, I could by no meanes think, it deserv’d so severe and deepe a Resentment, as to be expiable by no submissions of my Sonn, who is pretended to give the offence: Least therefore my 1 Anne Montagu’s letter to Evelyn thanking him for his solicitation is dated 6 July 1680 (Add 78318: f 3 [6.7.1680]), which suggests that this letter is misdated. 2 Four of Evelyn’s children died in infancy.

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Waiting on you during these Circumstances should happly be uneasy to any that may looke upon it, but as a Ceremonie; I rather choose this way to assure you, that I am, and ever have ben, very Joyfull to heare of your Prosperity, and now no lesse sorry for this Interruption of it: And since I am certaine, you cannot imagine I write all this in the least to flatter (one who has put it out of her power to Oblige or Disoblige me farther) I hope, and am Confident, you will believe what I write (and which my Heart dos dictate) when I assure you that I am Dear Neece Your etc. Says-Court: 30 August 1680

Gilbert Burnet1 Letter 425 (423) August 30, 1680 f7

Epistle CCCCXXIII To Dr. Burnet etc.

[RM: being now publishing his History of the Reformation,2 in which are printed two or 3 Letters which I furnishd him.] Worthy Doctor Upon an Advertisement lately publish’d in the Gazzet;3 (and my promises to you) having amongst an heape of Old Letters, and Dispatches, found some of them to touch upon Affaires of Religion, the Late Queene of Scots, and other Political Matters about the beginning of the Reformation, and Reigne of Queen Elizabeth etc. I thought I should not do amisse to transmitt them to you; if happly some passage or other might occurr to give light to that desiderat, and Excellent Work you are now finishing: I am not greatly 1 Gilbert Burnet (1643–1715; ODNB). Brought up as a Presbyterian and educated in Scotland, Burnet was a lifelong advocate of religious toleration. He remonstrated with Charles II about his lascivious life and was several times ejected from his living for doing so. He was on the continent for extended periods in the 1680s and was a severe critic of James II. He accompanied William III to England in 1688, and was offered the bishopric of Salisbury in 1689. He married, as his third wife, Evelyn’s friend Elizabeth Berkeley, the widow of his correspondent Robert Berkeley. Although he published many sermons, treatises, and pamphlets, he is best known for his History of my own Times (1723–4) to which Evelyn contributed. 2 Burnet, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, 3 vols (1679–1715; London, 1681–3, 2 vols in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.b.34). Evelyn contributed “A Letter written by the Earl of Leicester ... concerning the Queen of Scots” (1681), II, 373–7. 3 Although Richard Chiswell’s advertisement in the London Gazette, no. 1526 (1 July to Monday 5 July 1680) said that “all security shall be given for restoring any such Papers,” Evelyn subsequently believed that Burnet mislaid this manuscript. See Diary IV.241, n. 3.

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solicitous for your hasty returning them: If they prove of any Use, they are at your Service, and so is Reverend Sir Your etc. The Cipher or Nota (with the Key) which I find amongst the Letters, I also send with them: Though they are most of them I think, already decipher’d etc. Says-Court 30: August 1680

Stephen Upman1 Letter 426 (424) January 11, 1681 f7

Epistle CCCCXXIV To Mr. Upman Fellow of Eaton-Colledge and Tutor to the Duke of Grafton:2

Sir, I receive it as a greate favour, that you think so justly of me, as to be assur’d there is nothing within my power, which I would not most cherefully serve you in; and especialy that you will make use of my interposure upon this Occasion: So soone as I receiv’d your Letter (which was not ’til moneday last) though the Weather were not very inviting, I resolv’d I would not keepe you a moment in suspence, by delaying to waite upon my Lord Chamberlaine:3 And, according to my Expectation, after I had given him a just Account of your Concerne, as far as I thought Convenient (that there was nothing in it, which gave you trouble, but that the Surprize of the thing, and some other Circumstances, prevented your more timely communicating of it to his Lordship and your Modestie since, the Confidence of avowing it, ’til you should receive his Lordships Pardon)4 he was so far from shewing the least Resent’ment, that he has injoyn’d me to tell you, he has no other quarell against you, but that you should believe him so little generous and good-natur’d as to take any thing ill of this sort, and wherein Love has a part: Sir, My Lord dos with greate affection wish you Joy; bids you be Comforted, and of his owne accord tells me, he will undertake for my Lord Duke of Grafton, that you shall not neede so much as blush, for 1 Stephen Upman (c.1650–1708; Diary). Admitted to King’s College, Cambridge in 1661, he was created DD in 1673. He was subsequently secretary to Robert Bruce, 1st earl of Ailesbury (1626–85; ODNB), then a fellow of Eton in 1677, and finally prebendary of Westminster. He was also tutor to Henry Bennet’s son-in-law, Henry Fitzroy. 2 Henry Fitzroy, 1st duke of Grafton (formerly Palmer) (1663–90; ODNB). The second son of Charles II by Barbara Villiers, duchess of Cleveland, Fitzroy was created duke of Grafton in 1675. 3 Henry Bennet 4 Presumably this is a reference to Upman’s marrying without Bennet’s permission while tutoring his sonin-law, the duke of Grafton.

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any fault you have made in this affaire, on Condition you will believe his Lordship as perfectly your Friend upon all occasions, as a person can be, who has a very particular Esteeme for you, with a greate-many more obliging and Civil Expressions; so that you are Rectus in Curia,5 and will find the same kind reception and Countenance from his Lordship that ever you had. – And now Sir, give me Leave also to Augure you all the Joy and happinesse accompanying so excellent a Choyce, and which I wish the Continuance of to you with all my heart, who am with greate sincerity Sir, Your etc. White-Hall 11: January 1681

Anne Douglas, née Spencer1 Letter 427 (425) February 14, 1681 f7

Epistle CCCCXXV To my Lady Anne Spencer:

[RM: Afterwards wife to my Lord Arran son of Duke Hamilton] Madame, Whilst my Lady (your Mother) ceases not to multiplie Obligations upon me (and through such a deferent as your Ladyships faire hand) it were enough to Revive me, though there came nothing else to accompanie it: I had scarse the least grudging of my fit2 this last night; for which I am to thank God, and my Lady onely; so that (though I am yet tender, and not so hardy) yet I doubt not, but within a few daies, I may adventure to peepe out a little, and, as I am oblig’d, pay my first duty and greate reguards to her Ladyship, as becomes Madame, Your etc. Says-Court. 14: February 1680/1

5 correct in government 1 Anne Douglas, née Spencer (1666–90). The daughter of the Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland and his wife Anne Spencer, she was a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne and married James Hamilton, 4th duke of Hamilton (1658–1712; ODNB) in 1688. 2 i.e., remission of my sickness. There is no mention of a “fit” at this period in the diary, but Evelyn, now 40, became increasingly concerned about his health and had already suffered one fainting fit in 1665 ­(Diary III.418).

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Stephen Fox Letter 428 (426) May 13, 1681 f 7v

Epistle CCCCXXVI To Sir Stephen Fox one of the Lords Commissioners of the Tressury

[LM: Proposing to him a Match ’twixt his daughter1 and the young Lord Spencer who afterward proved a very debauch’d youth and died at Paris, so as I think my selfe happy this match succeeded not. This Daughter since married to the Earle of Northampton.]2 Sir, The extreame passion which I have to promote the real Good of those for whom I professe a particular and greate reguard, will not suffer me to let the proposal3 (which I lately made to you) expire in my hands, and which you have begun to give so much life to; And I do wish (with all my heart) that since they have lay’d open their Condition so ingenuously, and with so much good-natur’d reason, you would generously oblige a Family, and a noble Relation, that I am sure will acknowledge it, in resigning themselves up intirely to your disposal, and study all imaginable expressions of it: You will be not onely a Father to the Young Lord, but to the intire family, and I am very Confident, never have cause to repent that you have sav’d, supported, and made it flourish: And that amongst those many other honorable things you have don, This be added to your Elogie, that you were not content to make your-selfe happy, but others also; it being certainely reserved for you as a peculiar blessing and extraordinary (and that is granted to very few) to have both the power, and the heart to oblige; which I have ever esteem’d to be the greatest thing, for which the plenty of this World is desireable, or worthy our solicitude: Sir After I shall have assur’d you that it is no lesse my particular Inclination to so extraordinary and worthy a Person as you and your Lady, than out of my desire to

1 Jane Fox 2 George Compton, 4th earl of Northampton (1664–1727; P) 3 For an account of this “courtship” – a proposal that Jane Fox marry Robert Spencer Jr – which Sir Stephen declined, see Diary IV.245–7. There is a further letter from Fox to Evelyn on 16 June 1681 (Add 15857: f 241 [16.6.1681]) and another undated one of the same year (Add 78318: f 8 [n.d.]). The lengthy account of the negotiations in Evelyn’s diary is probably coloured by Robert Spencer Jr’s subsequent decline. Evelyn states that Anne Spencer had visited him on 16 May “to desire me, that I would propose a Match to Sir Stephen Fox,” but that “I excused it all I was able; for the truth is, I was afraid he would prove an extravagant man; for though a youth of extraordinary parts, & that had all the Education imaginable to render him a worthy man; yet his early inclinations to vice made me apprehensive I should not serve Sir St: Fox in it, like a friend” (245).

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do my Lord Sunderland4 a real and friendly service, without the least selfe Interest, you will easily pardon this Zeale of Sir Your etc. Says-Court. 13 May: 1681

Anne Spencer Letter 429 (427) May 16, 1681 f 7v

Epistle CCCCXXVII To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, I have waited here ever since I receiv’d your Ladyships of the 9th Current,1 for an Opportunity of Communicating your proposal to Sir Stephen Fox, which by reason of his being so oft’ at Windsore, and his owne house (at Chisewick)2 I had not ’til this morning: when finding him at full Leasure, I did in the best forme I was able, enter againe into that discourse, hoping to have found him, improv’d in his inclinations upon my first breaking of it to him, and for which I return’d him a letter of Complement: I say I proceeded as far as I conceiv’d was requisite, before I shew’d him the Particular: He heard me (as at first) without Interruption; but then Reply’d with a kind of new, yet obliging surprize, that my Lord Sunderland should have so greate an esteeme for him, as but to mention an Allyance so important, and honorable, as what my Lord and your Ladyship had ben pleas’d to propose by my Interest with him: Your Ladyship may be sure, that upon this, he say’d all the civil things imaginable to render me sensible how highly he resented the honor you did him (so much above his greatest ambition) and how sorry he was, that an irreversible settlement he had newly made on his sonn (upon occasion of his owne late Indisposition, uncertainty of health, and unsteadinesse of things) had put him out of Capacity to answer such a Portion as my young Lord Spencer deserv’d, and you ought to expect: In summ, he assur’d me, that besides the tender yeares of his little Daughter, which made him not so much as think of any concerne of this nature, as yet (’til she should be of age in some sort, to joyne her owne Inclinations with his paternal Care) he had onely made such provision for her, as might not prejudice the previous settlement; and though that were very

4 Robert Spencer 1 See Add 15889: f 59 (9.5.1681). 2 For an account of Sir Stephen’s house at Chiswick (next to the earl of Burlington), see Diary IV.294, n. 4. He built this house after declining to buy the countess of Bristol’s house in Chelsea.

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competent, yet he feared 8 or 9000 pounds could neither answer those Circumstances necessarie, nor the greate obligations he lay-under for the honor you intended him by this neere relation. Madam, I did not spare to suggest all that with Truth, and Ingenuitie it became me to say of the mutual Advantages in this Allyance to so illustrious a stock, so hopefull and shining a Person; so noble a seate;3 To all which he assented with a floud of due Encomiums and infinite Expressions of Obligation: But finding the Termes not likely to comply (with the Circumstances of your Ladyships Particular) as is realy expedient: I begin to doubt, whither I shall be able or willing, to make any farther overtures therein, which is a Considerable mortification to me: In the meane time Sir Stephen injoynes me to let my Lord know, that though it be not in his power to improve this proposal to his Advantage, as he heartily desires; yet he shall ever preserve the sense of the greate honour you intended him, as a gratefull Seacret, with all due Caution and Accknowledgement; And I am perswaded, there is yet good to be don, with your Ladyships patience, for I have a greate desire to make it a real profe of my being Madame Your etc. White-Hall: 16: May – 1681

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 430 (428) May 21, 1681 f8

Epistle CCCCXXVIII To my Sister Evelyn at Woodcot:

Madame, The uncessant Importunities of a Civile Neighbour (from the benefit some of her Children had receiv’d by the Change of aire) over-rul’d my Wife to send her Daughter Betty1 along with her; who from an evil habite of body (which I have allways thought the effect of eating much fruite onely) is at last fall’n into an Ague; so much the more afflictive to us, as that it has (we heare) ben the occasion, of giving you this greate trouble: My Wife was just now sending to enquire when her day of Intermission was, that the Charriot might bring her home: But your Civilitie has prevented that, for which we both returne you all imaginable thanks, and for the many other kindnesses shew’d your little God-daughter, who is come home full of your extraordinary favour: For my owne part, I wish nothing in my power so much as an opportunity of contributing more to your happinesse, than what 3 Althorp in Northamptonshire 1 Elizabeth Evelyn

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every body assurs me you enjoy; but since you are above that wish, and can onely neede the perpetuity of it, I pray God to grant it you, and whatever else may yet increase it. I am Your etc. and Brother Says-Court 21 May – 1681.

George Morley Letter 431 (429) June 1, 1681 f8

Epistle CCCCXXIX To my Lord Bishop of Winchester

[RM: Dr. Moreley] My Reverend Lord, Permit a stranger (as to this manner of Addresse) though no stranger to your Lordship (but one concerned for the most worthy Prelate of our Church) to Acquaint your Lordship with what Father Maimbourg1 has had the Impudence to publish at the end of his Late Histoire du Calvenisme, in a pretended Letter of the Late Dutchesse of York,2 intimating the Motives of her deserting the Church of England, amongst other things, to proceede from the Indifference (to call it no worse) of those two Bishops,3 upon whose Advice she wholy depended as to the Direction of her Conscience, and points of Controversie, if any should intervene: My Lord, ’Tis the universal Discourse, that your Lordship is one of those Bishops she mentions (if at least the Letter be not suppositious) [RM: This Letter was soone follow’d with the Bishops full Vindication and publish’d in Print:] as well knowing you to have ben the most domestic in the Family, and particularly One whom her Highnesse resorted to in all her Doubts, and Spiritual Concernes, not onely during her former Circumstances, but all the time of her Greatenesse to the very last: And it is therefore humbly, and earnestly desir’d (as well as indeede expected) amongst all that are Concern’d for our Religion, and the greate, and worthy Character which your Lordship beares; That your Lordship would do Right to it, and Publish to all the World, how far you are Concern’d in this pretended charge,4 and to Vindicate your-selfe and our Church from 1 Louis Maimbourg (1610–86) gave the reasons for the duchess of York’s conversion in an appendix to his Histoire du calvinisme ... Seconde édition (Paris, 1682; in the 1687 library catalogue). 2 Anne Hyde 3 One was Morley, the other probably Walter Blandford, bishop of Worcester, who had been her spiritual advisor and had visited her on her deathbed. 4 See George Morley, A letter of the now Lord Bishop of Winchester’s ... of the means to keep out Popery (London, 1682) and A letter to Her Highness the Duchess of York some few months before her death written by the Bishop of Winchester (London, 1683).

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what this bold Man would make the World believe to the prejudice of both: I know your Lordship will be curious to reade the Passage your-selfe, and do what becomes you upon this signal Occasion; God having plac’d you in a station, where you have no Greate-ones frownes to feare, or Flatter, and given you a Zeale for the Truth, and for his Glory, and with this Assurance, I humbly beg your Lordships Blessing, who am My Lord your etc. Says-Court: 1 June: 1681

Samuel Pepys Letter 432 (430) June 5, 1682*1 f8

Epistle CCCCXXX. To Mr. Pepys etc:

[RM: After the shipwrack in which the Duke of Yorke escap’d so narroly returning out of Scotland ] Sir, I have ben both very long, and very much concern’d for you, since your Northern Voyage, as knowing nothing of it ’til you were Embark’d (though I saw you so few daies before) and that the dismal and astonishing Accident was over,2 which gave me apprehensions, and a mixture of passions, not realy to be express’d, ’til I was assur’d of your safty: And I gave God thanks for it, with as much sincerity, as any Friend you have alive: ’Tis sadly true, there were a greate many poore Creatures lost, and some Gallant persons with them; But there are others worth hundreds Saved, and Mr. Pepys was to me the second3 of those some, and if I could Say more to expresse my Joy for it, you should have it under the hand and from the heart of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 5 June: 1681

1 Particular Friends, C13, 131. This letter is misdated by a year. See Particular Friends, 131, n. 2. The original is in the Houghton Library, Harvard (Amy Lowell collection 1925). 2 The accident was the foundering on 6 May 1682 of the ship in which the duke of York was sailing to Scotland to bring the duchess (Mary of Modena) back to England. See Diary IV.281–2 and IV.432, n. 1 3 second to the duke of York

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Robert Spencer Letter 433 (431) June 12, 1681 f 8v

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Epistle CCCCXXXI To my Lord Sunderland:

My Lord, You have now a true account of what has pass’d betweene Sir Stephen Fox and my selfe (in what I here inclose)1 and how far, or rather how little a progresse I have ben able to make; doubtlesse by your Lordships not employing a Person of more Interest and Credit with him; such as your Lordship (I am sure) has many, that would be ambitious to serve you upon this occasion: However seing your Lordship has lay’d your Commands upon one, who shall never dispute the absolute power you have to dispose of me, I confesse I should be extreamely glad the Successe might be answerable to my Endeavours: But I know not whither it may not appeare a presumption in me to offer Advice, in order to a full accomplishment of what you desire in this Matter; at least, if by any meanes your present Circumstances might be brought to comply with (I dare say) no long expectation of what at present, the Portion seemes to fall short of your Proposal: My Lord, You must not think, that I gave over upon my first, or second application to Sir Stephen: I have taken Occasion to waite upon him, and mett him twice since that, without finding him unwilling to discourse of this subject; and if I have any discernement, and can collect, though he persist as to the Summe of Ten-thousand pounds, as a thing fix’t, however God should dispose of him for the present; and which is in good earnest, a greate deale of mony; yet I am so well acquainted with the special good nature, and fondnesse of this Generous and good man, that if you should resolve to accept of this Portion, he would never desist adding to it, ’til he had set all your Lordships Engagements free, and made things easy to you, and that with as good a grace, as if you had what you propose, by Covenant and Stipulation: I have good Argument for what I suggest, and would (if it were my owne concerne) make no Scrupule of it: Your Lordship will say, ’tis a bold Conjecture, and perhaps it may so fall out, and therefore, I do not offer it without submission, and greate deference to your Lordships better Consideration: Onely, I speake what I would my-selfe do upon my owne long observation, and something which I have gathered of him, that fortifies my beliefe and confidence. He has ben so kind as to tell me, that though he has in this Settlement alloted his Daughter but Ten-thousand pounds, if God should call him out of this World; yet he did not confine himselfe to give her no larger Blessing if God should spare him life: Besides he has an infinite fondness to this Daughter Child,2 if so I may call her (as she is his daughter) who is else accomplish’d 1 The enclosure is not with copy letter, but was probably a digest of what transpires in Diary IV.245–7 and in Letter 429. 2 Jane Fox

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with so many hopefull qualities, as I could not have believed, if I had not found them: she both reades and speakes French most naturaly, and above all of her age that ever I heard: Is a wonderfull Accomptant, has a world of wit, and pretty humor, and is already more than a little Woman: Sir Stephen and his Lady3 have ben pleas’d that I should be witnesse of all this, and that there has ben, and still is extraordinary care of breeding her for an happy and greate Person, and I cannot but give this Character of her, which I know my Lady will not be sorry to heare, though perhaps I mention but what she knows already; and if before this I did not make these Remarks, your Lordship will impute it to my not having any prospect, that your Interest might be served in it: But I have don, and beg pardon for this tedious scribble: I shall onely add, that if your Lordship should (upon maturely weighing all Circumstances) think fit to accept of £10,000, and trust the rest to the Effect of the Interest which I am confident your owne and my Ladys Addresse and Prudence will soone gaine upon this generous and well natur’d Person, when once you come to be so neere allied. I would that your Lordship, in Reply to what I have written in the other paper (without taking any notice of what I write in this) after you have a little insisted on the compleate ease which your Lordships proposition would give you, and without which you shall remaine in some difficulties, with what else you conceive may decently introduce it, signifie to me that your Lordship has so greate a value for Sir Stephen Fox, and know so much of his prudence, honorable and obliging Friendship (vertues seldome found amongst the best of men) that you had rather give your Sonn into his Family upon his owne termes, than to another for more worldly advantage, but lesse reall worth: Something of this (but as your Lordship can infinitely better expresse it) would I am perswaded take him by the right handle, and produce its effect, with a little Patience and Faith, and your Lordships dexterity: For I am sure he’l never rest ’til he make a solid fortune to his Sonn in Law, suitable to his quality, and consequently free your Engagements. These my Lord are my Thoughts; nor are you by any Such declaration to me, engag’d to proceede farther, but as it shall appeare Convenient, and Suitable with your circumstances and better Advise, whilst you pardon this of mine, who am My Lord, Your etc. White-Hall 12 June – 1681

3 Elizabeth Fox

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 434 (432) July 20, 1681 f9

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Epistle CCCCXXXII To the Countes of Sunderland:

Madame, Since my Last to my Lord,1 I have againe ben with Sir Stephen Fox and according to your Ladyships Commands, I tooke occasion to tell him, that it was not alltogether the present Circumstances of your Affaires, which so much induc’d you to desire a suddaine and happy Closure of this Treaty, which you see, without vanity be it spoken, I have now brought to some fairer prospect of Successe, but the Tranquilitie and Ease it would give your Spirits, to see my Lord Spencer2 ingag’d in an Alyance, that you were sure to be of such worthy and agreable natures; and that if before my young Lord gos to Travell, the Scrupule insisted on, might be removed, it would be an unexpressible Obligation to you, and Satisfaction beyond all other Considerations whatsoever: Upon this, I had a long and very serious debate, and made use of the properest Arguments I could, to gaine the point, but was not so happy: He told me, that he could by no meanes answere it to his owne former resolutions, nor the future good of his Child, nor indeede to your Ladyships Advantage (whom he found so prudent and excellent a Mother) to ingage the Young Persons in an irreversible state, before they were capable of discovering their Inclynations, farther then by an implicit Assent to their Parents; which would now be the case of his Daughter at least: He againe repeated the possible Casualties that might intervene, before it was fit to consummate the Marriage, which might reasonably interrupt my Young Lords Affections (As the Small Pox or other disagreable Accident etc.) and consequently prove unhappy to them both; and that therefore it was by no meanes to be precipitated: But, if when some few yeares more were gon over, those mutual Inclinations should discover themselves, which might give presage of the happinesse you equaly wisht your Children, there was nothing he should more desire in this world, than the finishing of this

1 Robert Spencer; see Letter 433. This letter alludes to a meeting which Evelyn records in his diary as happening on 2 June: “I tooke likewise another occasion of discoursing with Sir Steph: Fox about his daughter, & to revive that buisinesse, & at last brought it to this, That in the case the young people liked one the other, after 4 yeares, (he first desiring to see a particular of my Lords present estate, if I could transmitt it to him privately, & not ’til then acquaint them with what now past betweene us) he would make her Portion 14000 pounds: though to all appearance, he may likely make it 50000 pounds as easily: his Eldest son, having no child, & growing very fatt: &c” (Diary IV.248). Evelyn’s need to provide Fox with the “a particular of my Lords present estate” may explain the discrepancy in dating between the diary and the letter. 2 Throughout the first part of the year, Anne Spencer had been engaged in the arrangements of this marriage and establishing the estate of Robert Spencer Jr (Add 15889: ff 57–69). This letter responds to Add 15889: f 67 (14.7.1667).

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Treaty: This, though not fully what your Ladyship could wish, is yet what is very reasonable in the nature of the thing, and consider’d like a good and a prudent Father: And what was I to object against it? especialy when he againe, and againe conjur’d me to signifie to your Ladyship that he did by no meanes make use of these Topics for a decent Retreate; but looked upon the honor you had don him, with all manner of respect, and would in order to those hopes, preserve his daughter intirely for my Young Lord, and Embrace your noble Offer, with all the allacrity imaginable: This he spoke so affectionately, that I do not question but it is onely realy his Intention; adding farther, that (to shew he was in Earnest) he would endeavor so to accommodate3 my Lord Sunderland, as might render this Intervall more easy to him in the Circumstances hinted to him by Mr. Godolphin:4 Now Madame what is more to be don, with one who seemes to have fixt his Resolution, and with so much reason, and in so obliging a manner? I could therefore wish my Lord would please to take notice to Sir Stephen of what I have written, so far as he thinks fit, and to cherish this correspondence I am Madame Your Ladyships etc. Says-Court 20: July – 1681

Christopher Wren Letter 435 (433) September 23, 1681 f 9r–v

Epistle CCCCXXXIII To Sir Christopher Wren, President of The Royal Society etc.

Sir, The Inclosed Letter and Papers coming to me from an unknown person,1 and (abating for the Style, and some Compliments to me) seeming by his so exact enumeration of 3 This is a reference to some financial arrangements on behalf of Lord Sunderland, who (as Evelyn says) was “much sunke in his Estate, by Gaming and other prodigalities” and out of favour with the king at this time (Diary IV.245). By 1680 Fox was worth at least £200,000 (see Diary IV.219). 4 probably Charles Godolphin (1651–1720; H). The fifth child of Sir Francis Godolphin, he married his cousin Elizabeth Godolphin in 1687. Charles was MP for Helston and the senior commissioner for customs in London. 1 William London; see Letter 436. Evelyn wrote to Robert Hooke on the same day, informing him of London’s letter (Royal Society EL/E/4; Royal Society, Letter-Book, Supplement III, 132–4). The text of the letter to Hooke is essentially identical to this letter. However, it concludes: “I desire I may receive all these Papers again, when the Society has perused them,” a request which the current location of the document suggests was not met (see Letter 436, note 1).

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particulars, to be the project of a most Industrious Man (in order to a Natural Historie of our American Plantations) I take the boldnes to transmit them to you; that if you think fit, they may be Read and Communicated to the Society, not onely for their Approbation, and to Encourage his Undertaking; but to direct, and assist him, with what he seemes to desire from us; and consider what Rarities and Exotics we should request him to send us for the Repositorie, and to propagate in this Climate. And because the Person who brings me these Papers acquaints me, that he shall write to this Gentleman within eight or ten daies, and offers to convey any-thing we shall send him; I would be glad to receive the Commands of our President and the Society as soone as might be in case I should not be at libertie to waite upon them the next Meeting: As to what he mentions of those East India Spices,2 I feare we shall not be able to Assist him much with Plants: What I am capable of furnishing as to other Seedes, etc. I shall send him very readily; for I think the Correspondence should be cherish’d, and all Encouragements given him to prosecute his Historie, the designe seeming to me much more ample, than any I yet have ever seene; and however by the odd Style of his Letter to me, he dos not appeare to be altogether fitted for the Writing of an Historie of this vast Comprehension; yet mithinks the Method of what he designes is tollerable enough, being full, and as accurate as may be in particulars; and things of Use, as well as Curiositie: I would therefore faine Encourage this ingenious Drudge, and receive your Commands about it to Sir, Your etc. Says-Court: 23: September – 1681.

2 In Wren’s absence, Evelyn presided over the meeting of the Royal Society on 19 October, where the letter was received with interest (Birch, History of the Royal Society IV, 97): Mr. Hooke read a letter to Mr. Evelyn from Mr. William London, dated at Barbadoes 28 Decemb. 1680, wherein he declared his intention of writing a history of Barbadoes, and therein giving a true account of the situation, survey, seasons, natural productions, plantations, people, artificial curiosities, trade, government, governors civil, military and ecclesiastical; of the customs and manners of the people, &c. designing also to do the same thing in the same method for all the other English plantations in America; and adding the heads of his discourse: which being likewise read, were judged very full and exact. But having in his letter desired the advice and the assistance of Mr. Evelyn and of the Royal Society, a committee was appointed to consider farther of his proposals; and to communicate to Mr. Evelyn what they should think proper to be farther done by the said Mr. London. The persons named of this committee were Mr. Hill, Mr. Aston, Dr. Plot, Sir John Hoskyns, if in town, and Mr. Hooke; who were to meet the next day at Gresham-College. See also Hooke’s response on behalf of the Royal Society (Royal Society, Letter-Book, Supplement III, 134).

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William London1 Letter 436 (434) September 27, 1681 ff 9v–10

Epistle CCCCXXXIV To Mr. William London at the Barbados.

Sir, I find my selfe so exceedingly oblig’d, for the greate Civilitie of your Letter2 (abating onely for the Encomiums you are pleas’d to bestow upon me, and which are in no sort my due) that having nothing to Returne you, but my Thankes, and Acknowledgements, I was not to delay that small Retribution, for so many usefull, and excellent Notices, as both your Letter, and the Paper inclos’d have communicated to me: I have indeede ben formerly more curious in the Culture of Trees and Plants, and blotted a greate deale of Paper, with my Crude Observations (and some of them I have had the Vanitie to publish3) but they do in no degree amount to the accuratnesse of your vast designe,4 which I cannot but applaude, and wish you all the Successe, as so excellent an Undertaking deserves: 1 London’s request for spice plants indigenous to Asia was also discussed at the meeting of 19 October (Birch, History of the Royal Society, IV, 97–8): Mr. London having also requested Mr. Evelyn’s assistance in procuring him by some means some of the spice-trees from the West Indies, the same was discoursed of, and the difficulty of such a business mentioned. However, Mr. Evelyn remarked, that Van Munting had produced those trees, and kept them growing in Holland: and Mr. Hooke related, that he had been lately informed by one Mr. Whiston, a broker, that he had procured out of Holland three nutmeg trees growing in pots. It was notwithstanding looked upon as extremely difficult to procure any such for Mr. London. 2 William London had written a lengthy letter to Evelyn (28 December 1680; Royal Society EL/L5/114) from Barbados. After noting that “having brought over all good Authors (especially Moderne) of husbandry, planting, and discriptions of these parts,” he singles out (“sans flattery”) Evelyn’s work. The letter lays out an ambitious program for a comprehensive natural, social, and political history of the islands, and provides an extensive lists of plants and of topics to be addressed in his proposed work. See Letter 435, note 1. London also appears in a petition of Benjamin Middleton to the lords of Trade and Plantations in February 1682, in which the petitioner notes that London, acting on his behalf, has been denied access to Middleton’s Barbados estate (Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 11 (1681–5): 192. There is no further correspondence from London in the Evelyn archive or in the Royal Society papers, but he may be the person referred to by Hans Sloane in a “List of seeds sent mee by Mr. London August 1695 from Barbados” (Sloane 3343: f 49), and elsewhere in his papers. See Stearns, Science in the British Colonies of America, 351. 3 a reference to Sylva (1664) and the unpublished “Elysium Britannicum” 4 There is no evidence of this work ever being published.

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I do not know that ever I saw a more pertinent, and exact Enumerations of Particulars; and if it please God you live to accomplish what you have drawn the Scheme of,5 I shall not doubt to pronounce it the most absolute, and perfect Historie, that we have any-where extant, of either our owne or other Plantations: So that Sir, I cannot but highly encourage, and augure you all the prosperity imaginable; and I shall not faile in order to it, to impart your Papers to the Royall Society, who, I am very Confident, will be ready to do you any service; although I do not see, that your designe is any-where defective. And I perswade myselfe, that you will be curious to adorne your Worke, with true and handsome draughts, of the Animals, Plants, and other things that you describe in the natural Part: This, I am bold to Mention, because most of those Authors (especialy English) who have given us their Relations, fill them with such lame, and imperfect Draughts, and Pictures, as are rather a disgrace, than Ornament to their Books; they having no talent that way themselves, take no course to procure such as can designe; and if now and then, you sprinkle here and there a Prospect of the Countries, by the true and naturall Landskipe, it would be of infinite Satisfaction, and imprint an Idëa of those Places you passe-through, which are so strange to us, and so desirable: Gaspar Barlæus6 (in his elegant Historie of Brasile) has given an incomperable Instance of this; in which work the Lanskips of divers parts of that Country are accurately exhibited, and graven in Coper, besides the Chorographicall7 Mapps, and other Illustrations: But Sir, I beg your Pardon for mentioning a thing, which I am sure you have well thôught of, and will provide for. In your account of Plants, Trees, Fruits etc. there are aboundance to which we are here utter strangers, and therefore cannot but be desirable of the Curious: I am told there is newly planted in Barbados an Orange of a most prodigious size, and such an Improvement of the China, as by far exceedes those we have from Portugal, which are of late yeares much degenerated: As for Flowers, I think I have heard, that the Narcissus Tuberoso’s8 grow wild, and in plenty with you: I have not the Impudence to beg for my selfe, any of those Rarities you mention; but wish with all my heart, I had any thing of my owne, worthy your acceptance: I had (at the beginning of last Spring) some forraine and Exotic Seedes, which I imparted to my Friends, and some I sow’d and set; but with very little Successe, and, as rightly you complaine, there is no trust in our mercenaries Seedes-men of London, for any thing: In the meane time, Concerning Nutmegs, Cinamon, Clothes, Cloves, and those other Aromatics, you so reasonably covet; I feare it will be a very difficult province to obtaine such of them from the East Indies, they being mostly in possession of the Hollanders, who are (you know) a jealous people, and (as I have bin inform’d) make it Capital to Transport so much as a single Nutmeg (I meane such a one, as being set, would preserve produce a tree) out of their Countrie: The late Sir John Cox,9 who had often ben at Nova 5 See Letter 435 for an account of London’s proposals. 6 Caspar Barlaeus (Kasper van Baerle). Probably this is his Rerum per octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum sub præfectura (Amsterdam, 1647; in the 1687 library catalogue). 7 the art of describing particular regions, entailing consideration of both geography and history 8 i.e., Polyanthus tuberosus 9 Sir John Cox (d. 1672; ODNB). He was master of the duke of York’s flagship at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665, and followed Peter Pett as one of the commissioners of the navy at Chatham in 1669. He was killed at the Battle of Solebay.

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Batavia told me he could not procure one handfull, but such as were Effoete and depriv’d of their sprouting principle, upon any tearmes; much lesse could he obtain’d a Plant: and yet I have ben told by a confident Broaker about the Custome house (whose name occurrs not) and who has himselfe ben in the Indies more than once (pretending to Curiosities) that he brought away 2 or 3 Plants of the true Nutmeg-Tree, belonging to a certaine Dutch Merchant;10 I suppose for the Learned Dr. Munting of that Countrie, who has brought up both Nutmeg and Cinnamon Plants in his Garden in Holland;11 but to what improvement I cannot tell: It were not to be despair’d, but that some subtil and industrious Person (who made it his buisinesse) might over-come this difficultie, among some of their Plantations; and why not? as well as that a Countrie man of ours, who some yeares since, brought home the best first head of Saffron, out of Greece (whence it was death to transport it) in the holow head or top of his Pilgrims Estaff; if what our Hollingshed 12 writes be true: Some such Contrivance of or accident will doubtlesse at large last inrich your Western, and propitious Climates, with those precious Deficients; as it has don Suggar, Ginger, Indico and other beneficial Spices and Drougs: and, I know not whither the Jamäica Peper, be not already comparable to many of those we have enumerated. I am sure it gratifies the Tast, and Smell with most agreable qualities, and little Inferior to the Oriental Cinnamon. There is a Wallnut in Virginia13 whose Nuts prosper very-well with us, but we want store of them: It is in the meane time deplorable that the Bermuda’s Cedar14 (of all others the most excellent and odoriferous) is (as I am told) almost worne-out for want of propagation: If it will thrive in other Countries, ’tis pity but it should be universaly Cultivated: But Sir I tire you, The Hortus Malabaricus15 presents us with the most stupendious, and unheard of plants, in that elaborate Work; the Cutts being in Copper, are certainely (of any publish’d) the most accurately don; nor are their shape and descriptions lesse Surprizing. Sir, The Royal Society have lately put their Repositorie into an excellent Method, and it every-day increases, through the favour and benevolence of sundry Benefactors (whose Names are gratefully recorded)[.] If any thing incurr to you of Curious (as certainely there daily do innumerable) You will greately oblige that Assembly of Virtuosi in Communicating any Productions of the places you travell through; upon the occasion of the returne of Vessels from those parts: The Particulars they Collect are Animals, and Insects of all sorts, their Skinns, Sceletons; Fruits, Piety Stones, Shells, Woods, Gumms, Minerals and whatever Nature produces in her Vast, and Comprehensive boosome. Sir, Your Letter 10 Evelyn gives an account of discussion of this problem at the Council for Foreign Plantations in 1672 in which he mentions Benjamin Worsley of the Council of Trade as an informant (Diary III.602–3). See also Letter 435, note 2. 11 Abraham van Munting (1626–83). Evelyn’s notes on Munting are in Add 78344. His Waare oeffening der planten (Amsterdam, 1672) is in the 1687 library catalogue. 12 See Birch, History of the Royal Society IV, 98; Evelyn is mistaken. The story is about a pilgrim coming from north Africa and it is from Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, V, 241. 13 Juglans nigra: Black Walnut. John Banister (1650–92; ODNB) wrote about it before 1692 as being in the bishop of London’s (Henry Compton) garden at Fulham (Sloane MS 3321: f 23). 14 Juniperus Bermudiana 15 Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakestein, Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, 12 parts (Amsterdam, 16781703).

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came to me from Mr. Harrwell,16 the 23d of September and by the same hand and favour, I returne you the hearty Thanks, and Accknowledgements of Sir, Your etc.

Says-Court 27 September 1681

Stephen Fox Letter 437 (435) December 3, 1681 f 10v

Epistle CCCCXXXV To Sir Stephen Fox:

[LM: Upon occasion of building the Royal Hospital1 at Chelsey to which he was so greate a Contributor, and indeede sole promoter of that foundation.] Sir, I am now at full leasure to receive your Commands, when you shall think me farther servicable to that truely greate, and pious Designe, which you have entertain’d with so becoming a Zeale, and to so worthy a purpose:2 There being no foundation or Establishment of that nature, that I can reade or heare of, amongst all the charitable Benefices in this Kingdome: This as oft as I consider, brings to my thoughts a new accumulation of Blessings, which God has heap’d on you: And that God has put it in the heart of his Majestie to Meditate such a Work, and made choice of one to promote it, who is of a large and generous heart, and of so vigorous and Comprehensive a spirit, to carry-on an undertaking which will embalme his Name to posterity, and be a glorious Instance of your Piety: Without flattery Sir, I pronounce it; I know of no man living in this degenerate age, that so neerely approches the Character describ’d by the Apostle, and enjoyn’d the two Bishops:3 Charge the Wealthy, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in Uncertaine Riches: That

16 Probably Henry Hartwell (d. 1699), who was at this point the secretary for the Council of State of ­Virginia (see Calendar of State Papers Colonial, Americas and West Indies, Vol 10: 1677–80: 563). 1 Fox was inspired by Charles II to provide the money to purchase Chelsey Hospital “for Emerited Souldiers.” See Diary IV.257, 269–70. 2 Evelyn dined with Fox on 14 September, “Who proposed to me the purchasing of Chelsey Coll; which his Majestie had some time since given to our Society, & would now purchase it of us againe, to build a Hospital [Infirmary] for Souldiers there; in which he desired my assistance as one of the Council of the R: Society” (Diary IV.257). 3 As this text occurs both in Romans and Timothy 1, the apostle is Paul and the two bishops are Peter and Timothy.

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they do Good; be ready to Distribute, Willing to Communicate, and maintaine good-works for necessary uses; because this you allways do, and will do it, and it is your Trophy, and a Christian Emulation; because the End is charity; and he who Seekes by Publique Benefits, such works as these to give Instances of his Munificence, fullfills a Divine Precept; since we are commanded to do good Works, that Men seeing them, may Glorifie God the more: This I add, to remove the Scruples of Ostentation;4 and avowe, that such Royal Structures ought to be adorn’d with some Magnificence above other Erections; as being design’d for Men of honour, and real Merite: Such a Retreate, and Provision, has certainely ben long wanting amongst us; and the honor of doing it reserv’d for you: Nor is it I think, without Providence, that an House, and Place, so capacious, a situation so pleasant, an Aire so wholesome, and so many Accommodations, has hitherto ben undispos’d of,5 seeming to have ben reserv’d for this glorious Designe. In a word, though when I reflect seriously on the benefit, as well as decency of the thing, how it has hitherto ben neglected, and who it is concernes him so to promote it, ’tis hard not to say a greate deale that may offend your Modestie, and enter into the Panegyric: This whilst you forbid, is yet much lesse than is due to you from Sir Your etc. Says-Court 3 December 1681

Samuel Pepys Letter 438 (436) December 5, 1681 ff 10v–11

Epistle CCCCXXXVI To Samuel Pepys Esquire Secretary to the Admiralty:1

Sir, In compliance with your Commands etc., I have already transmitted to you, the two large Sea-Charts; and now I send you the Sheetes2 I have long blotted with the Dutch Warr, for

4 Evelyn had first attacked luxury in his Tyrannus Or the Mode (1661), and he continued to argue that sumptuary laws should be put in place for the restraint of luxury and ostentation. 5 Founded in 1610 as a college to deal with theological controversies, Chelsea College was to have consisted of a provost and nineteen fellows. It was never properly funded and only partly built, and had long been derelict. 1 Particular Friends, C10, 123–7. The original letter is dated 6 December 1681. 2 These are Evelyn’s notes for the history of the wars with the Dutch over sovereignty of the seas, the first part of which was published as Navigation and Commerce in 1674. Although written at Charles II’s request, Dutch objection to its publication caused the suppression of the rest (Diary IV.41, and n. 1). For

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which I should now make another Apologie (besids its Præface) were it not that you well understand the prejudices I lay under at that time, by the Inspection of my Lord Treasurer Clifford, who would not indure, I should lenifie3 my Style, when a War with Holland was the Subject; nor with much Patience suffer, that France should be suspected; though in Justice to Truth as evident as the day, I neither would, nor honestly could, conceale (what all the world might see) how subdolously they dealt, and made us their propertie all along: The interception of De Lyonnes4 Letters to his Master: p. 266, is sufficient to make this good, and I am plainely astonish’d it should not long-since have opned our states-mens eyes, unlesse it be, that we designe to truckle under France, and seeke industriously the Ruine of our Country: You will Sir pardon this severe Reflexion; since I cannot think of it, without perfect Indignation. As to the Compilers part ’tis not easy to imagine the infinite fardles of Papers, Treaties, Declarations, Relations, Journals, Original letters, and other Volumes of Prints and Writings etc., which I was oblig’d to reade and peruse (furnish’d and indeede impos’d on me from the Secretaries of State, and others) for this small Attempt; and that which was to follow: I am onely sorry, that I was so hasty to returne some pieces to my Lord Tressurer which I might honestly have kept, and with better conscience, than his carying them away into Devon-shire5 unde nulli retrorsum.6 I had drawn a Scheme of





this work Evelyn drew on notes that he took on his continental tours (Diary II.48, n. 1; 50, n. 3; 166, n. 4; 222, n. 6). See also Keynes, Bibliography, 202–4, and the notes to Particular Friends, 123–7. Evelyn also wrote a letter to Pepys on 1 December (not included in Particular Friends) that is relevant to Pepys’s inquiries (Add 78314: f 61 [1.12.1681]): From your Lodging Moneday 9 a clock Sir, Having occasion to speake with Mr. Ewers,* I thought this morning to make you a short Visite, in excuse of my unprepar’dnesse to satisfie your Quæries ’til I return home among my papers, which I feare will hardly be before the next Weeke: Neverthelesse you will discount for one of your inquiries (and perhaps the most material) by casting your eye upon Sir Walter Raleighs Hisory of the World 5 Book: 1 Cap. IX Section, where he speakes of the Carthaginian War; where you will meete an ample passage upon the difficulty of the defense of England, in case of Invasion: nor will the following xth Section be unworthy your notice concerning the like difficulty of stopping a good ship and resolute Commander from passing (with a faire gale) by the artillerie of any Land-fort suppose it the Dardanelli, our Tilbury, Sheere-ness etc: I am Sir Your most obedient servant JEvelyn [dated on reverse] Dec r 1st 1681 * William Hewer (1642–1715) was Pepys’s clerk and friend who became deputy judge advocate of the fleet (1677), treasurer for Tangier (1680–4), and a commissioner of the navy (1685–8). 3 to soften (OED) 4 Hugues de Lionne (1611–71) was Louis XIV’s secretary of state and responsible for the appointment of Godefroi d’Estrades first as governor of Dunkirk and then as ambassador to London. This is probably a reference to Mémoires de Monsr de Lyonne au Roy, interceptez par ceux de la Garnison de Lille, la campagne passée. (Traité de Ligue offensive et defensive, entre ... Louys XIV ... et Alfonse VI. Roy de Portugal ... contre le Roy de Castille ([Amsterdam?], 1668). 5 Clifford retired to Ugbrooke near Exeter in Devon in 1673. 6 from which nothing returned

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the intire Work down to the Treaty at Breda,7 and provided the Materials; but the late Lord Tressurer Danby8 cutting me short, as to some just pretensions of another nature,9 I had to his more particular kindnesse; I car’d not to oblige an Ungratefull age; and perhaps the World is deliver’d by it from a fardle of Impertinences: Clifford (his prædecessor) was, with all his other Imperfections, a generous man, and I verily believe of cleane hands: I am sure I was oblig’d to him; The other had ben sometimes so to me and mine, but that’s all past – : Clifford had greate failings, but was gratefull, and firme to his friend: – As to your other Quæries, I have not anything relating to the Prize-Office;10 and for that Discourse11 wherein I did attempt to shew how far a Gentleman might become learned by the onely assistance of the Modern Languages (written at the Request of Sir Samuel Tuke for the Duke of Norfolck)12 to my griefe, I feare I shall never recover it; for sending it to the Person13 I nam’d sometime since, he tells me he cannot find it; and so, for ought I see ’tis lost: There is a Resention in it of Authors, and a Method of Reading them to advantage, besides, something in the discourse which would not have displeas’d you; nor was it without some purpose of one-day publishing it; because ’twas written with a Virtuous designe of provoking our Court Fopps, and for encouragement of Illustrious Persons, who have leasure, and inclinations to cultivate their Minds beyond a farce, a horse, a Whore, and a Dog, which, with very little more, are the Confines of the knowledge and discourse of most of our fine Gentlemen and Beaus: I will desire Sir James to make another search for it, if it be possible to find where he has mislayd it when next I see him. In the meane time the particulars which here I send you are[:] The Battell of Lepanto14 A Description of the Armada15 in 88, I suppose Authentique: A paper written in French touching the severitie of their Marine Laws: Trajans Column,16 with Alphonso Ciaconius’s notes, referring to the Bass’ relievi by the Figures; such as Concerne Ships and Gallies etc. you will find by the figures 57. 243. 260. 153. 24. 236. 239. 152. 155. and especialy 303. 235 where he speakes of Copper or Bras instead of 7 The Treaty of Breda (21/31 July, 1667) established peace between England, Holland, France and Denmark (Diary III.491, n. 1). 8 Thomas Osborne 9 Evelyn’s desire for Danby’s assistance in the ongoing suit about Sir Richard Browne’s settlement with the Crown 10 Edward Phillips defines a Prize Office as “an Office appointed for the Sale of Ships taken from Enemy as lawful Prize” (The New World of English Words, 6th ed., 1706). There were commissioners for prizes in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars. 11 Although this discourse is not among Evelyn’s papers, there are some commonplace notes endorsed “Education” in Add 78351: f 109–14. 12 Henry Howard, 6th duke 13 James Shaen, 1st baronet (d. 1695; ODNB) 14 Although there are four Italian poetic accounts of this battle in 1572, the original of this letter refers to “the print of the battail.” This and the following works are part of a catalogue of books and manuscripts lent to Pepys in 1681 (Add 15948: f 156 [5.12.1681]). 15 the battle of the Armada, 1588 16 Alfonso Chacón (Ciaccone), Historia utriusque belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti, ex simulachris quæ in columna eiusdem Romae visuntur collecta (Rome, 1616; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 363, inscribed “Catalogo Evelyni Inscriptus. Meliora Retinete. Rome 1645”). Pepys refers to returning this in a letter of 20 March 1692. See Particular Friends, 230.

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Iron-work; and the best season for the felling of Timber; and there is, as to other notices, subject of a world of Erudition, beyond what Ciaconius has touch’d, which would deserve an ampler Volume: A Discourse concerning the Fishery, and Duty of the Flag: A large Volume of Sir Richard Brownes Dispatches17 from 1641 ad–44 etc. during his publique Ministrie, and Character in the French Court, besides which I have two folios more that continue it longer: I also send you the Journal of Martin Frobisher18 and Captain Fenton,19 that of Drake I cannot find as yet, so many papers and things there are to be removed and turn’d over in my confused study: Item, a Map of an Harbour, whose name I find not to it. Also an old Map of a sea fight: Also a Packet of original letters, belonging to the former of my Lord of Lycesters20 in number 14, which are all I have remaining; with a Declaration of the Old Prince of Oranges William of Nasaw, who was Assasinated at Delpht: The Earle of Lycesters Will: Another packet of Letters and other Matters and transactions of State, relating to the late times, in number 88: And of which I have Thousands more that you may command sight of; but these I think are most material. A particular of Wages due to the Deputy, Army, and other state Officers and Affaires relating to Ireland Anno 1587 ad –88. Item, another Packet of 33 original Letters to and from greate persons during the Late Rebellion here: A Packet of 38 Papers, containing Instructions and matters of state to severall publique Ministers abroad etc.21 A Scheme of the Action of the Hollander at Chatham 1667,22 when they burnt our ships and bloq’d up the Thames: Order of the Council of State (then so call’d) for the apprehension etc. of Charles Stewart (his present Majestie so nam’d by the Regicids) etc.: Lastly, a Relation of his Majesties Action and Escape at Worcester; when he came out of Scotland with his Army etc. being as far as Sir Richard Browne writ out of the then Queene-Mothers letters at Paris; 17 Pepys refers to these when returning them to Evelyn on 28 March 1692 with the wish that Evelyn would put them together into a history. See Particular Friends, 230. 18 Accounts of Frobisher’s journeys circulated widely throughout Europe. Three English versions, Dionyse Settle, A true reporte of the laste voyage into the west and northwest regions, &c (London, 1577), Thomas Ellis, A true report of the third and last voyage into Meta incognita (London, 1578), and George Best, A true discourse of the late voyages of discouerie, for the finding of a passage to Cathaya, by the Northvveast, vnder the conduct of Martin Frobisher Generall (London, 1578) appeared immediately. These accounts are reprinted in Richard Hakluyt, The principal navigations, vol. 3 (London, 1600; in the 1687 library catalogue). Accounts also appeared immediately in French, La Navigation du capitaine Martin Forbisher Anglois (Geneva, 1578), and Latin De Martini Forbisseri Angli navigatione in regiones occidentis et septentrionis narratio historica (Nürnberg, 1580; rpt. Hamburg, 1675). 19 Edward Fenton, Voyage intended towards China. Pepys Library ms 2133; also printed in Hakluyt, The principal navigations, vol. 1 (London, 1599). Fenton (d. 1603) was the first husband of Sir Richard Browne’s mother, Thomasine Gonson. He was also a great-uncle of Robert Boyle (Diary III.169, n. 7). 20 printed in Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley 21 "Lycesters ... to Rebellion": These included papers of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, whose protégé was Sir Richard Browne’s grandfather, also Sir Richard Browne (c.1538–1604). The earlier Sir Richard Browne’s papers are now catalogued as Add 78172–85. The Leicester papers are Add 78172–8. These entered the Evelyn archive through his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne. See the BL catalogue descriptions and Hofmann et al., “John Evelyn’s Archive at the British Library,” in John Evelyn in the British Library, 54–64. 22 This is now in the Pforzheimer Collection (Ms 35b). For an account of this manuscript see Particular Friends, 335 n. 4.

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that which he tooke from his Majesties owne dictating (when he after that escape came into France at Paris) was sent to Monsieur Renodaut,23 and was publish’d by him in the Weekly Extraordinarie Anno 1651, where you’l find it in French among the Volumes of his Gazetts: I am sorry the original was not retriv’d from him. Thus Sir, you see how diligent I have ben since I came home, to answer your Queries, as I shall in all other your Commands, as far as is in the power of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 5 December 1681

These *Papers, Mapps, Letters, Books and particulars, when you have don with, be pleas’d to take your owne time in returning. [LM: *Which I afterward never asked of him.]

Henry Howard, 6th duke Letter 439 (437) December 10, 1681#1 f 11v

Epistle CCCCXXXVII To the Duke of Norfolck etc. At Bruxelles

My Lord, I have not ben unmindfull of the Commands your Grace layd upon me, when you were lately pleas’d to take an hard bed at my poore Cottage, in your way to Bruxelles, and accept of the meane accommodation which you found at Says-Court; and which I hope your Grace will excuse in reguard of the Circumstanc we then were in, upon my Daughter in Laws Crying out:2 In returne of your Desires, communicated to Mr. Flamsted,3 I send you 23 probably Eusèbe Renaudot (1646–1720), whose account of papers given in the Assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris was first published in English as A general collection of discourses of the virtuosi of France, upon questions of all sorts of philosophy, and other natural knowledg. Made in the assembly of the Beaux Esprits at Paris, by the most ingenious persons of that nation (London, 1664). 1 This letter is probably misdated by several weeks. See notes 2 and 4. 2 The duke of Norfolk came to visit and stay with Evelyn on the night of 18 December 1680 when Evelyn’s daughter-in-law, Martha, gave birth to her son, Richard, who died 6 September 1681. See Diary IV.235–6. Evelyn notes that they “discoursing & talking of other matters ’til it were neere one a Clock at night” (236). 3 Sir John Flamsteed (1646–1719; ODNB). The first astronomer royal (1675–1719), Flamsteed became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1677. Evelyn describes him as “an honest, sincere man” (Diary IV.98).

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the Inclos’d account of the late Comete:4 He pretends not to give any Judgment by way of Prognostication, onely is curious (as your Grace knows) to in making his Observations of its Progresse, according to his Art; and tells me, that it will be spent, or disappeare within twenty daies to come: Having obey’d this Command of your Graces, with the most humble services of my Wifes, and accknowledgements of all your greate favours, I cease farther to importune your Grace, who am, My Lord, Your Graces etc. Says-Court 10: December – 1681

Sidney Godolphin Letter 440 (438) December 19, 1681 ff 11v–12v

Epistle CCCCXXXVIII To Sidny Godolphin Esquire One of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, and of the Privy Council:

My deare Friend, The rumor1 here (though perhaps, but rumor) of an intention to displace some that are in Office, for not conforming to the Church, that is (I think) not approving of its Discipline and Liturgie, the many kind Invitations you have given me, to put you in mind, if any thing did occurr, and more than this, the Will and the Power you have to Oblige your Friends (plac’d as you are among a number of Benefits, absolutely in your disposal) induces me at this Conjuncture, to put in my Continual Claime, of being one in your thoughts, whilst you are in Capacity of doing good Offices, without Prejudice or reproch: Nor will you condemn this boldnes of mine; but looke on it as Duty in me: Calling often to mind the Inviolable Termes of Friendship, which intitle me to more than ever I will aske of you. I never doubted your kind Intentions towards me, your Remembrance of me, the sincerity of your heart; I feede, and live upon them with as greate pleasure and satisfaction, as I am capable 4 This is presumably the one that Evelyn records seeing on 12 December 1680 (Diary IV.235) and again on 9 January 1681 (Diary IV.237). Flamsteed records its appearance in his Historia cœlestis Britannica (London, 1725), I, 104 (Diary IV.235, n. 1). Evelyn was interested in prognostication and cites the brighter comet of 1640 that, he says, portended Strafford’s execution and the Great Rebellion. Halley’s Comet did not appear until 1682 (Diary IV.291). 1 This rumour suggested that certain public offices might become available and hence could be bestowed either on Evelyn or his son in compensation or payment for the long-standing appeal that Evelyn had been conducting on Sir Richard Browne’s behalf for the nearly £12,000 that Browne had spent maintaining his embassy in France during the Interregnum. Godolphin’s reply of 24 December points out that few of these offices are worth offering (Add 78307: f 128 [24.12.1681]).

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of Enjoying any thing whatsoever of secular in this World: For who can meditate on these Tendernesses of yours to me, and call in question your being as intirely mine, as the most sacred Friendship can make you? For what can you devise to say, or would I have you say, after this Obliging Period? – “I have pleas’d my-selfe with nothing so much, since this Employment has ben given me, as the thoughts that it might one time or other, furnish me with the meanes of doing you some little Service – For the thing, and the time of doing it, that must be left to me, though I still desire you would put me in mind of it; since nothing now in the World, would please me more, then that I might be able to do all that she desired to be don for you”2 – I dare not repeate the rest, because it calls up passions, which I cannot yet struggle against: It astonishes me to Consider that blessed Soule should think she had not sufficiently Obliged me, because she had not procured me some Secular Conveniences, which I never desired or dreamt of: But ’tis you that tell it me. And now do not looke on me as a Mercenary Friend, that I recollect that I recollect these Passages, or call for any thing for my selfe upon any Score; that whilst with such cleane hands you are frequently distributing Largesses, I put my-selfe into the Crowd of Beneficiaries, upon your owne Encouragement and Invitation – “Tis you who tell me she often recommended to you the supplying what she desir’d to do; nor ever shew’d any Inclination that you more approv’d etc.”3 Dos not this appeare as if I had ben the most impudent beggar living? When God Almighty knows, it never once (that I can call to mind) entr’d into my thoughts, to sell my Friendship and Service to her, for any Consideration what soever, but her goodnesse, and kind acceptance of the infinite value I had for her extraordinary Virtues: So that, ’tis you, yourselfe, have drawn upon you these Recognitions of mine for your generous Intentions, though they never should advance farther, whilst you have the power: I will in the meane time yet Confesse to you (for to whom should I open my breast if not to you?) that having Daughters to dispose of, I would not decline a decent Occasion of making them more comfortable Provisions, being very good Children: You will Aske what became of my Daughter in Laws Portion? Ile tell you. Three thousand of it went immediately to the discharge of Debts long-since contracted in his Majesties and Fathers Service, and a Chancery Suite of neere Eleaven-yeares date (not yet determin’d) which may, unlesse his Majestie interpose, and inable Sir Richard to Support the Charge; cut me short of Considerable ayds and advantages for my Children, whereof one4 is grown a Woman, and worthy for many vertues of an excellent Husband. – You see to whom (and to whom alone) I display my Infirmities freely, and without reserve: Do you believe yet, I could suffer the thoughts of parting with one moment of my small remainder of time, for any Earthly Treasure, were it not in Consideration of some that think me slack in promoting them? Whilst seeing me have so many greate and Illustrious Friends, and so much health, I make so little progresse in the World? God he knows, how little my ambition lies that way: It had not else perhaps ben impossible for me in all this time, to have made some figure in it: And now I declare to you, that as I should not care to be oblig’d by Every-body; so from you, I should receive that as a greate blessing, which from few others, I should esteeme a Courtesie. They tell 2 Evelyn quotes from a letter of Godolphin’s of 27 March 1679 (Add 78307: f 115 [27.3.1679]). 3 Evelyn paraphrases Godolphin’s language in letters of 21 November and 6 December 1678 (Add 78307: f 102 & 104 [21.11.1678 & 6.12.1678]). 4 Mary Evelyn Jr was now 16.

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me of the Faculties you have to Oblige in the Chequer, the Customes, the Farmes,5 the Navy, the Wardrobe and a thousand more that Streame from the Ocean of the Lord Tressurers of most of which they wholy dispose; nor can I contradict them: This onely I have to complaine of, That having but a Small Request, grounded upon a Solemn Obligation under his Majesties own hand and seales, to passe a Long Lease (of no Crowne demesnes) into Inheritance (upon a faire discount of a stated, and accknowledg’d Debt) I could not obtain that little Justice: ’Tis hard measure, I impute to my Lord Hides6 severity; though he might have consider’d, that it was his owne Father who (to engage Sir Richard Brownes Continuance in his chargeable station about the French Court, at the expense of his Patrimonie, when every-body deserted his Majestie and his Cause) drew up this solemn Promise of his Majesties, upon a most deliberate Consult for his Encouragement to maintaine the Dignitie of his Character, and keepe up the Service of the Church of England (no where else almost Conspicuous in all his wide dominions) which he continu’d to do ’til the very last, at his owne charges; but without this, or any other recompense hitherto whatsoever. The style of this Promise so expresse, as doubtless beares a sacred Engagement, namely, “that it should be perform’d within one yeare, if ever it should please God to restore him to his Crown:” Now that so just, so Considerable a Debt as Twelve Thousand Pounds, should neither have a Place in the Scedule, and so put into a Capacity of being pay’d in Course; nor this small Trifle granted and made valid, after it had pass’d all the formes (as you know it has) dos, I confesse sufficiently discourage me from greater Expectations: Had my Father in Law ben but as Industrious to preserve what he had, before he entred into his Majesties Service abroad, as others have ben to accumulate since his coming home, without Merite or hazard; he had ben Wise, and thought never the lesse Loyal: But this is the Reward of a thirtyyeares service, and growing old in sorrows! I have no more to say on this Chapter; but what I remember to have sometimes hinted to you, and still persist in: When the lownesse of the Publique Fisque7 has ben the Objection to those who sue for clamerous Debts, not Donations: That his Majestie by Placing some Conspicuous Sufferers, in such Offices, as are in your Disposals not unfrequently, upon just discount of their moderate Value, might (at once) both discharge a Considerable Debt, and gratifie a Loyal Creditor that has deserv’d it of him. But, I suppose this has never ben heartily suggested; for else, how were it possible he should thus heape up favours upon some, that have neither pretence of Want, or Merite; There being one [RM: Sir George Downham]8 (amongst others, that I could name) who has gotten in Places and Revenue, Ten-Thousand pounds a Yeare, who had nothing to recommend him but a constant disloyaltie of the deepest graine. This is

5 a fixed yearly amount due from a person who collects taxes or other monies for the state 6 Laurence Hyde is obviously the “One” referred to as objecting to Evelyn’s settlement in Letter 421 to Godolphin (13 August, 1680). 7 public purse 8 Sir George Downing was a member of Commission for the Sick and Wounded whom Evelyn refers to on 4 July 1666 as “from ... not worth a groate, becoming exessive rich” (Diary III.445, n. 1). By 1681 he had been a member of the Board of Customs for ten years at a salary of £1200 p.a. and was to hold the post until 1684. Marvell claimed that Downing received at least £80,000 from Charles II (A seasonable argument to perswade all the grand juries in England to petition for a new Parliament [Amsterdam, 1677], 14).

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wounding – nor meane I it to the Person (nor do I envy his fortune) who is steel’d9 and warme; but to those that see it, and are languishing; and to demonstrate with how greate Ease and Justice, his Majestie might, by your Lordships of the Tressurys perswasion, oblige some that have merited his favours. But in earnest, I have now don, and I feare, you’l think too-much. Remember that I do not so often trouble you with my Letters, as you have promis’d to suffer me, nay ben impatient, that I writ not oftner to you: I have your Text to prove it: Indulge me then for once, this tedious Paper; I think it shall be the very last, I will ever entertain my Friend so long, upon an account which lookes so like selfeInterest: I dare say, ’tis uneasy to you, and what you did not expect: I know you would infinitely rejoice to do me any kindnes, and ’twas well you said, I should leave the Thing, and time of doing it to you; for if you expect that I should find it out, I find already ’twill ne’re be found; and if it ever be, unlesse by you alone, as I shall not much care for it; so, though it should not be, I shall never looke on you as lesse my deare Friend: For perhaps, you may not think me Capable, and then you are kind in preventing my dishonor, or haply you cannot compasse what you esteeme worth my Employment, and then you set a greater value on me than you ought: But as I have formerly said, That which may not be so convenient for the Father, may fit the Sonn,10 who is now no Child a Man, and (though I say it) of extraordinarie Talents, and very capable of Buisines: Thus you see, how I would prevent all Escapes; and yet I would not for the best Office in England, breake your repose a single moment. All I can ever repay, is not worth it: Think then no more of this Letter or of me, than as becomes you when you would think the best of the most sincere, and disinterested Friend you ever had, or ever shall have whilst you live. P.S. Were it not to discompose you, I would visite you oftner: But I would be easy to you: That deare Lady, was wont to tell me, she came not to know you of a long time, after you were intirely hers; because she daily discover’d new excellencies in you: How should I then not desire to partake some what of them, and after what you have declar’d to me, how can you refuse me? But you are perpetualy in publique buisinesse, and I am glad you are so; because you are else too much Soule, that is (according to De Cartes) in continual Thought, which is prejudicial to you; and this would I have by any meanes diverted, though at the price of Suffering my Impertinencies: ’Tis I assure you on this account, that I often Justifie all your other Recreations (which some are pleas’d to judge lesse favourably of ) because I am assur’d you preserve your heart, intirely to God:11 Give him as much of your time as you can, and often think of that blessed Saint, who allways pray’d you might do so; and though I know you do it; yet will I mind you of it, and that this World is passing away, whilst we are passing our time. Verbum sat12 From the most unfaind of your Friends, etc. Says-Court 19: December – 1681

9 10 11 12

protected, or perhaps insensible John Evelyn Jr whose prospects were of great concern to his father probably an allusion to Godolphin’s gambling enough said

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Daniel Colwall Letter 441 (439) February 11, 1682 ff 12v–13

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Epistle CCCCXXXIX To Daniel Collwall Esquire

Worthy Sir, Amongst other Discouragements which I have layn under during some fitts of a Tertian, which has of late detain’d me in the Country;1 it has ben none of the least, that I have not ben able to waite upon the Society, and do my Duty to it as I ought:2 But though through this Impediment, and the distance of my rural Dwelling, I am not so happy as to serve it with my presence as oft’ as I desire; my good-wishes, and Inclinations to it are so sincerely devoted, that I cannot but pronounce them singularly happy, who are so neere it, and (as you do) not onely Enjoy the Conversation, and Entertainements of that excellent Assembly, but Contribute to its stability: Nor do I flatter; This Acknowledgement is eminently due to you; and as a Member of it, I esteeme my-selfe oblig’d in particular to Celebrate your bounty, for the Ornaments you have already given it of a Repository inferior to none in Europe, and still augmenting; and for the Blessing you yet reserve for the whole Society: And a Blessing indeede I call it; because I heare you have namn’d it one of your Children: ô happy Person, who having given no hostages to fortune (for who knows wherether he shall be a Wise-man, or a foole that shall rule over all our Substance) like another Cæsar, have it in your Choyce, to adopt a Successor; that shall perpetuate your gratefull Memorie, as long as there are good, and learned men in the World: But this is not all; Others cannot be said to Give, as leave to publique uses, what they can keepe no longer, and is many-times perverted: You, trust not the Eyes, nor the hands of others, but enjoy what you give, and are your owne Executor: This is truely to be a Philosopher, and indeede a Consummate Wise man. I count that you have obtain’d of your-selfe a Vertue rare, and worthy Emulation: The want either of this fore-sight, or 1 Evelyn was very ill. He notes that he “onely continued so weake that I could not go to church ’til AshWednesday, which I had not missed I think so long in twenty yeares” (Diary IV.272). He also reports that he “began to looke-over & methodize all my Writings, Accompts, Letters, Papers &c: Inventoried the goods &c of the house, & put things into the best order I could; & also new made my Will” (272). This episode is probably decisive in shaping the surviving forms of the diary and the two letterbooks. See the introduction, pp xxi–xxv. 2 The Royal Society was reconsidering its rules for membership. In his diary for 24 January (actually 25 January), Evelyn notes that “at the Council of the R: Soc: we passed a new Law, for the more accurate consideration of Candidates before admission, as whither they would realy be Usefull: & also concerning Honorarie Members, that none should be admitted but per diploma” (Diary IV.267). On 9 March Evelyn reports “Came to see & congratulate my recovery Sir John Lowther, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Pepys, Sir Anth: Deane, & Mr. Hill, which last gave me a hopefull account of the successe my Letter was like to have (which lately I sent to Mr. Dan: Callwell) in behalfe of the Royal Society: See a Copy of the Letter in my book of Letters” (Diary IV.273).

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Generositie, how much it has affected this Society among others; You, worthy Sir, cannot but have taken notice of whilst at the same time, content with moderate things, you consider how little good Riches do their Owners, saving the beholding of them with their Eyes, and that there is nor Worke, nor device, knowledge nor Wisedome in the Grave, and therefore do good with all your might: You consider that whilst Avarice, Ambition, and Opinion are never satisfied, how small a matter serves our Nature, and the decencies of life: But this (says the divine Preacher)3 is the Gift of God, and rarely seene under the Sunn; for a Man to whom he has given Riches and Wealth, to have the power of disposing it, and doing good in his Life-time. Sir, ’Tis now a long day that we have dwelt in Tents, and under precarious Roofs: That the Res angusta4 has subjected the Society to promiscuous, and lesse-usefull Members, and Elections, which have Eclips’d its Reputation; and whilst it militate thus upon uncertaine provisions and exhibitions, ’tis under restraint, and a thousand inconveniences: But whilst you still looke propitiously on it, I am perswaded the day is dawning, and that it will at last emerge, bright and Illustrious. You know Sir know where I have *publiquely avow’d it [RM: *in my Epistle to the Reader before Sylva 3d: Edition] (and I do so still) that had I not put my-selfe out of Capacity, by domestique obligations of Family, and Children, there’s nothing I should more cherefully have Sacrific’d my Secular Intrests to, than the freeing of our Society from the pressure it lies under:5 For the Institution is noble, and august; the Designe is universal, and of greate Religion, as it Vindicats Truth, opposes the Dominions of Imposture, and enlarges the Soule by the Causes and Effects of Nature, and their Consequents, to the Contemplation of the Aspectable Works of God, the Promotion of Use-full Knowledge, and benefit of all Man-kind: How greate, how fortunate a Person, then is He, for whom is reserv’d the Power, and (what is more) an heart to Establish so magnificent, so reasonable a Worke! This were indeede to Consult a greate, and an honest fame, and embaulme the memorie of a Benefactor beyond all Panegyricks and the Royal Society at ColvillColledge, crowne your name and Virtue, with a beame of the sunn, and shine as long as there are good and worthy-men in the World, and longer than which, who would care to be mention’d;6 And all this without the least diminution to your present Circumstances, and Philosophical Temper; but with unexpressible satisfaction (I am perswaded) to see a Society of so greate Importance (and that Ages have wish’d for) flourish and beareFruit, worthy the Culture of a noble Hero: The King gives it Sanction, and it is already amongst the most renowned Acts of his Reigne: You can give it vigour and perpetuity; and it will be amongst the noblest Munificences You can Oblige posterity with: This Sir is what I know Augure and what I wish, and a thousand times Congratulate: Nor should

3 Ecclesiastes 5:19 4 “difficult circumstances.” Juvenal 3.165 5 See the defence of the Royal Society in the letter to the reader in the 3rd edition of Sylva (London, 1679), *2–a1v. The first edition had been the first book published in the name of the Royal Society. 6 Colwall was elected fellow of the Royal Society on 20 May 1663 and was treasurer from 1665 to 1679. He inaugurated the Society’s museum in 1666 and paid for the plates for the publication of that work in Nehemiah Grew, Musæum Regalis Societatis (London, 1681; Evelyn Library, no 666). He bequeathed £4,000 to the Royal Society in 1690.

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I be so more ambitious of greater honour among the rest of those noble Persons equaly concern’d, than that of being upon this Account, Worthy Sir, Your most humble and most obliged Beneficiary etc. Says-Court 11: February 1681/2

John Fell Letter 442 (440) March 19, 1682 f 13r–v

Epistle CCCCXL To the Bishop of Oxford

[RM: Dr. Fell] My Lord, It cannot but be evident to your Reveren’d Lordship, to how greate Danger, and fatal Consequences the Histoire Critique,1 not long since publish’d in French by Pere Simon Oratorian, and now lately translated (though but ill translated) into English, exposes not onely the Protestant and whole Reformed Churches abroad, but (what ought to be dearer to us) the Church of England at home, which, with them accknowledge the Holy Scriptures alone to be the Canon and Rule of Faith; but which this bold man labours not onely to unsettle, but destroy, and by pretending at least, to discover the infinite ambiguities, and different significations of Words in the Originals, that we have nor Original nor authentic Translation, and consequently nothing of Scripture, as Dictated by Gods holy Spirit: That Moses was not Author of the Pentateuch: That the prophets and Public Scribes, in whose Custodie the sacred Acts and Oracles were deposited, might, and did alter, and reforme, epitomize, change and accommodate the Text, according as they thought convenient, and as the times and state of affaires requir’d, without diminution of their authority; though by what proofe dos not appeare: That these things, together with the greate alterations happning in the Originals dos altogether ruine the Principles of Protestants (exclusive of Tradition) so as ’tis onely from the Sanction of the Romish Church, and her Councils

1 Richard Simon, Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678; almost all of this edition was destroyed). It was republished in Amsterdam in 1680 (in the 1687 library catalogue) and translated into English in 1682 by Henry Dickenson (A critical history of the Old Testament). It was replied to by Charles-Marie du Veil in A letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. Defending the divine authority of the Holy Scripture, and that it alone is the rule of faith (London, 1683). See Lambe, “Biblical Criticism and Censorship in Ancien Régime France.”

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which render the Scriptures authentic etc.2 But, I neede not trouble your Lordship with these and other particulars occurring in that Treatise, and tending to the advantage of their Traditions, Prejudice of the Written Word, and, in summ the subversion of our Faith; because it seemes to be the designe of his whole Work; but from the Operation I find it already begins to have amongst divers whom I converse with (especialy, the young-men, and some not so young neither) I even tremble to consider, what fatal mischiefe this Piece is like to Create, whilst they do not looke upon the Booke, as coming from some daring Wit (or young Lord Rochester3 reviv’d etc.) but as the Work of a Learned Author, who has the reputation also of a sober and judicious person; and it must be accknowledg’d that it is a Master-piece in its kind, that the Man is well studied in the Oriental tongues, and has carried-on his project with a Spirit and addresse not Ordinarie amongst Critics; though after all is don, whether he be realy a Papist, Socinian4 or meerely a Theist or something of all three, is not easy to discover: But this is evident, that as for the Holy Scriptures, one may make What one will of them for him: He tells the World we can establish no Doctrine or Principles upon them, and then, are not we of the Reform’d Religion in a blessed Condition? – For the love of God, let our Universities (my Lord) no longer keepe remaine thus silent; It is the Cause of God, and of our Church; let it not be said, your Chaires take no notice of a more pernicious Plot, than any yet has alarm’d us: Whilst every body lets it alone, men think there’s nothing to be said against it, and it hugely prevailes already, and you will be sensible of its progresse when ’tis too late to take-off the reproch. I must humbly therefore implore your Reverend Lordship to consider of it seriously; that the Penns and the chaires may openly, and on all Occasions assert, and Defend the Common Cause, and that Oxford may have the honor of appearing first i’th’field: For, from whom (my Lord) should we expect reliefe, if not from you the Fathers of the Church, and the Scholes of the Prophets? It is worthy the publique Concerne to ward the deadly blows which sap the rootes, and should by no meanes be abandon’d to hazard, or the feeble attempts of any single Champion; who, if worsted, would but add to the Triumph of our Enemies Papists and Atheists: My Lord, He who makes bold to transmitt this to your Lordship though he be no man of the Church, is yet a son of the Church, and hugely concern’d for her; and though he be not learned, he converses much with Books, and men that are, as well at Court, as in Towne and the Country; and thinks it his duty to give your Lordship an Account of what he heares and sees, and is expected, and call’d for from you, who are the Superintendents and Watchmen, that Christ has set over his Church, and appointed to take care of his Flock, etc. Sir John Marshams Booke5 would likewise be consider’d farther than as yet it seemes to have ben, and the Obnoxious passages in it not put off to Præfaces and accidental

2 See also Evelyn’s 1659 discussion of the history of Hebrew vowel points, and its implications for the inerrancy of the biblical text (Letters 153 and 154 to Robert Heath). 3 John Wilmot, 2nd earl of Rochester (1647–80; ODNB), the notorious libertine and wit 4 followers of Faustus Socinus (1539–1604), who denied the divinity of Christ 5 Sir John Marsham, Chronicus canon Ægyptiacus Ebraicus Græcus (London, 1672). In this work Marsham examines the discrepancies in chronology between the Bible and other ancient historical accounts. Evelyn had his earlier work, the Diatribo chronologus (London, 1649; in 1687 library catalogue).

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touches onely; whilst nether to that, nor yet to Spinosa6 (made also vulgar) we have had anything publish’d of expresse, or equal force in a just Volume, fitted either for domestic or forraine Readers: I know that the late *Bishop of Chester [LM: *Dr. Wilkins],7 Dr. Stillingfleet,8 Huetius9 and some few others, have sayd aboundantly enough to Confute our modern Atheists etc. But as these start new, and later Notions, or Rally and reinforce the scatterd Enemie, we should I think, march as often out to meete and encounter them; for the Men of this Curious and nicer age, do not consider what has ben said or Written formerly, but expect something fresh, that may tempt, and invite them to consider, that for all the bold appearances of the Enemie, they are no stronger than heretofore, and can do us no more hurt, unlesse we abandon and betray our-selves and give up the Cause: ’Tis not (my Lord) sufficient to have beaten downe the heads of Hydra once, but as oft’ as they rise to use the Club, though the same Weapon be used, the same thing repeated; it refreshes the faint, and resolves the doubtfull, and stirs-up the slothfull, and is what our Adversaries continualy do, to keepe-up, and maintaine their owne Party, when ever they receive the least rebuke from us – fas est et ab hoste doceri.10 Nor (my Lord) whilst I am writing this, do I at all doubt of your Lordships greate Wisedome, Zeale, and Piety Religious Care to obviate and prevent this, and all other Adversaries of our most holy Faith, as built upon the Sacred Scriptures, of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himselfe being the chiefe Corner-stone; But if the excesse of my Affection for the Universitie (which I have sometimes heard perstring’d, as not taking the alarme so concernedly upon these occasions) have a little too far transported me; I most humbly Supplicate your Lordship’s Pardon for my presumption, and for my Zeale and good-wishes to the Prosperity of our Sion, your Lordships Blessing Who am My Reverend Lord Your etc. Says-Court 19 March – 1681/82

6 Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was first printed in Amsterdam in 1670 and in London in 1673. It was replied to by Thomas Browne in Miracles work’s above and contrary to nature: or, An answer to a late translation out of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus, Mr. Hobb’s Leviathan, &c. (London, 1683). 7 John Wilkins, Of the principles and duties of natural religion (London, 1675; in the 1687 library catalogue), published posthumously by John Tillotson 8 Edward Stillingfleet and Gilbert Burnet were responsible for A relation of a conference, held about religion, at London, the third of April, 1676 … with some gentlemen of the Church of Rome (London, 1676; 2 copies in the 1687 library catalogue). Stillingfleet also published A letter to a deist (London, 1677) and Origines sacræ, or A rational account of the grounds of Christian faith, as to the truth and divine authority of the Scriptures (London, 1662; in the 1687 library catalogue). 9 Pierre Daniel Huet (bishop of Avranches), author of De interpretatione libri duo (Paris, 1661)  10 “Tis proper to learn even from an enemy.” Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.428 (Miller, trans)

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 443 (441) March 23, 1682 ff 13v–14v

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Epistle CCCCCXLI To Sidny Godolphin Esquire one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury

Deare Friend, The thoughts Troubles1 which I have before, and at any time since given you have ben, and still are no little mortification to me, lest you should think me diffident in the least of your mindfullnesse of, or kind intentions to me: That I now rejoyne, is to conjure you to believe thinke, I heartily believe all you say, and to beg your pardon, if any thing I write (in answer to yours) beare the least appearance of distrust: So far have I ever ben for giving my Friends in Places and Offices, any trouble of this nature (whither out of a certaine natural bashfullnes, or, which is worse, seacret pride and stomach, or perhaps both, for our hearts are of all things the most deceitfull) that if others (whose more early Industry might easily have plac’d me above these occasions and Circumstances) did not instigate me, more than any disposition of my owne; I never should of my selfe have submitted to the thing in the world, which I would avoyde, namely the Importuning of Friends for my selfe: And it is among others, one of the favours I have to blesse God for; that I never could be tempted to seeke or preserve an Interest for my selfe, by more and unworthy Complyances: But whilst I repose my Concerne and Weakenesses with you, I think my Vertue perfectly secure, and shall from this moment never trouble my selfe any farther than to beg the Continuance of your Friendship upon a much nobler and just Accompt, namely for the sake of that blessed Saint, and my intire and disintrested Value for you. As to my (now) Lord Hide,2 I have deliver’d my Reasons why I think it severe, because both your-selfe and Sir Stephen Fox did not onely think my expectation reasonable, but encouragd, and call’d once or twise upon me to prepare my Pretensions, which I believe would not have ben, if the Rule you speake of, had then ben establish’d; however since made use of: But nether This nor any-thing else, shall at all take from the respect I shall ever pay to his Lordship which I think due from me to all the King shall please to honour, were there nothing of his intrinsique worth in the case: I can not still but reflect how hardly I have sufferd in this repulse, and (I think) single Instance, when you shall consider (which before I did not think I needed to have produc’d) that I dearely purchas’d this Estate of my Father-in-Law at the rate of £3500, by his Majestie’s expresse direction and approbation, under hand and Seale, as I have to shew, to take off a Mortgage from other Lands of Sir Richards, without which he could not have subsisted in his Majestie’s 1 See Letters 421 and 440. 2 Laurence Hyde, first lord of the Treasury in 1679, and since April 1681, Viscount Hyde of Kenilworth, though Evelyn’s scruple may reflect that Hyde was not created earl of Rochester until November 1682.

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Service (as he was requir’d and injoyn’d to do) and that with this Condition, and solemn promise to make good the Inheritance to the Purchaser within one yeare after his Restauration: Can you else imagine I would have laid my Mony out upon a Lease in those jealous dai times, or compounded (as I did) with the Souldiers and Sequestrators to preserve this Spot, and his Majestie’s greater Interest in it, when I had the wide world before me, and opportunities of much more advantagious bargaines? We made indeede no use of this Topic before the present; because we did not question a favourable reception, and just Concession: But this is true, and I had cause to reckon in it as a real bargaine: I neede report my selfe to the Royal Instrument onely which I mention, and have so often shew’d you: And that we did not importune the greate Men since in Office, more impetuously, was in reguard we had still the prospect of being payd at least our Arreare of neere Twelve Thousand pounds; and then indeede it had ben in his Majestie’s choice to grant us the Inheritance; though even for this also, there was a set and limited time, within wich, if the mony were not satisfied, it was to remaine irreversable: Now that Mony nether satisfied, nor in any likelyhood ever to be so, and the time so long elaps’d, It was reasonable certainly, to expect the other should be made good upon discount: This Sir, being the Substance of that Transaction with his Majestie shews that nothing had ben surreptitiously or fraudulently don abroad, but on a serious and deliberate Consideration; and that I now repeate the particulars, is, to let you see, that as the Case is totaly different from most (if not all other) mere pretences; so I think, there had no Rule ben violated in either granting us Land, or Mony, or Equivalent: But my infelicity was, that I could not for my life obtaine Sir Richard to procure a settlement of this promis’d graunt, whilst his Majestie was abroad, though often times suggested to him by me, and when nothing had ben more easy: No, he allways writ me word, it would shew a diffidence in him, and looke like a Surprize in his Masters distresse, upon whose Royal promise he would rely both for this and greater things, if ever God should restore him; besides a Caution least the Rebells should possibly discover the transaction to my prejudice, who had some fortune of my owne not inconsiderable in their quarters, and under their jealous Eye: But a Wise man would have adventur’d all this, as I allways told him, and how easily it might have ben passed in Trustees names and gentlemen of honour with all the safty imaginable: Th But the Credulous good-man believ’d that Honors, and Estates, and Offices etc. would have raind from heaven on him, and all his Majesties party if once he came home againe; whilst Sir Robert Long,3 Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir George Carteret, Sir John Shaw,4 Lord Jermins,5 and even my Lord Hyds6 father Lord Chancelor himselfe, besides severall others I might name, tooke time by the fore-top, and were not so full of Faith: but so did not Sir Richard, though it was put into his very hand. 3 Sir Robert Long (c.1602–73; ODNB, H). He was closely associated with Henrietta Maria as her surveyorgeneral and later as secretary of state to the Prince of Wales until he was replaced by Edward Hyde. After the restoration, he was MP for Boroughbridge and was made auditor of the lower exchequer in 1662, when he was also created baronet. 4 Sir John Shaw (c.1615–80; ODNB, Diary). Knighted in 1660 and created baronet in 1665, Shaw was MP for Lyme Regis and a financial advisor to Edward Hyde. He was also a commissioner for customs, trade, and plantations. Shaw was a social friend of Evelyn and lived in Eltham, between London and Sayes Court. 5 Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans 6 Laurence Hyde and his father Edward, 1st earl of Clarendon

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I am sensible you are weary of this discourse, and therefore give it over, though I know not why I should not furnish so good and greate a friend with argument for me, against a more favorable Conjuncture; at least suffer me to Lodg my Complaints with you; for even your Concerne for me is no small reliefe and Satisfaction to me; nor had I ere this, so fully open’d my Case in this particular, as it was an absolute bargaine, and a most honest and just pretence, and such as ought be made good of due right and justice by those whom his Majestie has intrusted his Treasur with, and to whose report (as being fully Satisfied of the truth) he has absolutely referr’d it: This is plaine dealing, and such as I am assur’d, the performing of, would never have impoverish’d his Majestie or reproch’d my Lord Hide; for I am certaine as his Majestie was dispos’d to gratifie us in it; so it would have ben proofe against any Resumption, since as it was of no antient Crowne Lands so nether was it (as I said) procur’d by Surprize, or given to a favorite of little merit; but dearly and honestly purchas’d on valuable Consideration; and this ought to have pleaded for us at the Board; but (it seemes) tis it must be over ruld, and Gods will be don, for I am your etc. The Summ in short is: Sir Richard Brown was sent against his will into France (being having newly bought the office of Clearke of the Council, then worth £1500 per Annum since hardly five hundred) by his Majesties Father Charles the Second First, with promise he should not stay above halfe a yeare abroad: The times growing troublesome; his Majestie enjoynes him to continue longer, as Resident with Lewes the 13th and XIV in the Court of France at Paris, which oblig’d him to keepe a ch set up a Family, in that chargeable station, and in particular to maintaine and keepe up the service of the Church in his Chapel: To do this when Subsistence from England the King fail’d, he mortgag’d all his paternal Estate; and that drawn low after some yeares more, he desir’d letters of Revocation of his present Majestie that he might repaire into England, and endeavor to preserve the remaindere, as several others of his Majesties loyal Subjects did: This was denyed him; his service then thought so necessary, that to oblige him to continue in his residency, and adventure what was left to providence; he had a Solemn promise (under his Majesties hand and seale rëiterated) not onely for a present supply to inable him to subsist; but to passe certaine Lands and Estate in Deptford, into fee-ferme when ever God should restore him to his Crowne in lieu of his Arrers; in the meane time incouraging me to go into England, and compound with the present powers, for the remainder of a Lease now almost expir’d and to purchase Sir Richard’s whole Title by which and to take off a Mortgage that lay upon other estate of Sir Richards, and inable all which should be recompens’d me which would inable him to live abroad in case his Majestie should not (as he never was all that time) able to supply him, as he promis’d: But nether was Sir Richard provided for by his Majestie for 19 years service; nor his Arrers payd, nor the Land conveyd; see the Justice, and the Reward of being Loyal and faithfull in a period of so signal trial and defection, and observe the Event of those who have oppos’d him: Says-Court 23 March 1681/2

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Mary Evelyn Jr Letter 444 (442) May 31, 1682 ff 14v–15

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Epistle CCCCXLII To my Daughter Mary

My Child, Believing I should have met you in the Park1 last night (as you pretended) I reserv’d what farther I had to say to you, and what I onely touch’d in the passage to Westminster: I would have told you, that though in this affaire, a good and a discreete Child (who by the continual marks she has receiv’d of the kindnes of her parents, besides a natural and religious Obligation) cannot without Ingratitude, and a very meane esteeme of their Care and solicitude for their good, refuse to be intirely govern’d by them in this weighty Concerne. That if Parents have any real Concerne Interest in their Children, and Children any true Piety; they cannot but believe such Parents (who upon long experience, and due consideration of Circumstances, must needes acquire some advantages) not onely best able to direct their choyce, but as passionately solicitous for their childrens happines, and future well-being, as they can be for those, who of all other comforts in this world, are the dearest to them. I say, that though by all these Arguments, and ties of Duty, a Child is oblig’d to defer to such Parents as they cannot suspect without impiety; yet will I never make use of this Authority to impose upon your aversion: Onely, I pray God (and so ought you with the greatest Instance) to direct your Affections, that they may not be govern’d more by Fancy, than by Reason and Prudence; more by your owne Counsels, than that of your best Friends; by personal and tollerable Accidents, than intollerable and real defects: In the meane time, I no ways engage you as to this Gentleman,2 (no way despicable, no way vitious, but one whose good nature and discretion may well commute for a small defect in his speech onely) nor shall you ever charge the Event of things upon my severity; nether your Mother, nor my selfe, will ever lay any peremptorie Injunction any on you, to determine against your will: Though for many reasons, tending wholy to your good, we wish the Choice you may hereafter make preferable to this, have not some other Imperfections of sadder importance, than what consists of Phansy onely, and has no influence on Virtue,

1 St James’s Park. Evelyn wrote disapprovingly about the park as early as his Character of England (1659). It had since become an even more disreputable place as Rochester’s poem “A Ramble in St. James’s Park” suggests. 2 John Hussey (1658–85; Diary). The eldest son of Peter Hussey of Sutton in Shere in Surrey (Diary IV.255–6), he was educated at Cambridge and Lincoln’s Inn, and inherited Sutton in 1685. He was a neighbour of Evelyn’s brother, George, at Wotton. He was one of the suitors for the hand of Mary Evelyn Jr. William Glanville was a supporter of his suit and annoyed with Mary for being “both in jest and in earnest” with him (Add 78434: f 46 [3.1.1684]). His “natural blemish” is referred to in Diary IV.425. Like Mary, Hussey died of smallpox.

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and such solid, and noble qualifications, as render men truely valuable in the estimation of wise and prudent persons, who have reguard of the future, as well as of the present; and consider that there is hazard, and many difficulties, and greate caution, and rare Contingencies, in finding such Husbands and Wives, as shall be every-way perfect and without defect in this wicked and perverted age; and that if some infirmities must be born with, both Sexes are mutualy Obnoxious, and the least is to be chosen: I say not this to favour anybody, whom you cannot dispose your selfe to Love, and be happy with, without reluctancy; but to shew you, that if you looke for perfection, and all things agreable to the Idias you reade of in Romances,3 or indeede, Conceive to be in nature: Let me tell you, there is no such thing in nature. As to the present, I impose no Comands upon you, or (like other Parents) deprive you of my Blessing and Prayers for you: Onely I would not have you so to declare your Aversion, as absolutely to interdict him your presence, or a civil reception, if he be importunate for it (as I heare he is) you having Addresse enough to Entertaine him without rudenesse, or peremptorie injunctions upon dislike of his person; which you must by no meanes shew to be the ground of your aversion; because ’tis not his fault, but his infelicity, and what by a thousand accidents may befall anyone: Permit him therefore to come where you are, and when he Courts you seriously, divert it without rudenesse: Let him understand you are not at liberty to determine or dispose of your-selfe: That there be many weighty Circumstances in this affaire: Parents, and Friends are to be consulted in transactions of this nature: That your Yeares and Inclinations ought to be more intent upon rend’ring your-selfe worthy a qualified person, than to determine of the person, and that ther’s time enough before you both: Perswade him to compose himselfe, that you value his friendship, and the honor he dos you; but do not think to interrupt the Course you are set in, or promise him things that are not in your absolute power, and of which there is no present necessitie: There are a thousand other Topics which you may entertaine him with, without imperious Declarations, and forbiddings never to see you more or come where you are (whilst you are in a friends house and not at home) because they are unjust, and they hugely disoblige, and relish of Pride and Disdaine: Thus in time, necessary absence, and little progresse, wi and other Objects will slacken and coole his pursute, and perhaps another Lady lesse severe and nice: This Counsel I give you at present, where you are; you will now, after a few days more come home (since your Masters [RM: Musique Signor Bartolini and Pedro]4 are gon to teach his Highnesse Daughter5 at Windsore) and therefore I will add no more, but my Blessing and my Prayers to God for you my Deare Child etc. White-hall 31 May – 1682

3 By the later seventeenth century romances were regarded largely as (questionable) reading for women. See Hackett, Women and Romance Fiction in the English Renaissance. 4 Bartolomeo Albrici (c.1630–after 1688; Diary IV.186, 271, 421), Pietro Reggio (d. 1685; Diary IV.421, 427). See Highfill Jr et al., Biographical Dictionary of Actors. 5 This must be Princess Anne (1665–1714), later Queen Anne (1702–14), who at this date would have been sixteen. Her sister, Mary, had already married and gone to the Netherlands.

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Thomas Creech1 Letter 445 (443) August 4, 1682 f 15

Epistle CCCCXLIII To Mr. Creech Fellow of Waddam Colledge in Oxford

Sir, It was not ’til late last night that I receiv’d the most acceptable present2 you were pleas’d to make me: I should else not so long have deferr’d the returning my most humble Accknowledgements: Your excellent Version dos (besides other advantages) serve me for a Mirror to discerne the greate Imperfections of my unhappy Essay;3 Unhappy in many reguards; that it met with so incompetent an Interpreter and so negligent a Corrector;4 since I may honestly affirme, that in so few lines, as the first book Containes, there were above five hundred negligent (or willfull) mistakes, that were not in the Translation. This might appeare incredible to one who had not taken notice of no lesse an injurie don on the Latine Copy, though printed from a very faire and accurate Edition of Stephens’s5 and supervis’d by the late Dr. Triplet, (who owed me more dilligence) being my-selfe all the time absent from London. And I now Confesse to you Sir, that albeit my full intention was never to hazard more upon account of this Author [RM: Lucretius], my Indignation was so greate at this barbarous Usage, and withall so ungovernable; that out of a vaine hope, or imagination rather, to repaire my Credit, I went through the five oth remaining 1 Thomas Creech (1659–1700; ODNB). He received his BA (1680) and MA (1683) from Wadham and was a fellow of All Souls in 1683. He was awarded a BD from the university in 1696. He translated Lucretius (three editions in 1682–3) as well as Horace, Theocritus, Manilius, Juvenal, Ovid and Plutarch. Creech responded to this letter on 8 August (?), noting, “You were pleased to direct to me Fellow of Wadham College; a good-natured mistake, and I believe you wish me that condition: but I can boast no such thing, being yet a boy scarce able to reckon twenty, and just crept into a bachelor’s degree” (Diary [1887], III, 269). 2 Creech had sent Evelyn a copy of his translation of Lucretius, printed the following year: T. Lucretius Carus. The Epicurean philosopher, his six books De natura rerum (Oxford, 1683; in the 1687 library catalogue). He dispatched a copy of the printed book on 6 May, 1683 (Diary [1887] III.272–3). Evelyn contributed a commendatory poem to the second edition of 1683 (Diary III.473, n. 4; V.417 and n. 2; Add 78683: f 140 [3.5.1683]; the poem is also included in Evelyn’s verse miscellany [Add 78357: f 31]). Creech wrote prefatory verses to Evelyn’s translation of de la Quintinye’s The Compleat Gard’ner (London, 1693) and may have done some of the translation as well (Diary V.417, n. 2). 3 An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus (London, 1656) was Evelyn’s translation and edition with notes of the first book of the De rerum natura. The rest of his edition remained in manuscript until the twenty-first century. See John Evelyn’s Translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura. 4 Thomas Triplet 5 Evelyn owned six Latin editions of Lucretius: one published by Lambinus (Paris, 1570); one by Nardius (Florence, 1470); one by Gifanus (Antwerp, 1566); and one by Plantin (Antwerp, 1611). He also owned a Leiden edition of 1613 and Frankfurt edition of 1631. He must also have used Marolles’s French translation (Paris, 1650) as his wife adapted its frontispiece for Evelyn in An Essay. There was no edition of Lucretius published by Stephanus (Henri Estienne). See Gordon, A Bibliography of Lucretius.

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Books with some care, though greater liberty of Paraphrase: But passion abating, and other things intervening, I now for almost these twenty yeares, have lay’d it by, without a thought of resumption; And happy ’tis, that I did so, since by the perfections I find in this accomplish’d Piece of yours, I see I had expos’d my selfe to greater reproches, without Apologie. I was angrie and displeas’d at their ill usage; but do not now so much deplore my owne Missadventure, as I heartily Congratulate your fortunat successe, and that you are landed at our English shore with so rich a Cargo, and through so churlish a sea, as I am sure, you have sometimes met with in your passage: Sir, I both admire, and infinitely esteeme your incomparable Work, which justly intitles you to the universal Suffrage: In a word, you have given demonstration that there’s nothing insuperable to a greate and illustrious Genius; and have by your apt and learned Notes, worthily prevented the advantage, which profligate Spirits, and halfe Wits might draw from this Author to adorn their Raillery6 at Religion: This is an Obligation to the Publique, but that which concernes me in particular is your greate Civilitie to Sir Your etc. Says-Court 4: August 1682

Christian Berkeley Letter 446 (444) August 12, 1682 f 15v

Epistle CCCCXXXXIV To my Lady Berkeley:

Madame, If I have ’til now forborn the formal signification of my extreame regret for the Losse of my *Lord (your Sonn)1 [LM: *dying at Sea a very hopeful young Gentleman] it has not proceeded either from the insensibilitie of my Nature, or want of performing a decency on so lugubrous an Occasion; but from a tender reguard not to oppresse your Ladyship with so many Images of your greate affliction, like a torrent which I was assur’d would come upon your Ladyship like a torrent from all your Relations: ’Tis not when our passions are in the ascendent and height, and the Spirit infinitely imbitter’d by the surprizes of such a Calamitie, that the Condolences of Friends afford us ease; but make the sad impressions 6 See also Evelyn’s earlier correspondence with Jeremy Taylor (Letters 94 and 99) for anxieties concerning the threat to religion posed by Lucretius, and popular ideas of Lucretius and Epicureanism in texts like Shadwell’s Virtuoso. 1 Charles Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1662–82; Diary) was the son of John and Christian Berkeley. He succeeded to his father’s title in 1678 and died of smallpox at sea, 6 March 1682.

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deeper, and instead of aleviating our sorrows, accumulate to their weight: The Effects of Griefe are then onely dangerous, when though the passions seeme to be more sedate, the Idias and Contemplations of our losse, silently possesse the Imagination, seize upon the spirits, and like an invenom’d dart transfix the very heart: But Madame, You are not the onely Concern’d, for when I have consider’d all the Circumstances of your losse as a Parent of so hopefull, and extraordinary a Gentleman; his Youth, his Courage, Early Discretion and gravitie beyond his yeares, Obsequiousnesse2 to your Ladyship and other virtues, I do not reckon it a losse to your Ladyship onely, but to the age in General, and so much the greater, as there never was a greater want of such Examples; so that you ought not therefore in justice to ingrosse and take all this sorrow on your selfe, ’tis a greate and an Universal losse, and there are Sharers with you, and I assure you, I am not without my part: But I consolate myselfe (and so I would your Ladyship in particular) that as all other good, and estimable things, he was but lent your Ladyship and that when you restor’d resign’d him againe, you but restor’d him to his owner: But you would have enjoy’d him longer (so would we all) but God knows what is best for both; he foresees the frailties of our Nature, the hazards of a deprav’d and vitious world, the uncertaintie of our perseverance, and dos frequently in mercy prevent them all, by Securing our Condition, and Interest in greater and eternal fruitions, with the diminution of temporarie, transitorie, and uncertaine things: some are taken away from the Evils to come, the ruines of Virtue and Country; some for our Un-worthynesse of such blessings, and the losse of excellent Persons, is a sad presage of publique Calamities, whilst they are safe in the boosome of God, and so is your sonn: Be assur’d Madame, that whatever has happn’d to your Ladyship is for the best, and that it is in your power to turne this Crosse to advantage, by an intire submission to his blessed Will, and that the more cherefully you do it, the more acceptable, the more rewardable: Call to mind the greate favours you have received from God, the many blessings he still continues to you; his fatherly Chastizements, that none of his Children are without them etc. See what effects they have wrought, what Retributions, and accordingly charge, or Justifie him in what you now have sufferd: I have had occasion of applying them all to my own many sad Necessities for the losse of un-valuable3 Friends and Children [LM: Se Letter 499, p. 62]4 such as more than my life, I loved, and I daily beg of God that I may sit looser to the world, and my affections above; resigne the dearest thing I have to him; and the same I will implore for your Ladyship because I know you have serious thoughts of a better state, and that we can here have no true and permanent happines: That holiness, and a religious life, will at last restore us to our Children, our Friends, and dearest Relations, from whom we shall never more be separated; that we shall enjoy the blessed Vision, and in that Consummate felicitie, be this your Comfort in your Affliction: More, and much more might I add, for there’s no subject more fruitefull, no Topic more capable of Sentences,5 and religious Counsel; but perhaps I am too bold 2 respect or deference. Lady Berkeley’s response (though she dates Evelyn’s letter at 17 August) is of 14 October (Add 78308: f 203 [14.10.1682]). 3 i.e., invaluable, or priceless. Chief in Evelyn’s mind was Margaret Godolphin, and he had written his annual letter of condolence to Sidney Godolphin on 9 September (Add 78307: f 129 [9.9.1682]). 4 Letter 501: f 31v 5 i.e., moral observations

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already, and impertinent, and your Ladyships Experience, knowledge Prudence, and real piety, have doubtlesse suggested all that I produce, and prevented all I can superadd, but it being the best signification of an interior, and very greate Respect; I know your Ladyship, will not reprove the Expressions of it from Madame, your etc. Says Court 12 August–1682

Samuel Pepys Letter 447 (445) September 19, 1682 ff 16–17

Epistle CCCCXXXXV To Samuel Pepys Esquire Late Secretary of the Admiralty1

[RM: note deleted] Sir, In Answer to your quæries,2 I will most ingenuously declare my thoughts upon second meditation, since I publish’d my Treatise of Commerce,3 and what I have ben taught, but was not there to speake in publique, without offence: I will therefore reply in the method you seeme to hint; and after say what I have concerning our pretence to Dominion on the Seas: To the first – Buxhornius has written an historie of the Ansiatic Townes, where you’l find in what Condition and Credit Holland was for Trafique and Commerce, and in the Danish Annales.4 It would be enquir’d when the English staple was remov’d into Brabant, being 100 yeares since, and more; fixed at Dort: How far forth Charles the fift pursued, or minded his Interest at Sea? As to Henrie the 4th, of France, ’tis evident he was not negligent of his Interest there, by his many projects for Trade, and performances at Marseilles: all that Richlieue5 and his 1 Particular Friends, C15, 136–40. Unlike many of the other letters to Pepys, this letter survives only in the letterbook. De la Bédoyère speculates that it may not have been sent (136, n. 1). 2 These are not extant; see Particular Friends, 136, n. 3 3 Navigation and Commerce (London, 1674). For an account of this book and its relation to the material in this letter, see Keynes, Bibliography, 202–4. 4 Marcus Zuerus Boxhornius, Apologia pro Navigationibus Hollandorum, adversus P. Heuterum in Hugo Grotius, De Mari libero (Leiden, 1633; in the 1687 library catalogue). The Danish Annales are probably A most exact and true relation, extracted out of the registers of the acts, ordinances, and publick instruments. Wheerby those passages are laid open, which hapned since the pacification made at Roschilt, on the 26. of Febr. 1657/8. between the most serene princes, the kings of Denmark and Norway, and the King of Sweden (London, 1659). 5 Cardinal Richelieu

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successors in that Ministrie produc’d, was projected by their Greate Henry, as is plaine out of Morisotus6 his Præface. And now To our Title of Dominion and the Fishry (which has made such a noise in this part of the World) I confesse, I did once see lately seeke to magnifie and assert it, as became me pro hic et nunc7 (to speake with logicians) and as the Circumstances then requir’d you know: But betweene friends (and under the Rose8 as they say) to tell you realy my thoughts, when such like Topics were us’d (sometimes in Parliament) ’tis plaine they were pass’d-over there upon important reasons. To begin with the very first; ’tis supposing the old Britains did prohibite forainers to come into their Country, what inferrs that to any Claime of Dominion in the Narro? but a jealosie rather over their proper Coasts: Nor reade we that they ever practic’d it over the Gaules: The Chinezes (we find) forbad all to enter their Countrie; are they therefore Lords of the Oriental Seas? As for King Arthyr (abating what is fabulous, viz, his Legendarie Dominion) the Comes Littoris Saxonici etc.9 stretch’d to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iseland, inferrs either too much, or nothing: Have we therefore any right of Clayme to those Realmes at present? Why then to the Seas? Againe, admitt the most, May not Dominion be lost? or Extinguish’d? Was not his rather a Momentarie Conquest, or Excursion rather, than an establish’d Dominion? Was it not lost to the Danes? Had they not all the Characters of Domination imaginable? Lords of our Seas; Lords of our Shores too, and the Tribute of Dane Gelt10 from England and Ireland both? If ever there were a real Dominion in the World, the Danes must be yeilded to have had it, and if their Title cannot be extinguish’d by Subsequent Revolutions, I greately question whether ours will ever be evinced. In short the story of King Edgar11 is monstrously romantic, and the pretended Deede I do[u]bt will appear but spurious: Truely, if forraine Chronicles had ben as much stuff’d with the renowne of this prince, as with King Arthyrs, I should give more Credit to it: In the meane time, what they report of Athelred is totaly against us, since ’tis plaine, he pay’d the Danegelt as a Tribute to them, and settled it to that end. One may quærie whether the Scots Seas, and Scotland (too boote) be not a fee to England; for with as much reason we might challenge it, if the producing Rolls, Records, and Acts of Parliament, and of statutes to that Purpose were of any importance; because we can shew more to the Purpose, than in the other Case: but how would then that Nation take it, and what become of their Laws about Fishing? ’Tis declar’d in our Laws, that we are Lords of the foure seas, and so adjudged in our Courts, as to those born upon those Seas; and yet the Parliament of Scotland, can impose a Tax on our fishermen: which is a shrew’d argument against us: Who ever read that the Kings of England prohibited any to fish on the Coasts of Scotland? or charg’d them with Usurpation for taking Toll and Custome for the Herring-fishing? The truth is, the Licences (which 6 Claude Barthélemy Morisot, Orbis maritimi sive rerum in mari et littoribus gestarum generalis historia (Dijon, 1643; in the 1687 library catalogue). 7 for here and now 8 sub rosa, i.e., in secret 9 Count of the Saxon shore 10 an annual tax levied from the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century in England to protect the country from the Danes 11 Evelyn gives an account of King Edgar’s asserting dominion of the seas in Navigation and Commerce, 94.

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I speake of in my Book,12 from Scarbrough) were onely to fish on the Dogger-bank: Such English as were to fish in the Scotish Seas, about Orkney, Shetland, Iseland and Fero etc. did take Licenses to fish from the Kings of Norway at Bergen and Northbarum; and this Jurisdiction and Sovrainty undoubted of the Norwegian Kings is recogniz’d by our owne Parliament in a statute 8o: Henry 6 c. 2, and by innumerable Treaties betwixt the two Crownes, even within a Century of Yeares; and if so, consider how feeble a proofe is that famous Roll pro hominibus Hollandiæ,13 and how it is to be limited in it selfe (by the Historie and occasion that caus’d it) to the Narrow or Chanell onely: ’Tis also to be consider’d that the Danes protested at Breda, that the Cession of the Scots fishrie about Orkney and Shetland was never made to our King James upon his Marriage of Queen Ann (as our Tradition is) nor any time before to any Scotish King: And, supposing there were any such authentique Deede, it were better to fix the like Fishrie (we contend about) even in the Dutch, then either permit it to be regulated by the decrees of a Scotish Parliament, or transferr it to that Nation: Now as to the greate Trade, and multitude of English Vessels, by the Historie of the Haunse-Townes, their Privileges, and power in England, one shall find, that for the bulk, our Navies consisted most of hired-ships of the Venetian, Genoezes and Ansiatics ’til Queene Elizabeth, though her father Henry the 8 had a flourishing fleete. The Right of Passes, and Petitions thereupon was form’d upon another part of the Jus Gentium,14 then our pretended Dominion of the Seas; which (to speake ingenuously) I could never find Recognizd expressly in any Treaty with Forrainers. As to returne to the Fishery, That of the Dutch fishing without License, the Intercursus magnus15 (so boasted) was a perpetual Treaty, and made as well with all the People, as the Princes of Burgundy, and so, as to be Obligatorie, though they rejected their Governors, as we see most of them did, and as (perhaps) they might, according to the Lætus Introitus.16 And that the Dutch are still (and by Queen Elizabeth were so declar’d to be) a Pars Contrahens,17 after their Revolt and abjuration of Spaine, dos as much invalidate that proceeding of King James, and Charles the first, who both sign’d that Intercursus, and were in truth included thereby, though they had not sign’d it. But besides all this, The nature of Præscription would be enquir’d into, as well when it makes against us, as for us; and therefore it should be demanded whither Queene Elizabeth did not first assert the Mare Liberum18 in opposition to the Danes? and whether his present Majestie has not don it at Jamaica against the Spaniard: Pray consider the Seale of that Admiralty: To speake plaine truth, when I writ that Treatise, rather as a Philological Exercise, and 12 Navigation and Commerce, 105 13 a reference to the Dutch acknowledging the king’s dominion over the sea. See Navigation and Commerce, 102. 14 the law of nations 15 great intervention 16 joyous entrance 17 separate entity. 18 freedom of the seas, the title of the work. Mare Liberum was the title of Hugo Grotius’s work (1609; two copies in the 1687 library catalogue) against which John Selden’s Mare Clausum (1635; in the 1687 library catalogue) was written.

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to gratifie the present Circumstances, I could not clearely Satisfie my selfe in sundry of those particulars; nor find realy, that ever the Dutch did pay Toll, or Tooke License to fish in Scotland after the contest, from any solid proofes: Indeede (as there I relate) they surpriz’d Brown, who came to exact it, and detain’d him in Holland severall Moneths; but I think they nere’ pay’d peny for it; though the papers I have perus’d, speake of an Assize Herring: Nor did I find, that any Rent, whereoff in my (108 page) I calculate the Arreres, for permission to Fish was ever fixed by both parties; and so cannot properly be call’d a settl’d Rent: This would therefore be exquisitely inquir’d into, and perhaps both for these and many other particulars, a thorough search in his Majesties Paper Office may afford clearer light, if these have any due care taken to Collect and Digest such important Matters. As for the Yeares 1635 ad 37, you cannot but espie an Intreague in the Equipping those formidable Fleets, and that they were more to awe the French than Terrifie Holland. (See how the Times and Intrest change! but no more of that, ’tis now a tender point!)19 I fancy were no difficult matter to prove: And that any Licenses were taken in those Yeares, I could never be assur’d of: That of 1636 being but a single Act of force on some particular men, the States never owning them in it; and you know the Admiral Dorp20 was casheered’d for not quarrelling it with our Northumberland, and our Conduct and Licenses flatly rejected in 1637 when Captain Field came: Lastly, When King James fixed his Chamber, did he not either Renounce the English Sovreignety of the Seas or violate therein his League with Spaine? (as that Nation urged, pleading that the British Seas were Territorium Domini Regis) but he did not the latter; wherefore I am not single in this deduction. In a word, the intire Argument of the Fish’ry, is too Controvertable to be too peremptorily decided by the penn, and upon many other Accounts (of which the plenty and wantones of our full-fed, and un-frugal People, which deterrs them from hard Labour, is not the least) a project wholy Uselesse, as Circumstances be, and therefore might with much more benefit, ease and facility be supplied by increasing our Fishery at New-found-Land: Finaly As to Commerce in generall, of this Nation, from all that I could observe during my short being of that noble and honorable Council,21 and informing my-selfe as I was able by books and discourses of experienc’d persons; I say, after all this, I concluded it a very vaine thing to make any (the most probable, certaine or necessarie) proposal about Trade etc. Not that it might not be infinitely improv’d, if Princes, and People did Unanimously, and with a true publique Spirit, and as our natural Advantages prompt us; apply them selves honestly and industriously about it; But, for that as things now are, and have hitherto ben maneg’d (since the renown’d Queene Elizabeth for that encomium I must give her) the whole advantage this Nation receives thereby, is evidently carried on more 19 There was a secret alliance with France at this time under the treaty of Dover. 20 Phillipp (or Filips) van Dorp (1587–1652), Netherlands admiral, was cashiered for not quarrelling with Algernon Percy, 10th earl of Northumberland, who was appointed in 1636 to maintain the sovereignty of the seas and obliged a number of Dutch captains to pay a license for fishing. 21 the Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations, to which Evelyn was appointed in 1671

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by antient Methods, and the sedulitie of Private Men, than by any Publique Encouragement: And as to the present, it certainely languishes under insupportable difficulties: And thus Sir, I choose to convey you my second more digested Thoughts of a point which in your Excellent designe and Work cannot escape the ample handling, as one of the most Considerable, when you come to speake of the importance of our shipping, and Trade, or pretence of Dominion etc. And I do it, you see with all Selfe-denyal imaginable (and not without some reproch) after what I have publish’d to the Contrary; by which you may Conclude, how suspicious Wise men should be of other Histories and Historians too, how confident, and specious soever, unlesse it were almost Demonstration, that the Authors had no Interest of their owne to serve, and were not influenced by their Superiors or the publique Cry: Let this ingenuous Confession commute for my faults in that Treatise, and be put amongst the Retractions of Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 19 September – 1682

Isabella Fitzroy Letter 448 (446) September 29, 1682#1 f 17

Epistle CCCCXXXXVI To her Grace the Dutchesse of Grafton:

I wellcom’d the Tidings of your Graces pregnancy with incredible Jubilie and beheld our Late Comet2 as an Auspicious presage; for I looked to the North-East, and it appear’d just over Euston,3 sheading its propitious Influences, and being all Jovial signifies Dignities, and Riches, and that the young Hero will succeede his illustrious Father4 in greate Exploits by Sea; be a Conqueror of Countries by Land, as his Mother is of Hearts: This is Madame, what the Heavens point, and so do the Telescopians, Rosy-Crucians and sage Flamstedians:5 ­Povius6 is gon to Paris to Consult the Observatorie there, and the Oracles of France and all the Lunar World Turba Philosophorum, Astronomorum, Chronologicorum, Tory-rorum7

1 This letter is misdated. The duchess’s only recorded son, Charles, 2nd duke of Grafton, was born on 30 October 1683. Evelyn records going to London “to visite & waite on the Dutchesse of Grafton now greate with Child” on 18 September 1683 (Diary IV.337). This dating is difficult to reconcile with the reference to Halley’s Comet. 2 a reference to Halley’s Comet which Evelyn observed on 18 August 1682 (Diary IV.291) 3 the seat of the duchess’s father in Suffolk 4 Henry Fitzroy 5 See also Letter 439 to Henry Howard. John Flamsteed did not believe in portents. 6 Thomas Povey 7 the hubbub of philosophers, astronomers, historians, and Tories

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Both the Yonger and the Elder Drink the health of Hans in Kelder;8 Such a Heroin as Roy Once did scale the Walls of Troy; Subdu’d of that greate Towne the Whiggs, And Scourg’d the Royoters like Giggs:9

Your Grace will pardon the Transport, for those whose hearts are top-gallant10 full of Joy (as mine is) expresse their Sense of it in Rapts and Ecstasies, and they speake things Oracular, and from the Tripod it selfe: Apollo with all his Muses and all the Graces Congratulate the Dutchesse of Grafton by her Graces Most humble etc. Cranopoli11 September 29 – 168212

Sidney Godolphin Letter 449 (447) November 19, 1682 f 17r–v

Epistle CCCCXXXXVII To Sidny Godolphin Esquire

Friend, I have seriously consider’d what you Suggested to me, and doubt not but his Majestie would make it as Easy as honorable to whomsoever he shall dignifie for that Intendency:1 I consider also how greate an Affection and Zeale Sir Stephen Fox has for that handsome and Royal Foundation;2 he having ben pleas’d (from time to time) to acquaint me with some particulars of the design’d Constitution; and since you have had me in your thoughts, [LM: To be President of the Royal Foundation at Chelsy erected and endow’d for Emerited Souldiers etc.] you have me in your dispose; and I am sure sufficient Interest in that worthy person, to thinke of me: There’s nothing shall be wanting in my endeavors to render me competent; It suits with my Yeares, my Genius, my Formalitie,

8 literally, Jack in the cellar, slang for a child in the womb 9 whipping tops  10 top-sail 11 Cranopolis, i.e., Cranbourn  12 Evelyn ends the subscription with the sign for Virgo: the astrological symbol for this date. 1 Evelyn’s marginal note makes plain that he was invited to be the supervisor of the new Chelsea Hospital, a position he did not take in spite of his enthusiasm here. 2 For Fox’s role in this, see Diary IV.257, 269–70, 281.

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and the greate Disposition I have to be usefull to brave men; and I have (you know) some other habitudes that may not disqualifie me: As to my private Circumstances, I can decently resigne my present dwelling to my Sonn3 and his pregnant family: My Wife would realy on this occasion be a meete Assistant, Matron as now she is, not unexperienc’d in Oeconomical4 functions, of extraordinary Charity, a pious and (though I say it) a discreete Woman; and this, and more is due to her from me, and all who know her well: If it be my lot, I’le bouckle to it cordialy, and intend it wholy, and think, in so doing, I may do Gods, and his Majesties Service –I am your etc. Sayes Court 19 November --82 But after all my Friend, though the Recesse you designe me (were my present circumstances never so prosperous) never so gratefull to me, as realy ’tis in the Contemplation already; because of the Opportunities I fancy, I shall have to pray for you amongst my Benefactors, and recollect all your Kindnesses: Yet the Successe of that, as ’tis Contingent, and but in Idëa; so it cannot take place these two or three yeares at the soonest, and that’s a long day in my Kalendar: There is therefore in the meane time an Opportunity in which you may Effectualy assist me with a Considerable Kindnesse, and that lies in your power, viz, ---------- You have oft injoyn’d me to looke-out, and advertise you; You have thought some things too low, do not think this too high for me: Were it to be a Farmer5 I assure you, I would flie from it; but since what I mention is (I heare) to be manag’d by Commissioners and that dilligence and sincerity are the qualifications, I am sure you will preferr, I doubt not but you would dare be my Voucher:6 If you will therefore now exert your Interest and power in good-earnest, I shall succeede: Make one hardy attempt for your old friend, and defer it not: You know where to apply, which makes me solicit no body else else; for I would have no Obligation but to my Friend: Direct me then what to do, what to hope. etc. Non hospiter vincitur beneficiis, si ab his obligatus est, ad quos aut fortunæ magnitudo, aut eximia virtus aditum redituris ad se beneficiis clausit.7 Says-Court 19 November – 1682

3 John Evelyn Jr, who lived with his wife at Sayes Court after their marriage in 1680. 4 household 5 someone who would get the revenues in return for an annual payment to the Crown 6 vouch for his good fate and respectability 7 “He is not disgracefully outdone in benefits if he has become indebted to those whose exalted station or exceeding merit blocks the approach to any benefits that might return to them.” Seneca, De Beneficiis, 5.5.1 (Basore trans). Evelyn substitutes “hospiter” for Seneca’s “turpiter.”

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Creech Letter 450 (448) November 29, 1682 f 17v

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Epistle CCCCXXXXVIII To Mr. Creech of Waddam Oxford1

Sir, I am sorry you mistake the sincerity of my Thoughts for a Compliment:2 To retract from the Sentiments3 I had of your excellent performance, were to acknowledge that I had not perus’d your gratefull Present with that Delight and Application which became me, and which I assure you, I have don more than once; not indeede with the liver4 and malice of a Critic; for which I have neither Ill-nature, nor pedantrie enough; but so to the best of my Judgement, that I believe the Charitable Friends you mention, cannot make you much the richer: For my part, I fancy your selfe (who best were able to do it) will find it as difficult to mend, and Improve what you have don, as at first, to make it what it is, and they have indeede very nice, and wanton Palats, who cannot highly relish what you have so exquisitely temper’d: But there are some ostentous Confidents, that would correct the Magnificat, and he must certainely be one of them, who undertakes to interpolate Mr. Creech; for what a greate piece of Service were it to change perhaps here and there (but I protest unfain’dly, I know not where) an Atome of a Word! I am pleas’d with your breakes – and with the protraction of a Line, ’tis Lucretic5 and your Version is just, ’tis presse, ’tis strong, ’tis numerous and shining as the Author where it should nitere6 so as here I may honestly, and with faithfullnes apply it Cur ego Amicum? Offendam in nugis?7 Why should I marr an excellent piece with my Impertinences? If for my owne Advantage (and I believe everybodys else) I would wish for any-thing more to adorne your next Edition, it should be the Inlarging of your choice, learned and usefull Notes, where you have field to cultivate the New Philosophie, and Communicate to our English-World the Erudition which I find you are Master of, by the tast you are pleas’d to present it: We see Hercules by his foote,8 and

1 Evelyn is replying to Creech’s letter of 26 October (Add 28167: f 23 [26.10.1682]). 2 flattery 3 sense, reflections 4 bile 5 like Lucretius, or concise (obs.) 6 shine 7 “Why should I offend a friend for trifles?” Horace, Ars Poetica, 451 (Fairclough, trans). 8 “Ex pede Herculem.” “From his foot, Hercules [can be measured].” See Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 1.1: “Plutarch says that the philosopher Pythagoras reasoned sagaciously and acutely in determining and measuring the hero’s superiority in size and stature. For since it was generally agreed that Hercules paced off the racecourse of the stadium at Pisae, near the temple of Olympian Zeus, and made it six hundred feet long, and since other courses in the land of Greece, constructed later by other men, were indeed six hundred feet in length, but yet were somewhat shorter than that at Olympia, he readily concluded by a

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I againe declare the Value and Esteeme I have both for the Author and his Version without Complements, who am Sir, Your etc.

White-hall 29 November – 1682

Thomas Butler Letter 451 (449) [n.d.]#1 f 17v

Epistle CCCCXXXXIX To my Lord of Ossorie made Knight of the Garter etc.2

My noblest Lord, This Accession of this new honoure has put you but equal with your merits; and since I mark in you the same incorruptibilitie in all changes; you must needes have the same Veneration from all who know you: Truely, the Elements have neither lightnes nor weight in their proper places, and all dignities must be so natural to you, as being added to the noblenesse of your Illustrious birth, they can cause neither Vanitie, nor excesse, as they commonly do in Soules not accostom’d to them: The most noble and ordinary of your Passions have ever ben to Oblige many, and do good offices; so as your dignitie is not so much an ornament to your Name, as a Compensation of your Merits, and his Majesties discernement appeares in nothing more, than in advancing brave men: But my Lord you neede no Laurells, the Land, and Seas are my Wittnesse, that I flatter not, when I say the greatest things of my Lord of Ossorie: He ownes me for the oldest Acquaintance he has in England (my Lord Duke3 excepted)[;] for the rest, though I hold not rank with the Greate, that I should presume to use intitle my selfe to that honour (I mean of being your long

process of comparison that the measured length of Hercules’ foot was greater than that of other men in the same proportion as the course at Olympia was longer than the other stadia. Then, having ascertained the size of Hercules’ foot, he made a calculation of the bodily height suited to that measure, based upon the natural proportion of all parts of the body, and thus arrived at the logical conclusion that Hercules was as much taller than other men as the race course at Olympia exceeded the others that had been constructed with the same number of feet” (Rolfe, trans). 1 As Evelyn recognizes, the letter is misplaced. Butler had died on 30 July 1680. Evelyn had met Butler in France in 1650 (Diary III.2) and attended him on his deathbed. He gives an account of his “most noble & illustrious friend” in Diary IV.208–11. 2 Butler was created Knight of the Garter on 30 September 1672, and installed on 25 October. 3 presumably his father, James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond

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Acquaintance) I dare yet dispute the Title with the greatest on Earth who shall pretend to honour you more than dos My Lord your Lordships: etc. [LM: This is misplac’d.]4

Henry Bennet Letter 452 (450) February 13, 1683 f 18

Epistle CCCCL To my Lord Chamberlaine:1

My Lord, The greate Veneration which Sir Richard Browne2 had allways for Your Lordship and the continual, and gratefull sense of the many Obligations derived upon him from your Lordship in a period of so much Vicissitude and experience of noble and steady Friends, assures me that your Lordship will generously receive this Accknowledgement from one to whome he has so often profess’d it: That worthy Gentleman is now dead, and we are performing the last offices: My Wife is in greate affliction; but her discretion will take place, when Nature has pay’d that tendernes she owes; nor can I be unsensible of my particular losse of a Relation so neere, and for many reguards: My Lord I have lost a worthy friend, and the losse of such a friend would be a diminution insupportable without the continuance of your Lordships favour and protection, under which I hope I may succeede my Father in Law; being as intirely devoted to your Lordship and Illustrious Family as any poore Servant you have alive. My Lord, the shelter which I have hitherto received under his Majestie’s roofe, upon the Account of Sir Richard, will I doubt not, through your Lordships kindnesse, be continu’d to me; and since his Majestie has ben pleas’d to expresse the Satisfaction he receiv’d from an old, a faithfull, a loyal and deepely-suffering Servant, I cannot but hope he retaines yet some reserves of Favour and Recompense for those he has left behind: It was Sir Richard’s and it is my humble suite to your Lordship that you would please to present his duty to his Majestie and supplicate the continuance of his Royal and gracious favour to My Lord Your etc. Says-Court: 13 February:–1682/3

4 If this letter was written when Butler was created Knight of the Garter, it may have been written as early as 1672. 1 Bennet had become lord chamberlain in 1674, and held the office until his death in 1685. As lord chamberlain, he was responsible for providing accommodation for Sir Richard Browne at Whitehall, accommodation which Evelyn hoped to retain. 2 Sir Richard Browne died on 12 February 1683 (Diary IV.302).

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Mary Tuke, née Sheldon1 Letter 453 (451) February 13, 1683#2 f 18

Epistle CCCCLI To my Lady Tuke of the Bed-Chamber to the Queene etc.

Madame, The Condolences of Surviving Friends are not onely a greate Civilitie, but an aleviation of that griefe, the losse of those who are gon from us dos naturaly induce: And though there have nothing happn’d to us but what Sir Richards Age and Infirmities had long prepar’d us to expect, yet the many yeares Acquaintance and habitudes of kind, and worthy Friends, indeare their Memories, and when they depart from us, though to better and more happy abodes: My Wife (who humbly kisses your Ladyships hands) is yet in the Circumstances of one much afflicted for the losse of so deare a Relation; but I hope Time, and recollection will so moderate it: Your Ladyship will easily imagine we are in some disorder upon this Occasion, ’til we have Interr’d the good man, which we intend on Moneday next,3 with as little pomp and Vanity as Decency and his qualitie permitts, and that being over, the greate Civilities and other obligations will bring me to Accknowledge them as becomes Madame Your etc. Says-Court 13 February – 1682/3

1 Mary Tuke, née Sheldon (d. 1705; Diary). She became the second wife of Sir Samuel Tuke in 1668 and dresser to Catherine of Braganza with whom she went to Portugal in 1692. In a letter to Ralph Bohun (Add 78438: f 3 [17.7.1669?]), Mary Evelyn, who liked her, describes her marrying Tuke “after living seven years a Channonesse, which includes all the strictnesse of a Nun.” In 1683 she proposed that Mary Evelyn Jr come to court as a maid of honour, possibly to Princess Anne (Add 78435: f 77 [5.6.1683]; f 78 [10.6.1683]; f 79 [13.6.1683]). Much of her life after her husband’s death was impoverished and dependent upon the court. 2 As Lady Tuke’s letter of condolence (Add 78435: f 74 [16.2.1683]) is dated 16 February, this letter may be misdated. 3 The funeral took place on 19 February (Diary IV.302–4).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Prettyman Letter 454 (452) March 3, 1683 f 18r–v

703

Epistle CCCCLII To William Pretyman Esquire Master of the First-fruits Office etc.

Sir, Ther’s a Maxime in Law Actio moritur cum personâ,1 and I should be sorry that the long Animositie, betweene you and Sir Richard Browne (my lately deceasd Father in Law) should be continu’d upon me, who have never (knowingly) ben the least occasion of either beginning, or promoting it: I came into your Relation; and have sacrific’d the best part of my Life (and no little of my Fortune too) in it, without any Retribution, Obligation, or Advantage competent to what I brought, and fairely might have expected; and you cannot but Remember how freely you once dispos’d2 of me and mine upon all Occasions: How, through your persuasion alone, I dearely re-imbours’d what you purchas’d here from an ill Title, by which you induc’d me to fling-away above £3000, when, sure I am, none else would have touch’d it, not to insist on the consequential losses, caused by my fixing here; so intirely I relyed on your Counsel and Friendship, preferrable to all my neerest Relations: In the meane time, you cannot forget, how oft’ in the worst of times etc. and when Sir Richard was in greatest necessitie, you have told, both me and my Wife, that her Father (then in Banishment for his Majesties Cause) living (as he did, without drawing any-thing from the conceild remainder) there would come a cleare, and solid estate to her, without your, or any other, so much as once pretending to any Interest in, or debt upon it: And now, the last, and dying words of Sir Richard (calling God and others to Witnesse) were, that he was not conscious to himselfe of any mony due to you from him (but what of kindnes he ever intended you, so soone as you and he had reckon’d) but did verily believe, it would appeare, you rather were indebted to him. These being the assertions of a dying Person, and who was leaving all his Secular Interests here, and so could gaine no real benefit, by affirming a thing so positively, and solemnly as he did, would induce one to believe that Passion, and the heate betweene you, might occasion greate mistakes, which a just, calme, and equitable Discussion of all Circumstances and Pretences, might Long-Since have prevented; and which he not onely offer’d, calling to you to Adjust Accompts, but for Eleven-yeares together, most earnestly, and from time to time intreated you. ’Tis somewhat strange to me, and to others, that you having so to our certaine knowledge, oft’ occasion for Considerable Summs, both before, and since 1 “The suit dies with the person.” Evelyn’s hope that Prettyman’s suit against Sir Richard Browne would not be carried on against himself was ill-founded. The case was not settled until 1687 (Diary IV.339–40 and passim.). 2 took advantage of

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Sir Richards returne, should never once declare so much, importune him for it, or offer to produce your Accompt upon so many yeares calling on you for it, and when he likewise had it in his full resolution, and was able to gratifie you: but, since which, you have ben the occasion of spending more at Law, than I believe he owed in all the world besides: But these things are past, and I recite them with regret; nor do I write this in the least to reproch, much lesse exasperate you; but, to testifie, how sorry I am, that there has ben such a breach betweene such Friends, and Relations, and that no Composure has ben able to reconcile it: I do not know what farther measures you intend to take, now Sir Richard is dead and gon, and that I may happly by be Interested in the Concerne; but, in Case it be so, I should think a faire, and just Accommodation might be made at a greate-deale easier rate betweene Friends (prudent and worthy Persons, indifferently chosen to examine all pretences) than to Revive, and Commence this tedious and unpleasant Controversy againe from its first Original, at the expense of so much Charge, Time, and the Anxiety of mind, which the uncertainty of Events, dos usualy carry with it: Be assurd Sir, that I write not this out of the least Diffidence, but as a Christian, in all sincerity, without Passion, or personal Un-kindnes, I propose this expedient: If otherwise, with the same Resolutions of governing my-selfe in this Affaire as becomes me, Acquiesce, and remaine Sir Your etc. Says-Court 3: March–1682/3

Thomas Creech Letter 455 (453) March 4, 1683 f 18v

Epistle CCCCLIII To Mr. Creech of Waddam Oxford

Sir, The honor you have don me makes me blush; but my misfortune has ben some Advantage to me; that the Gentleman who was pleas’d to bring me your Munificence, did not see my Confusion; being so Unhappily-happy not to be at home when he was at my house, nor at White-hall when he came to Court: How do you think I can support the Dignitie you have plac’d me in, who was but a Counter in your hand, compar’d to that Assembly of Encomiasts?1 But you assume the Licence of a Pöet Quidlibet audendi2 – and I must submit – For the rest Sir, I am now grown bold, ev’n to Confidence, that my Judgement’s sound and good, having the Suffrages of such worthy, and discerning Persons, as I find waiting on 1 The second edition of Creech’s translation of Lucretius had commendatory verses from Tate, Otway, Aphra Behn, Waller, Duke, and Evelyn. 2 “in hazarding anything” Horace, Ars Poetica 451 (Fairclough, trans)

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your triumphs; for who ever Conquer’d such a Province with equal successe! Who sendforth two such Editions in so few Yeares, as you have Moneths! Sir, The mighty honor you have acquir’d me, and the present you have made me and my Sonn,3 redouble the Obligations of Sir Your etc Says-Court 4: March–1682/3

Robert Plot1 Letter 456 (454) March 16, 1683 f 19r–v

Epistle CCCCLIV

Se Epistle 650 p. 149.2

To Dr. Plot Doctor of Medicine3 Oxford [RM: Author of the Natural History of Oxfordshire, Staffordshire etc. and Professor Ashmoliana etc., desiring this from me for the Author4 of the Oxford Antiquities 2: Ed.]

3 John Evelyn Jr. He translated (from Latin) Rapin, Hortorum libri IV (Paris, 1665; Eve.b.1) in 1673 (Of Gardens. Four books, first written in Latine verse by Renatus Rapinus; Eve.a.48); Plutarch, “The Life of Alexander the Great,” in The fourth volume of Plutarch’s lives. Translated From the Greek, by several hands (London, 1685; in the 1687 library catalogue), 257–391; and (from French) François de Chassepol, The History of the grand visiers, Mahomet, and Achmet Coprogli, of the three last grand signiors, their sultana’s and chief favourites; with the most secret intrigues of the seraglio (London, 1677; Evelyn Library, no 1734); his only other publication was To the king [James II]: a congratulatory poem (London, 1685) (Eve.b.14[2]). Creech cites Evelyn and Waller in the preface as evidence of learned approval of his work. 1 Robert Plot (1640–96; ODNB). An antiquary and scientist, Plot was a fellow of the Royal Society (1677). A graduate of Oxford (DCL 1671), he was professor of chemistry and keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He published The Natural History of Oxfordshire (Oxford, 1677) and The Natural History of Staffordshire (Oxford, 1686; in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.c.2), and collaborated with Evelyn on a paper on the effects of frost on vegetation (Philosophical Transactions xiv, 1684) as well as publishing a number of other papers in the Philosophical Transactions. 2 Letter 653 (29 May 1691) to Anthony Wood 3 Plot was a doctor of common laws but not of medicine. 4 Anthony Wood (1632–95; ODNB). A graduate of Oxford (BA 1652, MA 1655), Wood was an antiquary and historian. He compiled Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1674; English translation, 1691) and the biographical reference work Athenæ Oxoniense (London, 1691). He left other unpublished antiquarian works.

706

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Sir, That I may Answer to your queries from that obliging person who earnestly requires them (though unknowne to me, otherwise than from his learned works) not without a blush, I put these following paper and particulars into your hands, to dispose of them as you think fit, and as far as in Christian modestie (without vaine glory) permitts, and hardly so far – To your first Quærie then – I was Borne at Wotton in the County of Surry (being the Antient Seate of the Evelyns, since they came from *Shrop-shire to Harrow on the Hill in Middlesex, some ages since and from Long-Ditton in the Surry, some ages since) [RM: *Shropshire Evelyn a Towne in that County[;] Onslow and Hatton all thre Families, coming into Surry from places of their name in Shropshire:] upon the 31 and last of October in the Yeare 1620. I was educated at the Free-Schole of Lewes in Sussex, in which County my Grandfather (by my Mother) left me some considerable estate: From thence Anno 1637, I went to Balliol Colledge in Oxford, where I continu’d about three Yeares fellow Commoner under the Tuition of one Bradshaw,5 afterwards Master thereof, a person of disloyal Principles, as I heard afterwards, but far otherwise whilst I was his pupil: Thence Anno 1640 I was sent to the Middle Temple London, where I continued ’til the Rebellion broke-out; when in the yeare 1644, having permission under his Majestie’s hand and seale Charles I dated at Oxford, after the Kings Victorie at Branford6 (at which time I was in his Majestie’s Armie) his Majestie was pleas’d to give me a License to Travell, in reguard my Estate lay all within the Rebells quarters: So I continu’d abroad going and coming neere upon seaven yeares, and Travelling the politer countries of Europe: til: 1647[.] In my returne through France out of Italy, I married the sole Daughter and Heyresse of Sir Richard Browne Knight and Baronet then Resident Ambassador for their Majesties Charles I and II in the French Court: I was since his present Majesties happy Restauration (together with Sir Thomas Clifford late Lord High Tressurer of England etc.) made one of the Commissioners for the taking Care of the Sick and Wounded Sea-men and Prisoners at War, during our hostilitie against the French and Hollanders: 1665 ad 1672. Afterwards (amongst divers of the first Nobillitie, viz. the Duke of Yorke, Prince Rupert, Earle of Sandwich,7 Earl of Shaftsbery,8 Earl of Lauderdale,9 The two Secretaries of State,10 Lord Culpeper,11 Lord Gorges,12 Sir Humphrey Winch, Mr. Henry Brounchar,13 Mr. Edmund Waller Mr., Collonel Titus, Mr. Slingsby Master of the Mint) made one of the

5 George Bradshaw, (b. c.1610; Diary, F). A graduate of Oxford (MA 1635) and possibly rector of Wisley (1639–45), Bradshaw was master of Balliol (1646–51) where he was Evelyn’s tutor. 6 Brentford; see Diary II.79. 7 Edward Mountagu 8 Anthony Ashley Cooper 9 John Maitland, duke of Lauderdale (1616–82; ODNB) 10 Sir John Trevor and Henry Bennet 11 Thomas Colepeper 12 Richard Gorges, 2nd Baron Gorges of Dundalk (Ireland) (1620–1712; Diary) was a member, with Evelyn, of the Council for Foreign Plantations established in 1671. 13 Henry Brouncker

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707

Council of all his Majestie’s forraine Plantations14 etc. [RM: and since one of the Commissioners of the Privy Seale which is the 4th office belonging to the Crowns and next the Lord High Tressurers.] But most of all affecting a private and studious life, and being of the first of those Gentlemen who met for the promotion and establishment of the Royal Society: The following books and Treatises (as publique Affaires gave me opportunity) have ben written and publish’d by me. Translations   1. Of Liberty and Servitude. London. 1649 12o.   2. The French Gardner and English Vineyard 1658. 12o. 3 Editions   3. An Essay on the first Book of Lucretius etc. 1656. 8o:   4. Gaspar Naudæus Instructions concerning Libraries 1661. 8o.   5. A Paralelle of the Antient Architecture with the Modern with a Treatise of Statues etc. fol. 1664. folio   6. An Ideä of the Perfection of Painting. 1668. 8o:   7. The Mysterie of Jesuitisme two parts. 8o:   8. St Chrysostome, golden book for the Education of children, out of the Greeke 1659. 12o 8o:   9. No translations   1. An Apologie for the Royal party. 1659. 4o. 3 Editions:   2. Panegyric, at his Majestie’s Coronation. 1661. folio  3. Fumifugium, or a Prophetic Invective against the Aire and Smoke of London, with its Remedies 1661. 4o:  4. Sculptura, or the Historie of the Art of Chalcography 1662. 8o.   5. Publique Employment and an Active Life preferr’d to solitude 1667. 8o.   6. Historie of the Three late Impostors Padre Ottomane  7. [sic] Sabatai Sævi and the pretended Serini etc. 1669. 8o:  8. Kalendarium Hortense etc. 1679. 8o. Six Editions.  9. Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees etc. fol. 1679. 3 Editions: 10. Terra: or a Philosophical Discourse of Earth. 1679. 2 Editions 11. Tyrannus, or the Mode. 8o: The Dignitie of Man etc. – not printed } neere ready Elysium Britanicum – not printed } etc. [RM: Prepard for the presse since: a Discourse of Medals: Of Manuscripts[,] Of Staves, Of Reason in Brute Animals, Medals] But the Universitie, as a mark of her more particular (though altogether undeserv’d) esteme, did by publique Decree, owne the obtaining of the Marmora Arundelliana15 (which first of all rendred venerable the learned Walls of the Sheldonian Theater) to the sole 14 on 26 May 1671; see Diary III.578–80, and 578 nn 5–13. 15 the classical inscriptions collected by Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel.

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motion, and Interest I had us’d, and had with that Illustrious Benefactor, the present Duke of Norfolck,16 as appeares by the Subsequent Record

Gesta in venerabili Domo Convocationis Universitatis Oxoniensis Octobri 17: 1667. Quo die e[x]statit ad Senatum Academicum, Dominus Vicecancellarius, quantum Universitas deberet singulari benevolentiæ Johannis Evelyn Armigeri, qui pro eâ pie[t]ate quâ Almam Matrem prosequitur, non solum suasu, et Consilio apud inclitum Heroem Henricum Howard Ducis Norfolciæ hæredem intersit, et Universitati pretiosissimum Eruditæ Antiquitatis Thesaurum Marmora Arundeliana largiretur; sed egregium insuper in iis Colligendis asservandisque navavit operam. Quapropter unanimi Suffragio Venerabilis Domus decretum est, ut eidem Publicæ Gratiæ per Delegator ad Honoratissimum Dominum Henricum Howard, propediem mittendos solemniter reddantur.17 [LM: which were the present Dr. Barlow18 Bishop of Lincoln: Lionel Jenkins19 President of Jesus College, since Secretary of State, and Obadia Walker Head of University College who all three came down to my house with this Instrument and to give me solemn Thanks in the Name of the University20 I have since these have the honour of being one of the Commissioners] I was then honord likewise with the Degree of Doctor Juris etc.21 after the publique Encænia or Dedication of the Theater, what time the Duke of Ormond22 their Chancelor received the like degree, and first Congratulations of the University, by a long and eloquent Oration in Latin, pronouncd by Dr. South23 Orator Publicus. My Sonn, bearing my Name, and not long since of Trinity College (under the Tuition of Dr. Batthurst24 Deane of Wells, and President; and Dr. Ralph Bohune of New College) 16 Henry Howard, 6th duke 17 “Acts in the venerable House of Convocation at the University of Oxford, October 17, 1667.” Because, Mr. Vice Chancellor, it has been shown to the Academic Senate how much the university is indebted to the extraordinary benevolence of John Evelyn Esquire, who, on account of the dutifulness with which he honours his alma mater, not only by persuasion and advice intervenes on behalf of our renowned hero Henry Howard, heir of the duke of Norfolk, and bestows the most precious treasure of learned antiquity, the Arundel Marbles; but above all he has devoted himself to their collection and preservation. For this reason, by the unanimous vote of the venerable House it is decreed that public thanks be duly bestowed on him by the delegation that is soon to be sent to the most honourable Lord Henry Howard.” 18 19 20 21 22 23

Thomas Barlow Sir Leoline Jenkins (1625–85; ODNB, H) Evelyn describes this visit on 25 October 1667 (Diary III.498–500). Doctor of Civil Laws James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond Robert South (1634–1716; ODNB). South was public orator of Oxford (1660–7) and made DD and prebendary of Westminster in 1663. 24 Ralph Bathurst

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709

has translated and publishd a translation of Rapinus’s Hortorum25 in Latin Verse, and the Historie of the Grand Visiers Mahomet Caproli etc.26 and since out of the Greeke, Plutarchs life of Alexander Magnus27 all printed with severall poemes inserted in the best collection of the Later Witts etc.28 all printed, and he is since made one of the Commissioners of Extra the Revenue in Ireland.

Extract follows an Extract 29 Sir, We intend also a Noble Inscription, in which honorable *mention shall be made of yourselfe: [LM: *wholy declined] But Mr. Vice-Chancellor commands me to tell you, that that was not sufficient for your Merits; but that if your Occasions would permit you to come down at the Act (when we intend the dedication of our new Theater) some other Testimony should be given both of your owne worth, and affection to this your old Mother: for we are all very Sensible of this greate Addition of Learning and Reputation to the Universitie is due as well to your Industrious Care for the University, and Interest with my Lord Howard, as to his greate Nobleness and generositie of Spirit. I am Sir Your most   humble Servant. Obadiah Walker. University College 24: September 1667

Extract 30 Sir, We must never forget the Obligation which my Lord Marshall31 has laied upon the University in the Donation of his Marbles; and while we remember that, cannot chose to but beare in mind your greate Kindnesse in that affaire: Having at last finish’d the Account of his and our other Monuments, they all are dedicated to my Lord, and would be presented by to him, by the Mediation of the same Person who was Instrumental in the Gift of them. The bearer hereof is the Editor,32 by whose Industrie and Care the Work was don, and he is order’d by Mr. Vice-Chancellor,33 in the Name of the University, to present you with 25 Of Gardens (London, 1673; Eve.a.48) 26 The History of the grand viziers (London, 1677; Evelyn Library, no 1734) 27 “The Life of Alexander the Great,” in The fourth volume of Plutarch’s lives. Translated From the Greek, by several hands (London, 1685; in the 1687 library catalogue), 257–391. 28 Poems by several hands, and on several occasions collected by N. Tate (London, 1685; in the 1687 library catalogue) 29 See the draft in Bodleian Ms Ballard 9: f 9. 30 See the copy in Bodleian Ms Ballard 9: f 9. 31 Henry Howard, 6th duke, who became earl marshal in 1672 32 Humphrey Prideaux, editor of Marmora Oxoniensia, ex Arundellianis, Seldenianis, aliisque conflata (Oxford, 1676; Evelyn Library, no 1215, presentation copy) 33 Ralph Bathurst

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a Copy, as a Testimonie of the Sense they have of your favour to them. This is all I have to trouble you with at the Instant, adding my Wishes of all health to you, I remaine, Sir your most faithful friend and humble servant John Oxoford [RM: Dr. Fell] April 26 1676.

Sir, I repeate not these two Letters as fit to be Inserted: but to vindicate my Title to the Honour of having obtain’d those Marbles for the University, when they were not so much as thought of. [LM: I have had since the honour of serving his Majestie as one of the Commissioners for executing the office of Lord Privy-Seale which is the fourth Office of State in the Kingdom, and this by Pattent, during the time of the Earle of Clarendons34 Lieutenancy in Ireland.] And now, Doctor ’Tis verily beyond all Modestie, that I who have so studiously declin’d Knight-hoods, and other honorable Employments at Court; should by you be Courted into this Egregious Vanity: And I know not how to have suffer’d my selfe to be over-come, and to shew you my best side, whilst I should blush for my greate follies, and Imperfections: Nothing Sir, but your Candor, and the honor which I owe indeede to my honest Family, could have perswaded me to this Impertinence; and it were a shame for me to owne, what is here written; and therefore the Gentleman who intends me this honor, must by no meanes be told that you have the paper from my-selfe, unlesse you will expose me for the most ambitious Creature in the World, who desire no greater honor than that of being esteem’d Sir, Your etc. Says Court: 16 March–1682/3

As for the Gentlemen’s other quærie Brian the Son of Jeoffrey Duppa35 was baptiz’d 18 March 1588. and was borne in the Vicarage-house at Lewsham neere the Church. Mr. Sedgwick 36 (a reputed Anabaptist) and somwhat whimsical, went to London and died there, but where, I cannot find; nor of Aegeon Askew.37 34 Henry Hyde; Evelyn served as a commissioner of the Privy Seal from December 1685 to March 1687 35 Brian Duppa (1588–1662; ODNB) was dean of Christ Church (1629–38). After being tutor to the Prince of Wales and duke of York, he became consecutively bishop of Chichester and Salisbury. After the Restoration he became bishop of Winchester (1660–2). 36 William Sedgewick (1609–63/64; ODNB) was a graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford (BA 1628, MA 1631). During the civil war and interregnum he was chaplain to a regiment, published many religious works, and was chief preacher at Ely. He conformed at the Restoration. He may have held a living at Lewisham, where he died. 37 Egeon Askew (1575/6–1637; ODNB) graduated Oxford (BA 1597), and became chaplain of Queen’s ­College (1598), minister of Greenwich (c.1603), and later rector of Great Hampden in Buckinghamshire. He published Brotherly Reconcilement (London, 1605).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Fitzgerald1 Letter 457 (455) March 23, 1683 f 20

711

Epistle CCCCLV To the Earle of Killdare:

My Lord, The Bearer hereof *Mr. Gibbons,2 [RM: *by me first brought, and recomended to his Majestie before he was knowne to any, or taken notice of.] being so universaly known and renoun’d for the Carving Worke which he has don at his Majestie’s Palace and Castle of Windsore3 and other places, to be the most excellent of his Profession, not onely in England, but the whole World besides, needes none of my Rhetoric to recommend him to your Lordship however, since he believes I may Countenance his Request in bespeaking your Lordship’s Preference for the Carving about the house, he tells me your Lordship is building: I am confident I shall do your Lordship a service, as well as Mr. Gibbon a Pleasure, in wishing your Lordship would employ so Ingenious and able an Artist, and honest man, who am, My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 23 March–1682/3

Mr. Gibbon Having the honor to be related to the Earle of Kildare, and that I have so excellent an Artist to Recommend as Mr. Gibbon; I think you shall not neede the Intercession of any body else, to bespeake his Lordship’s favour, if you waite on him with this Script, from your friend JE:

1 John Fitzgerald, 18th earl of Kildare (1661–1707; Diary). Fitzgerald was a nephew of Elizabeth MacCarty, and hence a cousin of Evelyn’s wife. Evelyn records a visit from him on 26 May 1681 (Diary IV.247). 2 Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721; ODNB, Diary). Evelyn writes that he discovered the woodcarver Gibbons working near Sayes-Court (Diary III.567–8). Evelyn subsequently introduced him to Charles II on 18 January 1671 (568, 571–3), an introduction which led to Gibbons working at Windsor, Whitehall, and Kensington. He also executed carving at Blenheim, St Paul’s, Canterbury Cathedral, and the Royal Exchange. This letter of introduction is in response to a letter from him on 23 March 1682 asking Evelyn’s help in getting a commission from John Fitzgerald (Add 78318: f 12 [23.3.1682]). See Beard, The Work of Grinling Gibbons. 3 Evelyn describes Gibbons’s work in the King’s Chapel at Windsor during his visit on 16 June (Diary IV.316–17).

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 458 (456) April 5, 1683 f 20

Epistle CCCCLVI To Sidny Godolphin Esquire etc. one of the Lords Commissioners of the Tressury:

Friend, It would reproch me that I had not ben so good a steward for our deare Child,1 if the now yeare and halfe’s Arrers due from my Lord – –2 and one yeare from Esquire Wray,3 had not disabl’d me from improving the stock you have concredited to my trust, with the same successe, as ’til this Interruption I did: And this is the Cause I have not rendred you this last yeares Accompt as I was us’d to do, and with more exactnesse, beginning Michaelmas 1679 to this day, and in due forme: When had our Creditors Debtors ben punctual, our principle had shew’d handsomly, with sufficient Cash besides for all other Expenses. My Lady S–4 has so often, and so prestely promisd to discharge that part, that I even blush for her needelesse repetition of it, without effects: I now waite her returne, and cannot think of an Evasion she has not made use of to deferr it longer: As to Esquire Wray, he is come to Town, and bids me prepare to receive both Principal and Interest which is £530 upon a very good Mortgage in Lincoln-shire: I mention these Particulars, to receive your positive Directions how I shall dispose of this Summ when it comes: In the interim, I hope, you are not displeas’d with me for not purchasing a stock in that Company5 (at so exorbitant a rate as I have lately parted with mine) which has so egregiously, and beyond all Imagination (since I sold) sunk itselfe; Though the stock was redoubl’d by the Adventurers, and but one dividend these Two past yeares: The Actions are now very low againe; If you persist in your good opinion of an Improvement still that way: We have an odd £500 at Sir Stephen Foxes, which if you please, may purchase a stock for the young Gentleman. But I ought not to do it without your fiat (whatever absolute leave you give me of managing all your Concerne). The truth is, I cannot advise to hazard that Summ, nor perhaps would you: If they buy now for £150 (as I heare) £300 will purchase us £200:

1 Francis Godolphin 2 Robert Spencer; see Letter 569. 3 William Wray (d. 1685/6). He was the son of Sir William Wray who had travelled with Evelyn on the continent and had died in 1669. His elder brother, Sir Christopher, predeceased him in 1679. The family was related to Evelyn through the Foljambes. 4 Lady Sunderland (Anne Spencer) 5 The East India Company. Evelyn had sold his stock in December 1682 to the Royal Society (Diary IV.297–8).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

713

but I shall take my Measures from you, and then the Market at best advantage, who am most indearedly Yours London 5 Aprill 1683

Jonathan Taylor Letter 459 (457) [n.d.]#1 f 20r–v

Epistle CCCCLVII To Mr. Jonathan Taylor in Sumerset-shire

Sir, It was just a moneth after the Date of your Letter (communicating to me the Death of that excellent Person Dr. Beale of Yeovell ) came to my hands: You else might wonder, what should render me so remisse in expressing my deepest resentments for the Losse of so worthy a Friend. But the Cause has proceeded from a Mistake in the Superscription, which directing it to Surrey, instead of Kent, it has made a Circle among Relations there of my Name, before it ariv’d at Says-Court: For the rest Sir, you have certainely don me right: The Doctor [w]as a most inestimable Friend of mine; one to whom I was Signaly Oblig’d for many favours and learned Correspondencies, too many for me to enumerate, or indeede to Celebrate as they justly merite: I have therefore read your Letter and imparted his Ladys Request to the Royal Society, who are no lesse sensible of this losse, not onely to that Assembly, but to the Learned World: They have not yet esteem’d it so suitable to the gravity of their Institution, to preserve the Memorie of so meritorious a Member of it, by writing Verses, and Elegies (which you seeme to hint) as by some honorable Mention of him in their next Transactions, which will not onely be a more permanent Monument of their value for him, but more Universal: This Sir, I had in charge to say, In the meane time, though I cannot reach his due Prayses in so narrow a Table as Epitaph requires; I cast in my Symbol, and would adorne his Monument with all that might expresse the greate Reguard I shall ever retaine for his Memorie and Virtue who am Sir Your etc. A. X P. M. D .O. M. S. ASSURGITE. QUOTQUOT. ESTIS. ERUDITI QUI. LIMINA. HAEC. ADITIS.

1 after mid-May, 1683; Beale was buried in Yeovil on 16 April.

714

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn NON. CINERUM. URNAM. (QUAE MORTALIUM. TANTUM. LEIPSANA. CONTEGIT) VIDETIS. SED. MEMORIAE. FAMAE. QUE. SUMMI. VIRI. MONUMENTUM. CUIUS. VIRTUTES. NON. MARMORA. HAEC. SED. MAUSOLEUM. MERVERE. HIC. SITUS. EST. JOHANNES. BEALE. S.S. THEOL. PROFESSOR. SOCIETATIS. REG. SOCIUS. PHILOSOPHUS. MATHEMATICUS. HISTORICUS. PHILOLOGUS. POESI. ET RE. ANTIQUARIA. CLARISS. IN. STOA. IN. ACADEMIA. IN LYCEO. IN HORTIS. ILLUSTRIS. EXTERAS. NATIONES. INVISIT. MORES. HOMINUM. NOVIT. OMNIUM. VIRTUTES. COLUIT. PIUS. VENERABILIS. PRUDENS. HOSPITALIS. IUCUNDUS. ET. OMNIBUS. CHARUS. SINE. QUERELA. VIXIT. OMNIUM. DOLORE. MORITUR. XVIII. KAL. MAJ. ANN. CL LXLXXXIII. AETAT. LXXXIV IN. HAC. ECCLESIA.* (CUIUS. VIGILANTISSIMUS. ERAT. PASTOR.) AETERNUM. SUI. DESIDERIUM. RELINQUENS. IOANNES. EVELYNUS. DE Says-Court IN. AGRO. CANTIANO AMICO VETERI. ET. OPTIMO. GRATI. ANIMI. EPITAPHIUM. P.P2 C

[LM: *or Hujus Ecclesiæ (cujus vigilantissimus erat pastor) Evergetes Meritissimus)]

Or instead of Ecclesia, Parochia Here may something be added concerning if you please, though more modern. his pious Lady and Children of which you give me no account.

2 “He has set up the monument for a friend, to God most good, great and holy. Rise however many you are, learned men, who approach these boundaries. You see not the urn of ashes (which conceals merely the mortal remains) but a monument of the memory and fame of an excellent man whose virtues deserved not these marbles but a mausoleum. Here lies John Beale, by the power of the Holy Spirit Professor of

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Evans Letter 460 (458) May 31, 1683 f 20v

715

Epistle CCCCLVIII To Mr. Evans Vicar of St. Helens London

[LM: For whom I procur’d that Living; finding him a Curat in an obscure Country Parish wher I accidentaly heard him once preach.]1 Sir, At my Returne from London the last night, I found a pacquet directed to me, and in it a Book (concerning the Lawfullnes of Receiving the Holy Sacrament Kneeling)2 which had not the Author ben suggested to me, I might easily have concluded to be Mr. Evans, to whom I find my selfe obliged, by a former present, for which this comes to returne him my thankes in particular: But the Publique is obliged to you for them also no lesse, for the good Effects they must needes produce by the cogency of your Arguments, the clearenes of your Reasoning, and whatsoever else may qualifie you a Worke-man who needes not be ashamed.3 And if from such a Character (as all who reade your discourse, must needes allow you) I derive the vanity of approving my owne discernement, so that from the first time I heard you, I gave Judgement of your excellent Talent, and endeavor’d it might not be buried in a Napkin:4 Proceede Sir still, and Improve, as you do, and if in any thing I may farther signifie, freely command Sir Your etc. Says-Court 31 May 1683

Theology, member of the Royal Society, philosopher, mathematician, historian, philologist, most celebrated in poetry and antiquities, distinguished in the stoa [of Zeno], the Academy [of Plato], the Lyceum [of Aristotle], the gardens [of Epicurus]. He visited foreign nations, knew the customs of men, cultivated the virtues of all. Dutiful, reverend, wise, hospitable, agreeable and dear to all, he lived without a grievance and died to the grief of all on 14 April 1683 at the age of 84. In this church (of which he was the most vigilant pastor) John Evelyn of Sayes Court, in the county of Kent, who leaves behind eternal grief for him, has set up this epitaph for an old friend and with utmost gratitude.” See also Add 78359: f 35 for another text of Evelyn’s epitaph.

1 2 3 4

See Letter 418 The case of kneeling at the Holy Sacrament stated & resolved (London, 1683; in the 1687 library catalogue). 2 Timothy 2:15 hidden, lost in obscurity

716

Jael Boscawen Letter 461 (459) June 1, 1683 f 21

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCLIX To Madame Boscawen etc. –

[RM: Sister to my Friend Mr. Godolphin] Madame, I have not expected you hitherto, but griev’d that the Weather has prov’d so unkind, as to hinder me from the sight, and Conversation of my best of Friends; This comes to learne how you all do, and tell you what I do; Pray for you, and for that Paradisian day, which may invite you to the poore Villa, when you are so charitably dispos’d: Hearing not one Syllable from the greate Lady,1 I take the boldnesse to charge you with the Conveyance of the inclos’d: I find we Country People, are soone forgotten at Court, and I take the liberty to complaine a little of it, as there is reason: Service to all my worthy friends in Suffolckstreete: Blessings to Masse,2 and all that I can devise of good wishes to you from Madame Your etc. Says Court: 1. June. 1683.

Anne Spencer Letter 462 (460) June 1, 1683 f 21

Epistle CCCCLX To the Countesse of Sunderland etc.

Madame, ’Tis now so long a day since I heard from your Ladyship that I have ben seeking for a fault,1 I may most innocently have Committed, that should eface me out of Memorie: But then indeede I did not well Consider the diversions of a Court, the Weight of StateAffaires, and the insignificancy of a Person that presumes to interrupt them; for which, though I may deservdly lie-under your Ladyships Displeasure; I cannot yet resigne the

1 Anne Spencer; see Letter 458 and Letter 462. 2 Francis Godolphin lived with Jael’s siblings in Suffolk St, London. 1 See Letter 461. Anne Spencer’s response is Add 15889: f 86 (6.6.1683).

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717

share I had in your Ladyships favour, and excellent nature, without reluctancy, and the letting her know so much, and how glad I should be to heare of your Prosperity, who am Madame Your etc.

Sayes-Court 1. June: 1683

Samuel Pepys Letter 463 (461) August 10, 1683 f 21

Epistle CCCCLXI To Samuel Pepys Esquire going to Tangier* etc. in Answer to his from Portsmouth:1

[RM: *he being then at Portsmouth with the Lord Dartmouth2 with the Fleete which went to blow up the Mole and demolish the Citty of Tangier. There accompanied them Dr. Kenn3 that excellent Preacher, since Bishop of Wells: Dr. Trumbul4 the learn’d Civilian, A choice and select band of Musitians etc.] Sir, I find my-selfe Surpriz’d, and o’re-joy’d together; the one by so unexpected an Occasion of your Absence from us; the other, for aboundance of Reasons, and that you are come into the Publique5 againe, and do not wholy resigne your-selfe to Speculation;6 nor withdraw your Industrious and steady hand from the Helme of that greate Vessel in which we are all Embarq’d with you. Mithinks I respire againe and worn as I am, hope to see the good effects of God-Almight[y]’s providences: ’Tis a fair Omen Sir, and illustrious mark of

1 Particular Friends, C17, 143–4. The original version of this letter is Bodleian Ms Rawl. A190: f 10. 2 George Legge; 1st Baron Dartmouth (c.1647–91; ODNB). Legge was master of horse and gentleman of the bedchamber to the duke of York in 1673. In 1682 he was created Baron Dartmouth of Dartmouth and in 1683 he was sent to Tangier. In 1685 he was made master of horse and governor of the Tower, and in 1688 he was made admiral and commander-in-chief of the fleet. 3 Thomas Ken (1637–1711; ODNB). A graduate of Oxford (BA 1661, MA 1664, DD 1679), Ken was chaplain to Evelyn’s friend, Bishop Morley, before becoming chaplain to Princess Mary at The Hague (1679–80). He was also chaplain to Lord Dartmouth at Tangier (1683–4) before becoming bishop of Bath and Wells (1684–9). 4 Sir William Trumbull (1639–1716; ODNB, H). He was made DCL of Oxford in 1667. In 1682 he was made clerk of the signet and accompanied Pepys and Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as a judge-advocate. He was knighted in 1684, and was ambassador to Turkey (1686–91). Having first been an MP in 1685–7 he was so again in 1695–8, and was also secretary of state (1695–7). 5 Pepys had been in prison in 1679 because of Dutch use of a ship list by him in attacks on English shipping. 6 studies

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his Majestie’s Discernement, that he Recalls, and makes Choice of such withy [worthy] Instruments, and no small blessing, that he has faculty (at last) to govern and dispose as he dos, after all the hardships, and contradictions of a wanton and giddy people, through which yet he is struggling:7 For the rest (not diving into this seacret) I much congratulate your felicity, and the infinite satisfaction you must derive from a Union you so so feelingly describe: Mithingks when you recount to me all the happy Circumstances of your Voyage, your noble and choice Companie, such usefull as well as delightfull Conversation, you leave us so naked at home, that ’til your Returne from Lybia Barbarie, we (whom you abandon) are in danger of becoming Barbarians. The Heros are all Embark’d with my Lord Dartmoth and Mr. Pepys; Nay they seeme to transport with them not a Colonie onely, but a whole Colledge, nay a Universitie, All the Sciences, all the Arts, and all the Professors of ’em too: What shall I say? You seeme to be in the Ship Athenæus8 tells us of that was so furnish’d with every thing the Land afforded, as it rather resembl’d a greate Citty, or Kingdome, than the floting artificial Creature of a Carpenter: M[a]y you be bless’d with as prosperous a Voyage and Expedition, as the Professors of so much real Virtue, and the Assembly of so many excellent and worthy Persons highly merit, and may I allways be numbered among the many who greately honour you who am Sir Your etc. Says-Court: 10: August. 1683

Had you time, I dare say, your Curiosity would among other things carry you to the Inquiry after Medalls and Inscriptions,9 frequently dug up about the old Tingis:10 Mr. Streeter11 will not be unmindfull of a poore Gard’ner, if he happen on any Kernels, or Seedes, of such Trees and Plants (especialy sempervirent) as grow about that Citty: Were it not possible to discover whether any of those Citern Trees12 are extant, that of old grew about the Foote of Mont Atlas? (not far from Tangir) and were heretofore in deliciis for their politure13 and natural machinations,14 to that degree, as estimated worth their weight in Gold? Cicero had a Table of one that cost him Ten-thousand Sestertias, and another (I read of ) valued at 140000 H.S. which at 3 pence per sestertia amounted to a pretty Summ, and one of the Ptolomies15

7 an allusion to the “Tory Reaction,” in the aftermath of the 1679–81 political crisis 8 An allusion to Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai 5.37–45 which provides an account of several ships built on a grand scale. An edition with notes by Isaac Casaubon (1600) was in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue. 9 Evelyn had a long correspondence with Pepys on this subject which was reflected in Evelyn’s Numismata (1697). See also Letter 619. 10 The ancient name for Tangier. See Pliny Historia Naturalis 5.14 or 13.91. 11 This appears to be a mistake for Henry Sheeres. 12 citron 13 delightful or valued for their polish 14 Probably a mistranscription for maculations (as in the original letter): markings for which this wood was highly valued. See Pliny, Historia Naturalis 13.96. According to Pliny, Cicero’s table actually cost half a million sestercies (Historia Naturalis 13.92). 15 Pliny cites Ptolemy of Mauretania as owning the largest citrus-wood table that he knows of (Historia Naturalis 13.92). Cicero refers to one such table in Verrine Orations 2.4.37.

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had yet another of far greater price, insomuch as when they us’d to reproch their Wives for their prodigality and Lux in Pearls and Points,16 they would briskly retort, and turne the Table on their Husbands: Now for that some Copies in Pliny read Cedria others Citria, it would be enquir’d what sort of Cedar (if any) grows there: But I am growing to be very impertinent and beg pardon. Henry Bennet Letter 464 (462) September 21, 1683 f 21v

Epistle CCCCLXII To the Earle of Arlington Lord Chamberlaine

[LM: Show’d his Majestie who kept it:] The Polititians were at a stand (my Lord) nor could our Skillfull’st Astrologers reade in all the Starrs, what should put the French King1 on so per’lous an Adventure, as to expect the Safe Returne of his Mighty Fleete from the Hyperborean2 Coasts, in a Season which uses to ruffle those Seas with such dreadfull stormes, and wrack the stoutest Vessels: But ther’s newes of late (my Lord) that they had for certaine Consulted the Oracle and that it was reveal’d told ’em [LM: note deleted] When Nine in Eight shall be full-fil’d, The Alcyon her Nest shal build, And (yeare revers’d) her season change, Bold Sea-men may the Ocean range; If first an Heroine bring-forth The Argo-naut of the far North; Who that Insulting Prince [LM: France] shall curb Loves Peace-full Neighbours to disturb, And Sweepe the Royal-Chambers cleere About the British Hemisphere.3

Which the Myrtes or Priest Interpreted to be, when her Grace the Dutchesse of Grafton4 should after the Nineth Moneth, be brought to bed of a Son5 in the Eight;6 and that in 16 The original letter reads “paint” (Particular Friends, 144). Evelyn may be confusing the word with “points,” meaning “lace or needlework,” a usage he employs in Sculptura (1662). 1 2 3 4 5

Louis XIV Danish See also the text of the poem in Add 78357: f 31. Isabella Fitzroy Charles Fitzroy, 2nd duke of Grafton (1683–1757; ODNB). The grandson of Charles II, Grafton was styled earl of Euston until 1690 when his father died, and became earl of Arlington after his mother’s death. 6 i.e., October. Charles Fitzroy Grafton was born on 25 October 1683.

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favour of that Accouchement, there should be no flaws, or stormes either at Land, or Seas, so long as she lay-inn, namely, during the whole Autumn, a thing (my Lord ) which has not happn’d within the memorie of Ages; but is in Augurie a signe of much felicitie to the Mother, greate Joy to the Father, and infinite satisfaction to the Royal and Illustrious Grandfather: And now (my Lord) the Cabinet is open, and the State-Seacret out, why the French sent their Fleete to Denmark, and her Grace is to expect Oblations from that greate Monarch to whom (next Heaven) his Vows are due: They were somewhat startl’d at first indeede, who the Oracle should meane by that Insulting Prince; but the Transport and Joy of being assur’d of a Prosperous Voyage, made the Greedy of Glory passe it over. This is (my Lord ) what I receiv’d from Mercurie this Morning, and ’tis sayd the Wallers and Drydens are Composing their Genethliacons;7 In a word, all the World is Full of ­Jubile and Albricias,8 whilst me-thinks I heare my Neighbour Sir William sing to his Grace. [LM: Sir William Boreman9 whos talent lay altogether in quibbles, at which his Majestie was us’d to laugh egregiously] All Joy, To the Illustrious Boy: and to the Mother! On that Faire Stock, let him Graft-on another: Says Court 21 September 1683

Christian Berkeley Letter 465 (463) November 26, 1683 ff 21v–2

Epistle CCCCLXIII To my Lady Berkely at Berkely House:

Madame, Though I had faithfully discharg’d the Injunction layd on me (by my Lord Bishop, of Oxford )1 to represent to your Ladyship the Perill of your Son2 at Paris, I cannot 7 birthday odes 8 baptismal robes 9 Sir William Boreman (c.1614–1686; Diary). Boreman was appointed chief clerk of the kitchen in 1660, and younger comptroller of the household in 1661. He was appointed elder clerk in 1664 before becoming junior clerk of the Green Cloth in 1680. Boreman lived at Greenwich and was one of the commissioners of the sewers who were responsible for the Mast Dock next to Sayes Court. Evelyn records dining and going to court with him (Diary III.270, 463, 503). 1 John Fell 2 John Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton (1663–97; ODNB). Lady Berkeley’s reply of 30 November states that she had no idea of his going beyond the school to the college or into commerce in Paris and that she will “by the next post send orders to have him removed” (Add 78308: f 205 [30.11.1683]).

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say I ­received that Resolution from your Ladyship which I hoped for, or that I have perform’d the part of one professing so greate reguard for your Ladyship and familie, ’til reflecting on something you were pleas’d to say, I declare my farther Apprehensions of it. The Placing of your Sonn in a Popish-Pension,3 and sending him to schole to the Jesuits, must needes be taken notice of, as altogether leading to his Education in that Religion; It cannot yet by me be believ’d, that it is your Ladyship’s designe; but that Method lookes so directly like it, that I see not how possibly he can be safe, and not in dangers of Perversion: But Madame, Why amongst the Papists at all? Why, much more, amongst the Jesuites? whose Principles are the most destructive, Immoral and pernicious in the World: Their doctrines are disloyal, and not to be endur’d by Christians, much lesse by a son (or daughter) of the Church of England; and to adventure a Young Child, yet in an age the most susceptible of ill Impressions, amongst such such insinuating, and artificial4 men, is certainely, a Temptation not easie to be justified: Madame, your Ladyship, had better remit something of his Book-Learning, than Endanger his precious Soule; though there were none in all the World that could teach him Latin besides the Jesuites; albeit I doubt not, but there may be found as able Persons for his Institution5 (and by far lesse dangerous) as to his better part among the Protestants, even in France itselfe: Madame, I take the boldnesse to speake my Thoughts freely to you; because the hazard is extreame, and this proceedure is in no sort agreable to that Profession, which I am sure you will continue in, and are satisfied to be the Onely best; I meane that of the Church of England: Rescue then (deare Madam) your Sonn from this precipice with all speede, and committ him to the Care of some worthy Person who may lay a foundation of early Piety, before it be too late. So with Gods blessing, shall your Ladyship receive the Comfort of a Dutifull child, his Majestie a faithfull Subject, the Church and State a Usefull Member, and God the Glory. Be pleas’d Madame to believe this Truth, for ’tis a sincere one, that nothing but my greate respect, and hearty Wishes for your prosperity, could induce me to write in this Confident manner; but to speak less on this Occasion, or seeme Indifferent, were to betray the greate Esteeme, I have for your Ladyship, and yours, who am Madame, Your etc. White-hall 26: November – 1683

3 This is probably the Jesuit College de Clermont in the rue S. Jacques which Evelyn refers to visiting in 1643 (Diary II.96 and n. 3). 4 crafty 5 instruction

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John Fell Letter 466 (464) November 27, 1683 f 22

[RM: Dr. Fell ]

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Epistle CCCCLXIV To my Lord Bishop of Oxford at Christ Church Oxford

My Reverend Lord, I had not ben thus long in returning your Lordship an Account of your Letter had I not ben Absent from my house (some daies) when it was brought: It is very true my Lord, I had some Interest in my Lord Berkeleys1 family, and don it some considerable services, for the sake of that excellent Creature Mrs. Godolphin2 by me never to be mentiond without a sensible emotion, for the losse of one, who besides the many Christian Offices, which she was continualy doing, in other places, by her rare Example, and a certaine peculiar Addresse, made holines and vertue a cherefull thing, lovely as her-selfe, and even in a Court; and how many of the greatest there, were made to looke upon Religion as a serious thing (yet consistent with that post) there are yet some (and more I wish there were) who owe the tincture3 to that Lady, and will I trust retaine it: Amongst these, my Lady Berkeley was not the least; who during the time Mrs. Blagge (since Godolphin, for she was then unmarried) was so deare to her, as that even since her Marriage, she would not indure to part with her, ’til after she had ben, and accompanied her some time at Paris; gave not the least Umbrage of that Indifference, if not wavering as since her friendship to, and Confidence in that pious Creature, has manifestly ben lessen’d and wearing off: For there was now (my Lord ) another Lady with my Lady Berkeley, lesse reserv’d, gay, and more diverting [RM: Mrs. Hamilton4 wife to George Hamilton, slaine in the battell of Seness: a worthy Gentleman and since wife to Richard Talbot made Duke of Tyrconell in Ireland ] (which yet was hard to be) that made her the easier indure the parting with one she could suffer to be supplanted by another, and that after such professions of the most 1 John Berkeley, 1st baron; see Letter 465. Evelyn had overseen Berkeley’s business interests when he left on his diplomatic mission to France in 1665. 2 Margaret Godolphin’s death had been commemorated by the usual letter to her husband on 9 September (Add 78307: f 130 [9.9.1683]). 3 quality of holiness 4 Frances Talbot, née Jennings, duchess of Tyrconnel (c.1649–1731; Diary). Elder sister of Sarah, the future duchess of Marlborough, Frances was a friend of Christian Berkeley and Margaret Blagge as maid of honour to the duchess of York before marrying Sir George Hamilton (1645–76; Diary) in 1666. After her husband was killed in battle in 1676 she married Richard Talbot, 1st earl and Jacobite duke of Tyrconnel (c.1630–91; ODNB) in 1679.

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superlative Friendship and Endearements in the World, and which, I am certaine, contributed not a little to what afflicted this tender and well natur’d creature: This in your Lordships Eare-onely – Though I believe Your Lordship no stranger to this Historie: But it is certaine, that since the death of Mrs. Godolphin and that this Popish and Apostate Lady has ben the Confident, some have not forborn their remarks, as well as your Lordship, and wonder’d why there can be found no Protestant to Instruct her Sonn, but she must send him among the Jesuites, in an age so tender and susceptible of the most pernicious Principles in the World: My Lord, I have upon Your Lordship’s letter (but without shewing it because I had not your directions in it) lay’d the Contents of it very close to her, and told that a Reverend Bishop, who had a greate reguard to her Ladyship and Family, had desir’d me to represent the danger of it to her, and the consequences which might be scandalous and of ill re Event, if she did not withdraw her sonn from the place and method he was in, and I was very round, and serious with her in it. Her Answer was, That indeede he went to the Jesuits Colledge, but sojourn’d in another house amongst Protestants, English Gentlemen whom she named to me: I reply’d, They all were Papists, and she would ruine the child; she say’d she hoped otherwise, and that he tooke his Learning so well, she knew not how better to dispose of him: In summ, my Lord, after all I could say, I left her with lesse satisfaction than I wish’d; and though she seem’d to take the Advertisement in good part; yet I did not perceive she tooke those Resolutions I expected; wherefore it is the opinion of Mr. Godolphin5 (to whom as to a friend of that Family, and one most deare to me, I thought fit to communicat your Lordship’s letter) that your Lordship should your selfe write to my Lady, without taking notice of anything, I here mention; then that not receiving from me that Satisfaction you hoped etc.; you thought fit to put the danger of it to her, in good Earnest: Your Lordship may please to add, that you dare not leave it thus, for the respect you have for her family and the safty of her Sonn, ’til they she puts him into better hands: But I am not to Instruct your Lordship, what to say on this Occasion, but give your Lordship an Account of my Obedience to your Commands and beg your Lordships Blessing who am My Reverend Lord, Your etc. 27 November Villiars Streete6 London 1683

5 Sidney Godolphin 6 Evelyn refers to moving to “the house of one Mr. Dive’s” in Villiers St. for the winter, in November of 1683 (Diary IV.350).

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Christian Berkeley Letter 467 (465) December 1, 1683 f 22v

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Epistle CCCCLXV To My Lady Berkeley etc.

Madame, I most religiously Affirme, to have received feaw greater Consolations, since the decease of that incomparable, and by me, never to be forgotten friend,1 who amongst a thousand obligations that indeare her memorie, added that of giving me the knowledge of so many eminent Vertues in your Ladyship than the Letter which I received this Morning;2 abating onely the Encomiums your Ladyship is pleas’d to give me (and which I have not the least pretence to) and the little diffidences that I should abate of the least Respect due to your Ladyship upon whatever Occasion my poore Services may yet be acceptable: I must acknowledge Madame, that reflecting on what your Ladyship said to me the other day, I was not at all satisfied of my so representing the danger to you, as to draw some more effectual Resolutions from your Ladyship, which made me endeavor to repaire, and reinforce it by the letter I lately sent you; but which you now have Answer’d with that greate prudence and extraordinary Piety, you were wont allways to act by: I have therefore given an Account of this to my Lord Bishop3 that he may be witnesse of your Ladyship’s stability and reguard your Ladyship has to his Lordships4 Care, and for the solicitude for your noble Family, for whose prosperity, I shall ever pray to God, who am Madame Your etc. Villiars Streete in York Building 1 December – 1683

1 Margaret Godolphin 2 See Letter 465. Evelyn is alluding to Christian Berkeley’s response of 30 November (Add 78308: f 205 [30.11.1683]) in which she promised to remove her son from the Jesuit college. 3 John Fell 4 John Berkeley, 3rd baron

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John Fell Letter 468 (466) December 2, 1683 f 22v

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Epistle CCCCLXVI To my Lord Bishop of Oxford etc.

My Reverend Lord, I should be glad this letter should over-take my first before you write to my Lady;1 not that you should not write at all (for I earnestly desire you to take notice to her, how well satisfied you are with the Account I have given your Lordship of her Resolutions now to withdraw her Son from the dangers of perversion); but that your Lordship will spare the reflecting on anything I have sayd of Conversation with that popish Lady2 (at present at least) farther then in generall, to reinforce the Arguments, I have us’d to perswade her; that though her sonn be not actualy in the Seminarie,3 his very going to Schole once to the Jesuites, is of uttmost hazard; for I have againe applyd my selfe to my Lady, and frankly acquainted her, that your Lordship being Alarm’d had injoyn’d me to advertise her Ladyship that there were some ready to complaine of it to the Privy Council: It is upon this Second Discourse with her that now she sends me the Inclos’d4 which I am sure your Lordship will be as heartily glad to see as my selfe; and therefore I supplicate your Lordship, that you will fortifie this her Resolution with your excellent Counsel, and Authority, according to your greate Prudence and Piety, for I looke upon the Successe of this, as the snatching a brand out of the fire:    I humbly beg your ­Lordships Blessing who am My Lord Your etc. I beseech your Lordship to engage her to place her young Sonn amongst Protestants, (or rather call him home out of the Contagion)5 as well as remove him from the Jesuites to prevent a falacy etc.

Villiars Streete 2 December 1683



1 2 3 4 5

Christian Berkeley; see Letters 465–7 Frances Talbot the Jesuit College; see Letter 465. presumably Lady Berkeley’s letter referred to in Letter 467 plague, i.e., of Roman Catholicism

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Francis North1 Letter 469 (467) February 7, 1684 ff 22v–3

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCLXVII To my Lord Keeper North etc.

My Lord, You Lordship being pleas’d to permit that I should set downe in writing the particulars I mention’d to your Lordship of the sad condition of the Parish of Deptford,2 in reguard of the excessive charge of the poore, above any Parish neere us, lately pretending to his Majestie’s charity: We have this to offer to your Lordships favour in our behalfe That being obnoxious to supernumerarie people, who are call’d to work in his Majestie’s ship-yard, and bring their whole Families with them from all parts of the Nation, sometimes to the number of eight hundred, or a thousand: We have not the liberty to proceede upon against them as Inmates (without interrupting his Majestie’s Service) nor are they able to give security, so as by death, or absence at sea, or sliping away, when the glut of Employment is over, they constantly leave their Widows, Wives or Children upon the Parish to so immense an increase of the Charge, as the Parish is no way capable to support. Add to this, the Yards being often long un-pay’d (as at present above seaven quarters)3 the Inhabitants Victualers and shopkeepers who are forc’d to trust the poore Workmen for their Lodging, Diet etc. are many of them undon, and so come to be reliev’d by the Parish: This, my Lord, is a sore Article, and mention’d onely to your Lordship as not perhaps so gratefull to be publish’d: In a word, My Lord, the poores-book4 is so greate, that the Land-holders have pay’d two shillings the pound and sometimes halfe a crown, besides private Benefactions, and Pensions. My Lord I have my selfe (who hold not above 20 Akers in my owne hands) from £3 ben assessed to 14 and 15 yearely, Tennants hereupon flinging-up their farmes, and abandoning the place: My Lord the Land is little, the Towne over-built and greate to the number of no lesse than 2000 families, ready to devowre one another; nor see I any end of this exorbitant charge without your Lordships favour, and Assistance in our behalfe; that either his Majestie would be pleas’d to consider us distinctly,5 or the Parishes about us, more at ease, oblig’d to relieve us: But w I humbly submit the Expedient to your Lordship’s favour and direction who am My Lord, Your etc. 7 February 1683/4

1 Francis North, 1st Baron Guilford (1637–85; ODNB). He became MP and attorney-general in 1673. From 1675 to 1682 he was chief justice of common pleas and became lord keeper of the great seal in 1682. 2 the parish of Deptford, which included Sayes Court and the Navy Dockyards 3 21 months 4 those on parish relief 5 separately, as a special case

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Richard Holden1 Letter 470 (468) February 11, 1684 f 23

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Epistle CCCCLXVIII To Mr. Holden Viccar of Deptford:

Sir, This is to give you an Account of our Petition,2 which being read before his Majestie in full Council, was not onely thought to come unseasonably (in reguard of the present Thaw and remission of the rigorous cold now happning) but unreasonable: The maine objection was that our Parish being out of the Præcincts of the Bills of Mortality3 (to which his Majesties Charity onely extended) and which (in tota) I heare, was not above £300 (after all this noise of thousands) it would invite other circumjacents to be as importunate for reliefe, so as never to be contented (though this was in truth no good reason, no parish in England being in our circumstances) besides, it was say’d that in case our Towne were not able to support the Charge of the poore (as our petition imported) we might have recourse to other Parishes about us, who were more at ease; upon which our Petition was dismiss’d; though I had my-selfe (before his Majestie came into the Council-Chamber) bespoken severall of the Lords to promote our request; but they were over-rul’d: You may be sure, I was sorry for it, and truely thought the objections so hard, considering all our Circumstances that I was resolv’d to go my-selfe to my Lord Keeper,4 and seriously expostulate the whole matter with him, and to try, if upon informing him of our intollerable oppression, by reason of the poores multiplying so fast upon us, and such particulars as I could more freely suggest to him, then represent in our Petition, to which (you know) I could make no defense before his Majestie in Council (unlesse I had ben calld in) I might possibly retrive the buisinesse: So on Friday, I went and din’d with my Lord,5 and a little after we were rissen from table, I desir’d a Word with him in private, and had my full Scope to represent the sad condition of the Parish to his Lordship. I told him of the vast numbers impos’d upon us from time to time, employ’d in his Majesties Works, leaving their Wives and Children frequently amongst us, which made the burden intollerable: To this I added what rates Land-holders paied, at which his Lordship was astonish’d; nor did I forbeare to suggest the vast arreares to the Yard, which likewise exceedingly contributed to our Impoverishment, and present straites: I told his Lordship (and he also tooke notice of it) how un-successfully we had attempted to obtaine Reliefe of the Council-board; and 1 Richard Holden (c.1627–1702; Diary). Holden was rector of St Nicholas, Deptford (1673–1702), where he was Evelyn’s parish priest before becoming rector of St Dunstan in the East (1686–98). 2 See Letter 469. Evelyn reports presenting the petition on 6 February (Diary IV.365). 3 Originally the official account of the deaths in and around London, the term came to mean the area covered by this return. 4 Sir Francis North 5 Evelyn dined with North on 8 February, “in order to some further informing him concerning the state of our Parish” (Diary IV.365).

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therefore made it an humble request of our parish in particular to his Lordship to Advise which way we might be relieved, and whither he thought it proper to renew our Petition to his Majestie. Upon this, his Lordship seem’d so much concern’d, that though he did not thing [sic] it fit to petition; he would so take it into his Consideration, as by some expedient or other, our Parish should be reliev’d; which I conjecture may be, by giving some special Direction to the Judges of our Circuit, to remove the difficulties which (you know) we found at the last Assises, or some such way; though his Lordship said nothing of it to me; but seem’d to be so fully possessd of the reasonablenesse of the thing, that he commanded me to put what I had said in Writing, with all its aggravations, and send it to his Lordship so soone as the Tearme was over, promising to do something effectualy for us: I was not wanting (you may be sure) of accknowledging the greate obligation our whole Towne (as well as my selfe) had to his Lordship for his favour, and have since sent him the Inclos’d,6 with such particular notes for his Lordships memorie and consideration, as I was able to assemble, and give you now this account of my Tra[n]saction, and that I may receive your farther Assistance, or of any other better able than I am to represent the state of the Parish, and add to what I have suggested: How this will Succeede I cannot tell, but it lookes faire; in all events I have endeavor’d to serve the Towne, to the uttmost of my Interest here, who am Sir Your etc. Villiars Streete 11 February 1683/4

Henry Slingsby Letter 471 (469) February 13, 1684 f 23v

Epistle CCCCLXIX To Henry Slingsby Esquire Master of his Majesties Mint.

Sir, Mindfull of your Commands, I have discours’d over your Concern againe with my Friends, and conjur’d them in your favour, to tell me what they would advise you to do, as your Circumstances seeme to stand at their Board: What ’tis may have so far exasperated them to proceede thus rigorously against you:1 ’Tis reply’d, That after you had

6 probably a copy of Letter 469 1 Slingsby had been suspended as master of the Royal Mint in 1680 for financial irregularities, and faced claims for £12,697. He was dismissed in 1686. See Letters 559 and 560.

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complain’d to every-body of their hard, and unjust dealing with you, you appeal’d to the Exchequer where, upon an hearing on both parts, the Report of the Auditor (as to your Debt) was Confirm’d, which you not submitting to, forc’d their Lordships of the Treasury thus to continue prosecution, and which (if not prevented) would soone end in the forfaiture of your Office: But what said I, would you have him do to prevent it; since it is your oppinion any farther attempt to justifie his Accompt will not be available? My Friend2 (whom you know to be one of the Lords Commissioners) advis’d, that you should submit to the debt charged on you, and then humbly desire, that any two of their Lordships would appoint a time to look-over his Bills for allowances, and discharge him of so much of the Debt: withall humbly representing to them the concerne of his Wife and Children, submit to the suspension from the profits of the Place, ’til the Debt be worn-out, or that; or that you may by the special grace of his Majestie be sooner restor’d to the execution of it: This is the Advise I would give Mr. Slingsby if he were my Brother, for that I foresee, if he stand it any-longer out, the Lords Commissioners (looking on it as a Contempt) will in justification of their proceedings, wholy and forever deprive him of his Office, which they would not willingly do; in reguard of the Reversioner,3 whom they have no such greate kindnesse for: This Sir, is honestly the Advise I have received from a faithfull friend, whom I conjur’d to be as favorable to your Concerne as if it were his owne, and do therefore think my-selfe obliged to acquaint you as sincerely with it, in every Circumstance, as a faithfull friend ought to do, in which capacity I ever shall be Sir, your etc. Villiars-Streete 13 February – 1683/4

2 Sidney Godolphin 3 Thomas Neale (d. 1699? ODNB, Diary) As master worker of the Royal Mint (1678–99), Neale was successor to Slingsby. He was also groom-porter to Charles II c.1684, and as master of the Transfer Office, he set up the first lottery.

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Johan van der Does Letter 472 (470) March 29, 1684# f 23v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCLXX To Monsieur Vander Douse at his highesse the Prince of Orange’s Court at the Hague:

[LM: Grandson to Janus Dousa and one of the States1 of Holland ] Sir, The Bearer hereof Mr. Frasier,2 resolving for Holland, in search of Books, Prints, and Curiosities, (now at the Famous Auction of Daniel Hiensius3 Library) I could not think how more to oblige him, and shew likewise my respects to you, than by bringing one Learned Gentleman acquainted with another; for such you will find him, a Person of greate Erudition and Virtue, and worthy your favour: I therefore recommend him to it; and take this occasion to let you understand againe, that I did what I was able with the late Duke of Norfolck4 about the Cartoons of Raphael,5 but without successe, and of this, I desir’d Sir Gabriel Sylvius to give you an Account and that my Lord Duke promis’d to Consider of it, and let me know his mind; but not long-after that, growing Valetudinarie, and un-easy, I could get nothing positively from him: Whither these rarities are now in

1 Staatholder 2 This may be the same Mr Frazier who showed Robert Hooke “the Impressions of several of the King of France’s medals” in an experiment at the Royal Society on 31 October 1683. See Hooke, Philosophical Experiments, 111. This letter is probably misdated as Evelyn mentions Frazier’s having been in Holland for this auction on 14 July 1683 (Diary IV.330). Frazier “shewed me divers very rare & curious bookes, & some Manuscripts he had purchas’d to good value: There were Three or foure Herbals in Miniature accurately don, divers Roman Antiquities, & of Verona &c: many books of Aldus’s Impression &c” (330). Frazier had written to Evelyn in 1676 from Paris (Add 78317: f 133 [5/15.2.1676]) describing his library and offering to provide access to it to John Jr. 3 The library being sold belonged not to Daniel Heinsius but to Nicholas Heinsius the elder (1620–81). The auction catalogue was published as Bibliotheca Heinsiana (Leiden, 1682). The auction was also attended by Edward Bernard (1638–97; ODNB) from Oxford. 4 Henry Howard, 6th duke, who died on 13 January 1684. On 9 May 1683, Evelyn dined with Gabriel Sylvius “& thence went to visite the Duke of Norfolck, and to know whither he would part with any of his Cartoones & other drawings of Raphael & the greate masters: He answered me, he would part with & sell any thing for mony, but his Wife (the Dutchesse &c) who stood neere him; & I thought with my selfe, That if I were in his condition, it should be the first thing I would be glad to part with: In conclusion he told me, that if he might sell them altogether, he would; but that the late Sir Peter Lely (our famous painter) had gotten some of his best: The person who desir’d me to treate with the Duke for them was Van der Douse, (Grand-son to that greate Scholar, Contemporarie, & friend of Jos: Scaliger), a very ingenious Virtuoso” (Diary IV.312). See Dethloff, “Sir Peter Lely’s Collection of Prints and Drawings.” Van der Does had written Evelyn on this matter in 1682 (Add 78318: f 10 [18.12.1682]) inquiring about “a parcel of Italian Drawings that are remaining in My Lord Duke his hands.” See Peck, Consuming Splendor, 171–9 on the role of agents in the emerging art market. 5 Evelyn is not referring to the famous cartoons of the Acts of the Apostles, which remained in the royal collection. He is probably referring to a collection of drawings by Raphael belonging to Thomas Howard which (in 1637) was one of “tre libri grossi come Calepini, uno tutto di desegni originali di Michelangelo, l’altro di Rafello, et l’altro di Leonardo da Vinci.” Cited in Roberts, “Thomas Howard, The Collector Earl of Arundel and Leonardo’s Drawings,” 258.

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the hands of the young Duke,6 or Dowager,7 I yet know not; but shall enquire, and then be able to give you farther light, and accordingly receive your Commands, who am Sir, Your etc. London 29: March: 1684

Thomas Lynch1 Letter 473 (471) April 4, 1684 f 24

Epistle CCCCLXXI To Sir Thomas Linch Governor of Jamaica:

Sir, I accompanie this Auspicious *Occasion, [RM: *of one of the Dutchesse Maids of Honour going over to be his Wife:]2 with my most humble Service, and whilst I call to mind the share you gave me in your Friendship here; I cannot believe that the distance of places, has at all impair’d it, though I have not had the benefit I might have deriv’d from the Correspondence you were pleas’d to make me hope for: But, whilst I impute this unhappinesse to the solicitude of you[r] more weighty Affaires and Settlements, in which the public is concern’d, I do not so easily acquit you of the promises you made your friends of Collecting Materials, and making it no small part of your serious thoughts to Compile the natural History of Jamaica;3 because it will not onely preserve your own Memory, and oblige posterity, but be a worthy monument of your Prudence and Industry, in a Usefull and Laudable Worke for the present Age; and what I am sure would be most acceptable to his Majestie: I am the bolder in mentioning this particular, because my Lord Clarendon4 injoynes me to let you know his Suffrage gos along with Sir, your most etc. Says-Court: 4: Aprill: 1684

The Royal Society hopes you do not forget their Repository5 when anything of rare or natural comes to your hands: 6 Henry Howard, 7th duke (1655–1701; ODNB) 7 Jane Howard, née Bickerton had been the 6th duke’s mistress. She married him in 1676 and died in 1693. Evelyn makes clear his opinion of the relationship particularly in the passage from the diary cited in note 4. 1 Sir Thomas Lynch (c.1634–84; ODNB). He went to Jamaica in 1655, and was governor from 1671 to 1674 and 1682 to 1684. He was knighted in 1670. 2 Mary Temple of Frankton, Lynch’s second wife 3 Although John Ogilby produced Novissima et Accuratissima Jamaicae Descriptio (London, 1671), no natural history was produced in Evelyn’s lifetime. The first proper natural history was Hans Sloane’s A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers, and Jamaica, with the natural ­history ... of the last of those islands (London, 1707). 4 Henry Hyde 5 the repository established by Daniel Colwall and curated by Nehemiah Grew (see Grew, Musæum Regalis Societatis [London, 1681])

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Francis Aston1 Letter 474 (472) April 12, 1684 ff 24–5

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCLXXII To Mr. Aston, Secretary of the Royal Society:

[RM: This letter was orderd to be printed and published in the Societys Transactions]2 Sir, I should be altogether unexcusable for not having ben to waite upon the Society of late, if my health had permitted, with some other un-expected Avocations, before I removed from London (this Winter) which I could not decently avoyd: This was (I assure you) a sensible Affliction to me; and now I am come into the Country, beheld the havock which a rude season has made in my poore Garden,3 and receivd you[r] letter wherein you acquaint me that the Society expects an Account of my Sufferings, I must say with the Poet – Jubes renovare Dolorem:4 In a Word, The past Winter has play’d the French-king5 in my Territories, and where it could not [RM: That Winter which kill’d all the hortulan rarities in England, such a season as was never heard of in England in any Age] expugne the more stout and defensible Trees, and such as were fortified with Enclosures, has ravag’d all that lay open, with almost as little mercy: As to Timber trees, I have not many here of Considerable age or stature, except a few Elmes, which (having ben decaying many yeares) one cannot well find to have receiv’d any fresh Wounds; and indeede, I am told by divers that Elmes have not suffer’d, as the greater Oakes have don; nor do I find, amongst innumerable of that Species (elmes) which I have planted, and that are now about 30 and 25 yeares standards, any of them touch’d: The same I observe of Limes, Walnuts, Ash, Beech, Chessnuts, Birch, and other Foresters; but as I say’d, mine are young; and yet one

1 Francis Aston (d. c.1715; R). Aston was a fellow of the Royal Society in 1678 and its secretary from 1681 to 1685 (Diary IV.263 and n. 6). 2 Evelyn probably presented this letter at the meeting of the Royal Society on 23 April (not 30 April as he claims) (Diary IV.376 and n. 1). It was published as “An abstract of a Letter … concerning the Dammage Done to His Gardens by the Preceding Winter” in Philosophical Transactions, 14, no. 158 (20 April 1684), 559–63 and reprinted in Miscellaneous Writings (1825), 692–6. A draft of part of the letter is on the reverse of Aston’s letter to Evelyn of 10 April 1684 (Add 78318: f 24v [10.4.1684]). 3 Evelyn first records the destructiveness of this winter in the entry for 24 January 1684 in his Diary IV.363. Other passages in his diary describe the erection of a frost fair, and later “formal streets, as in a Citty” (361–2) on the frozen Thames. After this winter, Evelyn was forced to replant much of the garden at Sayes Court. See Laird, “Sayes Court Revisited,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 115–44, and “Greenhouses and Great Storm,” in A Celebration of John Evelyn, ed. Batey, 99–119; and Leith-Ross, “The Garden of John Evelyn at Deptford” and “Fruit Planted around a New Bowling Green at John Evelyn’s Garden at Sayes Court, Deptford, Kent, in 1684/5.” 4 “The grief thou bidst me revive.” Virgil, Aeneid 2.3 (Fairclough, trans) 5 destroyer, tyrant

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would think, that should lesse protect them, because more tender: So as it seemes, the rifting, so much spoken of has happn’d chiefely to our over-grown Timber-Trees, especialy Oake: My Lord Weymouth6 made his Lamentations to me, and so has my Lord Ferrars,7 and Earle of Chesterfield,8 Sir William Fermor9 and others, which I mention, because of their several distances from one another, and these parts; but if I well remember, one of those noble Persons lately told me, that since the Thaw, the Trees which were exceedingly split, were clos’d againe, and I easily believe it; but that they are as solid as before, I doubt will not be found, when they come to be examin’d by the Axe, and converted to Use; nor has that accident hapn’d onely to standing timber but to that which has ben fell’d and season’d: Divers massie pieces in our ship-yard here at Deptford having egregiously sufferd: so much for our Indiginæ[:] As to Exotic, I feare my Cork-trees will hardly recover, but the Spring is yet very tardy (even in this warm and dry spot of mine) that I cannot as yet pronounce any thing positively, especialy of such, whose bark is very thick, and rugged such as is the Cork, Picea,10 Enzina11 etc. But the Constantinople Chesnut12 is full of turgid buds, and ready to spread its leafe: The Cedar of Bermudas13 perishd; that of Libanus14 escapt: The Arbutus (I feare) irrecoverable, but the Scarlet Oake, Scotch Fir, Spruce, and white Spanish15 (which last uses to suffer by our sharp Etesians16 or EasterWinds at Spring) have receiv’d not perceptible damage at all: But the Norrway Pine and Pinaster have some of them (especialy that which beares the greater Cone) two very sturdy, and well grown Trees, seeme to be in danger, at which I wonder greately: The Bays is exceedingly smitten, and some quite dead to all appearances, but will repullulate if close cut to the ground before hot Weather come: Laurell is onely discolour’d and will loose its leafe; ’tis a succulent plant, and should also be cut; but amongst the Shrubs, Rosemary is intirely lost, and to my greate sorrow, because I had not onely beautifull hedges of it; but sufficient to afford me flowers for the making of a very considerable quantity of the Queene of Hungaries Water;17 so Universal (I feare) is the destruction of this excellent plant, not onely throuout England, but all our neighbour Countries, that we must raise our next from seede; Halimus or Sea Purslain18 (of which I had a pretty hedge) is also perish’d: And so is another of French Furzes. The Cypresses are all of them Scorch’d, and some to death, especialy such as were kept shorn in Pyramid; but amongst 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Thomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth (1640–1714; ODNB). His estate was Longleat in Wiltshire. Sir Robert Shirley, 1st Earl Ferrers (1650–1717, P). His estate was Heath Lane Lodge in Twickenham. Philip Stanhope Sir William Fermor, Baron Leominster (1648–1711; ODNB, H). He was a great collector of pictures and acquired some of the “Marmora Arundeliana” for Easton Neston in Northamptonshire. spruce possibly Eugenia jambos (Rose apple) now Syzigium In A journey into Greece (London, 1682) Evelyn’s friend, the traveller George Wheler, mentions chestnuts at Constantinople (206) but does not give them a species name. Juniperus Bermudiana Cedrus libanus Quercus alba a wind that comes up at a particular time of year a distillation of rosemary flowers in a wine spirit Atriplex halimus

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greate numbers, there will some of mine escape, after I have well chastiz’d them; that is, with a tough hasel, or other Wand, beaten-off their dead, and dusty leaves, which growing much closer, than on other trees, hinder the aire, and deaws from refreshing the interior parts: This discipline I use to all my tonsile shrubs with good effect, as oft’ as I find the Winter dos impaire them. Some great Old-Trees of Alaternus are kill’d, especialy, such as were most expos’d to the sunn, whereas most that grew in the shade escap’d; the reason of which I conjecture to be the reciprocation of being somewhat relax’d every day, and then made rigid and stiff againe at night, which bending, and unbending so often, opening, and closing the parts, has utterly mortified them; divers of these yet may spring at roote, if cutt close. The Philyrea angustifolia19 has lost its leaves, but will recover, and the Serratifolia (both of them incomparably the best for ornamental hedges, of any exotic I know) has hardly receiv’d the least impression all this rigorous season (the leafe onely a bit tarnish’d) and I mention it the more particularly; that Gentlemen, who are Curious, may know what plants they may trust to abroad at all adventures; for I speake here of such onely as are expos’d: As to the choyser Rarities which are set-in for hyemation; They certainely escape, or are impair’d, according as they are treated by the more or lesse Experienc’d and Industrious Gardner; or Commodiousness of the place Conservatorie. But to say what might be added upon this subject, would require a large Chapter, and not a letter onely: I should (in the meane time) advise such as have suffer’d detriment in their Greene-houses (as they call them) not despaire, when they see their Leaves oft either of Myrtils, Oranges, Oleanders, Jasmines, Barba Jovis20 etc. turn’d, or altogether shrivil’d; but to cut them to the quick, and plunge the cases and potts (trim’d with fresh mould) in the hot-bed, carefully refresh’d, shaded, air’d and refresh’d and treated as sick patients, and as the prudent Gardner best knows how. I neede say nothing of Hollie, Yew, Bay, Juniper etc. hardy, and sponta[ne]ous to our Country; and yet to my griefe, I can shew an Holly-standard drooping, and of dubious aspect; and a very beautiful hedge (though indeede almost an hundred yeares younger) that was clip’d about Michaelmas (and so long before this late unmercifull frost) is mortified, neere a foote beneath the wound, and in some places to the very rootes; so as nothing seemes proofe against such a Winter, late cut, and expos’d: This hedge dos also grow against the South; for all the Shaded hollies, and unshorn, flourish universaly, and are (I judge) impregnable. Rose-trees escape: But among the Frute trees and Mural Figs, I apprehend, to have suffer’d most; but they being cut may spring at roote: Vines (for most part) have escap’d with me, though with others (I heare) there are many lost. The Arboresent Sedums and Aloes (though hous’d) perish’d: Yucca and Opuntia21 escap’d; but Sampier (which of all Salads whatsoever to be eaten raw and young I most preferr) is quite rotten, hardly a roote of mine remaining; and so Artichocks, Savoys, etc.22 which must all be new rais’d from seedes: Amongst the Bulbs, The Tulips, many of them 19 ornamental evergreen shrubs from the Mediterranean and Near East but commonly hardy in England. This is a sharp-leaved variety. 20 Lavandula stocchas 21 cactus family: Prickly Pear or Indian Fig 22 samphire, artichokes, Savoy cabbages

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appeare, but the Constantinopolitan Narcissus23 and Tuberose that were not kept in the Chimny Corner by continual fire, are rotted: some Anemonies escape, and most Capillaries;24 And now when I have sayd all of the frost and snow, their united forces had don little mischief ’til joynd with this cruel Estern-Wind from the last moment of the Frost, which has made havoc of all etc. My Tortoise (which by his constantly burying himselfe in the Earth, at the approch of Winter, I looke upon as a kind of Plant-Animal ) happning be to be obstructed by a Vine-roote from the wonted depth he was wont to interr himselfe, is found stark dead, after having many yeares surviv’d the rigours of former Winters. Of Fish, I have lost very few: And Nightingales (which for being a short-wing’d bird, and so very fat at the time of yeare, they are commonly reported to change the Climat, that I am confident they fly not a mile from their former Station) are as brisk and frolic as ever. Thus Sir, I have given you a Rhapsodie of such Observations, as I have ben able to make, since my returne home, and I wish they may be of any importance to the Society, to which and to your selfe I am Sir, a most devoted etc. Says-Court 12 Aprill–1684

Robert Berkeley1 Letter 475 (473) April 22, 1684 f 25

Epistle CCCCLXXIII To Mr. Berkeley neere Worcester:

Sir, You are too regradfull [regardfull] of ordinarie Civilities, when it were my part to assure you, how much I esteem’d my-selfe oblig’d for the honour you did me; and asham’d I am, it was no more in my power to shew it.2 I perceive by the enumeration of your losses,  23 Narcissus bazetta or bizantina  24 literally, hair-like plants. Evelyn identifies them in Kalendarium Hortense as fibrous plants, such as violets and primroses. 1 Robert Berkeley (of Spetchley) (1650–95; Diary). The grandson of Sir Robert Berkeley (1584–1656), Berkeley was also nephew to the wife of Evelyn’s friend, Philip Packer, who introduced Berkeley to Evelyn in October 1683. Berkeley became one of Evelyn’s protégés and corresponded with him frequently about gardens and the arts between 1684 and 1693. Most of the correspondence is in Add 78318 and Add 15847, ff 42–59. 2 Evelyn first records Berkeley’s visiting him on 13 October 1683 (Diary IV.345). This letter is in reply to one of Berkeley’s of 14 April 1684 (Add 15857: f 42 [14.4.1684]) in which Evelyn mentions Boyle’s experiment with the air pump and lists the losses in his garden from the severe winter, on which Evelyn gave a paper at the Royal Society (Diary IV.376 and Letter 474). Berkeley also mentions both the usefulness of Boyle’s air-pump for preserving fruits and flowers and the losses in his garden.

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that the Calamity has ben Universal, and the more grievous to me, in that the mutual suffering of my friends, has not diminish’d, but augmented my own: I was the last weeke requir’d by the Royal Society to give them a description of the sad fate of my desolate Garden (which I obey’d) much after the tenor of yours,3 with some observations on particulars: In summ, I do not find we have any reason to think our Climate more favourable than farther North; for I perceive you have escap’d as cheaply as the prowdest of us all here; and if your Bays and Cedars emerg’d, ’tis more than I can promise of mine; our Rosemary being likewise deplorably lost; nay, I stand in jeopardy of some of my stoutest Pine-trees, and know not what to pronounce of Cork and severall other Exotics, Cypresse, etc.; but am resolv’d to determine nothing, ’til the end of May: You rightly inferr, that there is no Conservatorie parallel to a sweete Cavern; but we want that conveniency here: As to the preservation of Fruits etc. in their natural beauty and constitution etc. in Vaccuo Boyliano4 I have seene Peaches marvelously faire, and plump, that have ben kept the yeare round, inclos’d in an exhausted Cucurbit Glasse5 upon a plate of Glasse; and believe it might be improov’d to many like Curiosities: And now Sir, I wish with all my heart, any observations of mine might contribute to the least satisfaction of one so vertuously dispos’d, and so greately to my Genius; but I am not to be so happy at this distance, farther than to assure you how infinitely I esteeme the Acquisition of so worthy a persons friendship, and how proud I shall be of receiving your Commands, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 22 Aprill – 1684

Sidney Godolphin Letter 476 (474) April 22, 1684 f 25

Epistle CCCCLXXIV To Sidny Godolphin Principall Secretary of State etc.

Deare Friend, I should begin (you know) allways, and long since, with Right Honorable, and indeede you are so, and were allways so in my Esteeme. How much I rejoice at this Accession1 of yours, cannot easily be express’d, not onely for the Dignity, which is still adding 3 See Letter 474. 4 Evelyn had seen Boyle’s experiment several times, most recently on 31 January 1682 (Diary IV.271), and repeats the description on 11 June 1684 (Diary IV.381). 5 a retort glass used in distillation 1 Godolphin had been appointed secretary of state on 14 April 1684. See Diary IV.383.

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to you; but for the Good of the Publique: I confesse upon the late Recesse of those honorable persons, I have then (with others) ben apt to despond, and believe that things were in an evil State: But when I see such good-men as you are, entring more and more into Affaires, and approv’d call’d neerer to your Master,2 my hopes revive, and I cannot but believe, that God has Mercys for us. And now after all this againe, in my Conscience I do not give you Joy, but wish it you Joy with all my heart, and unfaindly: How you’l take this Complement I can’t tell; for I have seene no Creature yet, that can informe me how you are concern’d, though I am much; not that you are not every way par Oneri;3 so your health be not prejudic’d, which to me, is very precious without the least selfe-Interest; and therefore I will more earnestly pray to God to direct, and sustaine you, who am (you know) intirely yours, etc. Says-Court 22 Aprill – 1684

Elizabeth MacCarty, née Fitzgerald1 Letter 477 (475) May 18, 1684 f 25v

Epistle CCCCLXXV To the Countesse of Clancartie in Dublin

[LM: Daughter to the Earle of Kildare married to my Lord Chief Justice2 there, her second Husband ] Madame, The Bearer hereof (my most worthy friend Mr. Packer)3 coming for Ireland, I could not omitt the presenting of my humble Service to your Ladyship by him; And as he is a Gentleman of good rank and qualitie in this Country, and a person of singular Integrity, beloved amongst us for many Vertues, I do the more earnestly recommend him to your Ladyships favour: Madame, This plaine and honest Gentleman is a Justice of Peace in our County of Kent, of a faire Estate, Comptroller of his Majesties Works and Buildings, of extraordinary Ingenuity, and one whose absence is not long to be born, with without detriment to his 2 Charles II 3 equally burdened 1 Elizabeth MacCarty (Clancartie), née Fitzgerald (d. c.1698; Diary). The daughter of George Fitzgerald, the earl of Kildare, she married Callaghan MacCarty (d. 1676), 3rd earl of Clancarty. She met Evelyn in London in 1681 (Diary IV.244) and was a frequent correspondent with him thereafter. Her second husband (1682) was Sir William Davis. 2 Sir William Davis (d. 1687), chief justice of the king’s bench of Ireland (1681–7) 3 Philip Packer

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Majesties affaires: But he has a Concerne in the Kingdome of Ireland, and so modest a Cause before the Chancery4 there, that I believe my Lord Chiefe Justice, would not refuse to Oblige a stranger by Countenancing his Addresse to that Court, for the facilitating his dispatch: By him it is, I hope to receive (together with the Assurance of your Ladyships health, and prosperity, and of the faire Ladys your daughters) that your plants, and your Gardens have escaped the rigours, which have so mortified us here; and that if in any-thing I may be Usefull, he may bring me the honour of your Ladyships Commands, to Madame Your etc. Says-Court: 18 May–1684

Thomas Keightley (1650?–1719)1 Letter 478 (476) May 18, 1684 f 25v

Epistle CCCLXXVI To Thomas Keightly Esquire Dublin:

Cousen, This is the Gentleman,2 whom (I told you) I would recomend to your special Care and Kindnesse: He is a person of worth, of extraordinary vertue, and Ingenuity, and tried Integritie, which I prefer above all the rest: His buisinesse in Ireland is the dispatch of a Concerne in the Court of Chancery there, and his Cause so just, and reasonable, that I cannot but challenge your Promise of recommending it to my Lord Chancelor,3 for his favour, and dispatch, with whom I know you have an Interest: And this is all I have to beg of you, save that you will give one more solemn kisse to the hands of my Lady Francis4 in the name of her most humble Servant etc. My humble service to Collonel Fitz-Patric.5

Says Court 18 May 1684

4 As some of the Berkeleys had property in Ireland this may have had to do with a concern of his wife. 1 Thomas Keightley (c.1650–1719; ODNB, Diary). The son of Evelyn’s cousin, William Keightley, he was an Irish official who was married to Francis Hyde, the daughter of Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon and sister of the duchess of York. He was vice-treasurer of Ireland (where John Jr and his wife frequently saw him [Add 78432]). 2 Philip Packer 3 Michael Boyle (1609/10–1702; ODNB), appointed lord chancellor of Ireland in 1665 and archbishop of Armagh in 1679 4 Francis Keightley, née Hyde (1658–1726) 5 Col. Edward Fitzpatrick (d. 1696; Diary). The elder brother of the 1st Baron Gowran (Richard Fitzpatrick), Edward was a captain of a regiment in 1678, distinguished himself at Steenkirk, and became a colonel of the Royal Fusiliers in 1692.

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Treasurers and Commissioners of the Navy Letter 479 (477) May 23, 1684 f 25v

Epistle CCCCLXXVII To the Treasurer and Commissioners of his Majesties Navy:1

My Lord and Gentlemen Understanding that there still remaines some difficultie as to that Particular in Mr. Gibbin’s2 Accompt, relating to Mr. Serjeant Knight3 (since deceased) I think it my duty to acquaint you, that the Serjeant being Employ’d, by the Commissioners of Sick and Wounded, and Prisoners at War, to take care of some who were accidentaly set on shore at Burlington-Bay,4 and other places in the North (where there was no regular establishment of Chirurgions and Officers) and being at that time in greate want of moneys to supply the Occasion, we did for the Encouragement of Mr. Serjeant Knight, promise that what he should expend upon that Exigence, he should be allow’d Intrest for, as was thought very reasonable and just: Thus much is attested by My Lord and Gentlemen Your etc. Says Court 23 May – 1684

Richard Anderson1 Letter 480 (478) May 23, 1684 f 26

Epistle CCCCLXXVIII To Sir Richard Anderson of Pendley Baronet:

Sir, My late absence from home, when Mr. Buxton2 came with your Letter depriv’d me the ­opportunity of accknowledging the favour of your Advertisement by him, with whom 1 The treasurer of the Navy was Anthony Cary. The commissioners were Heneage Finch; Sir Humphry Winch; Sir Thomas Meeres; Sir Edward Hales; Henry Savile; Sir John Chichely; Arthur Herbert; and John, Lord Vaughan. 2 probably Richard Gibson, a clerk in the Navy Office 3 John Knight (1622–80; ODNB). See Letter 270, note 3. 4 Bridlington Bay, off the east coast of Yorkshire below Flamborough Head 1 Sir Richard Anderson, bart. (c.1635–99; Diary). Anderson, son of Sir Henry Anderson, of Penley in Hertforshire, became 2nd baronet in 1653. His son married Elizabeth Spencer (c.1657–1724), who was the sister of Evelyn’s daughter-in-law, Martha Spencer. See Upcott’s biographical note in Add 15857: f 7v. 2 Buxton is identified in 1685 (Diary IV.415) as the purchaser from Evelyn of a farm – Hanson Grange, Thorpe, Derbyshire on the border of Staffordshire – that was partly owned by Martha Spencer, Evelyn’s

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I perceive you are dealing for your Interest in Hanson-Grange in Staffordshire. The ­Recommendation you give me of the Person, and your own Resolution of selling, may dispose me to part with my Concern there likewise: Sir, I purpose (God willing) some day next weeke to kisse your hands at London and advise of this affaire; and what the proposall, and other Circumstances are, who remaine Sir, Your etc.

Says Court 23: May–1684

Samuel Pepys Letter 481 (479) May 30, 1684#1 f 26

Epistle CCCCLXXIX To Samuel Pepys Esquire* Secretary to the Admiralty:

[RM: *restord]2 Sir, With your excellent Book, [RM: Mr. Burnets Theorie of the Earth3 etc.] I returne you likewise my most humble thanks, for your inducement of me to reade it over againe, finding in it severall things (as you told me) omitted in the Latine (which I had formerly read with greate delight) still new, still Surprising; and the Hypothesis so ingenious and so

daughter-in-law, having come to her from her mother who had owned the property. Martha’s sister, Elizabeth, was married to Anderson who was also a part-owner. The letter from Anderson to Evelyn is of 21 May 1684 (Add 15857: f 8 [21.5.1684]) 1 Particular Friends, C18, 145–6. The original version is printed in Pepys, Private Correspondence, no 14. The letter is misdated. The original version is dated 8 June. 2 Pepys returned at the end of May from the expedition to demolish the fortifications at Tangier, and on 10 June was returned to office and named secretary for the affairs of the Admiralty. 3 Thomas Burnet (c.1635–1715; ODNB), Telluris theoria sacra was first published in Latin in 1681 and then in an enlarged and modified version in English in 1684 (The Theory of the Earth: containing an account of the original of the Earth, and of all the general changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo, till the consummation of all things). Burnet argued that the biblical flood had transformed the physical form of the earth, and that the description in Genesis had been simplified by Moses to accommodate the understanding of the Israelites.

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rational, that I both admire and believe it at once: I am infinitely pleas’d with his Thoughts concerning the Univers (Intellectual and Material ) in relation to this despicable Mole-hill we creepe on, and keepe such a bussle about, as if this mote were Created for us little Vermine: ’Twas ever my thoughts, since I had the Use almost of reason. I know nothing of the Authors person; but he has a Genius greate, and bravely enlarges the Empire of our narrow speculations, and poore spirits, whose Contemplations extend no farther than their Sense: In the meane time, I cannot but wonder any-man should imagine, that this Theorie dos in the least degenerate from the Holy Scriptures, as some peevish and angry men (I have met with) pretend: Was ever any-thing better say’d to Convince the Atheist, than what he has written concerning Matter and Motion and Universal Providence to the reproch of Chance, and our Contingent Fops? There needes no more then his 10 and 11th Capp L: 2:4 utterly to extin confound those unthinking wretches wretched creatures: In a word Sir, The Gentleman has doubtlesse a noble, and greate Soule, and one would wish to be Acquainted with him; for one that is so bright and happy in his owne thoughts, cannot but Influence and Illuminate all that Converse with him, with that generous and becoming Candor which is due to so much Reason, and so greate Delight:    I am Sir for this and Innumerable Civilities Sir Your etc. Sayes Court 30: May 1684

Something I have yet to object concerning the Torrid Zone, the Whales, and the Sea to reconcile 1. Gen: 25.26.5 Mr. Flamested,6 has lately advertis’d me of an Eclipse of the Moone,7 which will happen the 17th of this moneth, about 3 in the Morning, and wished, I would give you notice thereof, that if your leasure permitted, he might have the honor of your Company at his Observatorie, and I should readily waite upon you.

4 i.e., Book II, chapters 10–11 5 Genesis 1:25–6: “And God made the beast the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” This note was added at a later date. 6 John Flamsteed 7 There was an eclipse of the moon on 27 June 1684.

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Jael Boscawen Letter 482 (480) July 4, 1684 f 26v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCLXXX 1 To Madame Boscawen:

[LM: Upon the sicknesse of Mr. Secretary Godolphin]2 Madame, Though I every day send to Suffolck-Streete,3 and heare that things grow better; yet am I at no Ease, ’til I see that good man out of all danger, or (which is next it) that you were come home againe; which, ’til you are, gives me apprehensions. That I am not at Windsore all this while is no small affliction to me; I assure you I came from you with regret: For though I know he cares not for Company, and has all he loves about him; yet I care very, very-much for him, with as greate, and dissistres’t [distressed] Affection, as for the neerest Relation I ever had in this World: The irreparable Losse of one whom he, and we all loved for her Vertue, makes me the more concern’d for him, whom she so did love for his: These Reflections I cannot but make, when any accident touches so worthy and excellent a man; because he is so rare to find, and this wicked age so unworthy of: Thus (to you) I poure out my Sadnesses, and the Thoughts that crowde upon me. I am this day especialy, and every day beseeching God to spare, and restore him to us all, who am Madame Yours etc. Says-Court 4 July: – 1684

1 For the first time in this volume “Lib. 4” appears in upper right hand corner of the page. 2 Evelyn had heard of Godolphin’s illness, and visited him on 29 June (Diary IV.383). In a letter of 5 July 1684, Jael Boscawen gives an account of the sickness (“something of the Colick and something of the stone”) of her brother Sidney Godolphin (Add 78309: f 82 [5.7.1684]). A letter on the next day (Add 78309: f 84 [6.7.1684]) recounts Godolphin’s instructions to her to look over his and his wife’s correspondence and destroy it. His recovery, creation as Baron Godolphin and as commissioner in the treasury, along with other court news is in her next letter of 29 August (Add 78309: f 85 [29.8.1684]). 3 Most of Sidney Godolphin’s relations lived in Suffolk St in London, near the present National Gallery. Jael Boscawen had gone to Windsor to nurse her brother. See Harris, Transformations of Love, 298–9.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Christian Berkeley Letter 483 (481) July 26, 1684 f 26v

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Epistle CCCCLXXXI To my Lady Berkeley

[LM: Concerning the two streetes built in her Garden etc. which improv’d her revenue £1000 per annum]1 Madame, I perceive by these Gentleman2 that you are allready come to an agreement, and seal’d the Articles, about the intended Buildings and streetes to the Improvement I propos’d; so as it is not any Advise or assistance of mine which you will farther neede, as to the maine Concerne, which is the advancement of your Ladyships revenue: The thing which the Contractors seeme to insist on, is that they may have liberty to proceede with your good liking, whilst the season invites; but which you are Cautious of, without the approbation of some friend: Madame, You should do me too much honour to acquiesce in mine alone, and I should be as tender in Advising you to your prejudice, for the reasons I am told your Ladyship assignes, that in all events, I may not be blam’d who have no farther Interest in it, but my doing your Ladyship Service to my power: If so it be, that your Ladyship is Satisfied with what you have already concluded, I know not why you should stick at what they mention, nor I think, neede you feare the reproches of those who shall come after, to receive so vast an Improvement: I am sure I should not were it my Concerne: But by the short account you give me in your Letter, and without perusal of the Articles (which they forgot to bring me) I am something in the darke; and what they tell me of desiring your Ladyships permission to begin foundations when they please, lookes so like an impertinence (for Complement I cannot call it) since your Ladyship has already finish’d with

1 Berkeley House, which was built by Hugh May in 1665 for John Berkeley, stood on the north side of Piccadilly to the west of Clarendon House, which had been demolished in 1683. Evelyn first notes it in May 1666 (Diary III.436), and describes “the new house, or rather Palace, for I am assured that it stood him in neere 30000 pounds” (625) in detail in September 1672, including “the Gardens which are incomparable, by reason of the inequalitie of the ground, & prity Piscina: The holy hedges on the Terrace I advis’d the planting of ” (625). On 12 June 1684, he “went to advise & give directions about the building of two streetes in Berkeley Gardens, reserving the house, & as much of the Garden as the breadth of the House” (Diary, IV.381). The redevelopment of Clarendon’s property “was some excuse for my Lady Berkeley’s resolution of leting out her ground also, for so excessive a price as was offerd, advancing her revenue neere 1000 pounds per Ann:” (382), and creating Berkeley Street and Stratton Street. In 1696, the house was sold to the William Cavendish, and renamed Devonshire House. It was gutted by fire in 1733 (see Walford, “Mansions in Piccadilly,” and London Encyclopædia, 56). A recently identified watercolour in the British Museum (Crace X.92) seems to provide a unique depiction of the house, which corresponds in its architectural details to Evelyn’s description in the diary. 2 In her first letter of 9 June, Lady Berkeley mentions only a Mr Edwards, but another of 14 July refers to having sent “these 2 men to give you an account how far I have proceeded” (Add 78308: f 206 [9.6.1684]; f 207v [14.7.1684]). The draft Letter 483 is on the recto of the second letter.

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them; that if there be nothing more under it, They keepe a doe and make to little purpose: When I waite upon your Ladyship I’le endeavor to see the botome of it; for, I professe at present I do not comprehend it, who am Madame etc. Your etc. Says-Court 26 July–1684

Jael Boscawen Letter 484 (482) August 31, 1684 f 27

Epistle CCCCLXXXII To Madame Boscawen:

Madame, Is it true that my best Friend1 is created a Baron of England? Is it true that he is the First Lord Commissioner of the Tressury; and above all, advances in health with all these honors, and accumulations, and you give me no Account of it, that I may Rejoice, and Congratulate with you? These, with other surprizing (because Suddaine, and unexpected) changes among the Grandeès, are the Tidings of to-day with us country folcks, and require onely Confirmation from you of the Court, together with the Historie of it as far as you think fit to impart to one who is intirely Yours etc. Says-Court 31 August: – 1684

Sidney Godolphin Letter 485 (483) September 9, 1684 f 27

Epistle CCCCLXXXIII To my Lord Godolphin etc.

My Lord, (But gratefuller to me, by a more indear’d Compellation,1 if with any sort of good m ­ anners, I might not be thought rude and presumptuous to use it still) This comes to Congratulate 1 Sidney Godolphin was created first lord of the Treasury on 25 August (replacing Laurence Hyde), and Baron Godolphin on 28 September. 1 i.e., friend, though Evelyn may also be referring to him as husband of Margaret Godolphin; see Letter 482, note 2.

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againe the new Accumulations of your Merit: Well I know You affect not pompous Titles; But thus shall it be don to him whom the King will honor,2 and much more, whom God dos honor, and whom all that know you well (as I think I do) know you worthy of: I Wish you greate and hearty, a long and solid Joy: Some their Titles honor, You, your Titles; and so I reckon, that you do not so much Receive, as do honor to his Majestie, which is the greatest Compliment, and the greatest Truth (things seldome conjncident) which I can give you, or you care to have; since I know there is profusion to you of this Incense from every hand to you. And now am I in no small Suspense, whither I should in Decency, any way dilute the Happinesse and Prosperity I Celebrate on this Occasion, by calling to mind an Anniversarie3 of so sad Remembrance, as has ben this days to me, though much of it employ’d in ardent Prayers to God for you and yours as I think my selfe oblig’d: But so, you know they served in the Sceleton at the Ægyptian Banquet, when they were Croun’d with Chaplets, and solemnly rejoicing:4 Suffer me then never to leave you out of my dearest Thoughts, when I think [above: contemplate] of that Saint so deare to you, and to me, and whose Memorie is as fresh, and Losse as Sensible, as the most excellent and most obliging creature can be to the most Obliged of Men: But I have say’d –, and if with more Confidence than I ought; I Appeale to those Indelible Lines of a Letter to One to one (22 September –78)5 and know not that he has any-way forfaited the Place you then gave him in your Heart, in stead of Her; which he will never part with to any living soule, but to Just Such another, and so I think me he thinks him Safe, though I he wish you Such-Another with all my his heart; that after all this ­Sorrow and Joy, Your Joy may be full indeede. Says Court 9: September – 1684

Jael Boscawen Letter 486 (484) September 11, 1684 f 27r–v

Epistle CCCCLXXXIV To Mrs. Boscawen etc.

Madame, Well might you complaine of me, as those little Children in the Markets, and calling to their fellows, – We have Mourned to you, and ye have not lamented – [RM: 7 Luke] 2 a paraphrase of Esther 6:6 3 Margaret Godolphin had died on 9 September 1678. Shortly before Godolphin was created baron, Evelyn wrote to him (Add 78307: f 133 [8.8.1684]; f 132 is a draft of this letter), sending him the portrait of Margaret Godolphin and settling the accounts of her estate. Godolphin acknowledged the gift on December 13 (Add 78307: f 138 [13.12. 1684 – misdated 1694]. Evelyn’s usual memorial letter of 9 September 1684 is Add 78307: f 131 (9.9.1684). 4 See Plutarch, Moralia, “The Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” 2.15. 5 from Godolphin’s letter to Evelyn of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678])

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Assure your Selfe (Deare Madame) that I had not ben thus long in Echoing back the saddest Accents of my heart, at the mournefull historie of your Letter,1 had it come to my hands, before it was late this present Thursday; and I confesse it then struck me with so much sorrow, that I was not compos’d enough to set pen to paper, ’til I had better recover’d my selfe; having but newly pass’d the Tuesday before, in the sad Contemplation of our Anniversarie2 mutual losse: That day (as by you) so by me never yet passing, without the most solemn Remembrance of the best Christian, and the best, and dearest Friend I ever had in this World. I know not whither you ever happn’d to take notice of a small Tribute, I (on this moneth now six yeares since) pay’d to the never-dying Memorie of that Saint, in an Office which I presented your deare Brother after his and our irreparable losse, to be a perpetual Symbol on that fatal day of my Condolant and greate Affliction for a stroke so unexpected, and so reciprocal: That, will wittnesse for me, the part I beare in all his, and all your Sorrows too; however I strive to suppresse the often mention of what is past, least I should heape sorrow on sorrow. I am Seriously much Afflicted at this Ladys3 death; but most of all, at the Identitie of the Circumstances, which seeme to me the more surprizing, in reguard the Season, though it be universaly as sickly, is not yet so excessively hot; nor do I find by your description, that she was Lying-in, as her Sister was: All that can be gather’d from this sad Event, as to second Causes, is, that being neere of the same Constitution, she was obnoxious to like malignant, and mortal Accidents: The onely Consolation is, that as she was neere that excellent Creature in Relation, so she was in Vertue and Piety, and is now (doubtlesse) with her in everlasting blisse: The Contemplation of that it is, which ought to aleviate all our other Losses, and subdue that selfe-love (which makes us so part with friends with so much reluctancy) to the Will of God, in whose blessed hands they are now a thousand times more happy, than those they leave behind and are but in the Way; whilst they are at their Journeys-End: In Conflict, whilst they in Triumph: In the meane time – The greate Worke you mention, I am well assur’d, you have not now to do; the Introversion of Pious Thoughts, not on this Occasion onely, but the steady series of a carefull, and holy life, assures me of what I say: May I (your poore friend) Imitate what I admire, daily blesse God for, and beg, that Through our mutual Prayers (after all these sorrows and losses here of Friends) we may finish our Race Course with Joy, and meete in those Supernal Mansions, where there is Consummat happinesse; for here is nothing Certaine, nothing stable, no Abiding. Says Court 11: September 1684

1 Evelyn takes note of the death in childbirth of Mary Colclough (c.1640–84), Margaret Godolphin’s sister and Jael Boscawen’s sister-in-law. 2 The death of Margaret Godolphin was on 9 September 1678. Evelyn wrote a number of devotional treatises, but this office for Sidney Godolphin is not preserved among his papers. 3 Mary Colclough

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Bennet Letter 487 (485) October 15, 1684 f 27v

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Epistle CCCCLXXXV To the Earle of Arlington my Lord Chamberlaine.

My Lord, My Nephew Glanvill1 going to New-Market, I have ingag’d him to waite on your Lordship, with my most humble Duty and Service, which I beg of your Lordship to Accept of in Acknowledgement of the many, many greate Favours I have receiv’d, and which I would now my selfe more willingly have come to repeate, had the Late Circumstances of my health,2 and some other indispensible Impediments ben so kind to me as I wished: For never must I forget (amongst innumerable others) the Favours I receiv’d at Euston3 from your noble, innate Goodnesse, and generous freedome: It is under the sentiments of those deepe Obligations, and of the Satisfactions I receiv’d at that Glorious and happy Place, I now Intreate my Nephew to make this Declaration in my behalfe to your Lordship and with the same Veneration to kisse the hands of that Illustrious Princesse,4 who is the Flower, and the Gemm, and all that is Oriental, Precious, and Perfection in Nature. The Dutchesse of Grafton etc. is (in one Word) to Comprehend All that is Transcendent – Under this Auspicious Name, let may I humbly subscribe that of My Lord Your Lordships etc. Says-Court 15 October 1684

Peter Fountaine Letter 488 (486) October 25, 1684 f 27v

Epistle CCCCLXXXVI To Mr. Peter Fontaine at Jamaica:

Sir, I take this opportunitie of returning my Thanks for your most civile letter1 and that at this remote distance you number me amongst those Friends you have left behind in this cold 1 William Glanville Jr 2 Evelyn complained of “dizzinesse of the head” on 29 October (Diary IV.388). 3 Bennet’s country house in Suffolk where Evelyn advised him on the laying out of the grounds. See ­Evelyn’s description of Euston (Diary IV.116–20). 4 Isabella Fitzroy, duchess of Grafton (Bennet’s daughter) 1 Fountaine’s letter does not survive.

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Climate: Were there anything wherein I might be usefull to you here, I should take hold of the Freedome you give me, and beg the favour that as you know me a friend to Gardens and Planting; so, if any-thing Curious of that sort (Roots, Seedes, Kernels, etc.) come in your way (rare in these Parts) you would remember how acceptable they use to be among such Lovers of the Parterr, and Innocent Diversions of that nature, as I am: I beseech you to present my most humble service to Sir Thomas Linch (your worthy Governor)[.] I do not say he is indebted to me the Accknowledgement of a Letter which I sent him when his Lady Embarked here for the Indies;2 but should be glad to know whether it was deliver’d him: My Lord Clarendon3 (in whose Packet I transmitt this to you) and my selfe often remember him with greate respect, and I should be glad I might be any way serviceable to his Excellency or to You, who am Sir, Your etc. White-hall 25: October–1684

Sidney Godolphin Letter 489 (487) December 8, 1684 f 28

Epistle CCCLXXXVII To my Lord Godolphin etc.

[RM: Recommending Monsieur Beaulieu]1 My Lord, Permit this importunitie from one who cannot be Satisfied without your intire Approbation of the Person I have had recommended to me, to wait on, and Instruct that deare Child.2 I totaly agree with you in the preference of a publique Schole for many reguards; the very Method and Emulation of which will render him a through-pac’d (not a superficial) Scholar; It will inure him to hardships, without austeritie, and take off all that effeminate tendernesse, and fondnes to home, with many other Advantages; and especialy at Eaton, where he will have the Inspection of his Unkle,3 the benefit and advantages of

2 See Letter 473 to Sir Thomas Lynch. 3 Henry Hyde 1 Luke de Beaulieu (1644/5–1723; ODNB). A French emigré clergyman, Beaulieu became divinity reader at St George’s Chapel, Windsor c.1670 and eventually chaplain to Bishop Fell of Oxford, at which time he wrote Claustrum Animae, a book of devotions. He is probably the man recorded as tutor to Francis Godolphin. 2 Francis Godolphin, who was 6 3 Henry Godolphin (1648–1733; ODNB, Diary). The son of Sir Francis Godolphin and brother of Sidney Godolphin, Henry was educated at Eton and Oxford (BA 1668, DD 1685) before becoming a fellow of Eton (1677) and provost (1695–1707). He was appointed dean of St Paul’s (1707–26) after which he returned to Eton.

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your often seeing him, when you are at Windsor, or that sweete Retreate4 which I heare you purchase neere it: But with all this, I think he is yet too young and tender (by a Yeare or two at least) to send him thither, untill he be a little more grown, and sortable to his Companions there: In the meane time, the Young Man, may to his greate advantage, not onely teach him to Reade, Write, and Speake French, and give him the genuine Accent of a Language so necessary, and yet so difficult to attaine, when Elder; but Instruct him also in forming his Verbs and Nounes, and other parts of Latine Grammar, which will exceedingly advance, and prepare him for the Schole: Besides he tells me, he understands Geographie, and Arithmetic, and the rudiments of Musique, all which will be diversion to the young Alumnus, as well as profitable. I confesse I am well pleas’d with the Person, having besides had the approbation of Mr. Boyle5 and others: He seemes to be of a sweete, discreete and Virtuous temper, and promises greate Application; and verily, I think nothing more neccessarie, than that one so qualified, should be continualy with your Son, to take Care of him, and forme his Manners upon all occasions, when he is not in the Schole, and where Children are in greate danger of perversion by the Example of ruder Youth; for which reason, persons of Qualitie abroad, have frequently a Pædagogue, who is continualy attending every motion of their Children, and whilst they are in the Discipline of the Colledge. But I referr all to your Lordships better Judgement, nothing but my extraordinary passion for the real Good of the deare remainder of One I can never think of but with a deepe sense of Obligation (together with your Lordships relyance on my Care, and Acceptance of such little Services) could induce me to give you the trouble of this paper, and which I do with some apprehension of your thinking me Impertinent: This is however a Concern of Moment with me – White hall 8: December 1684

John Evelyn Jr Letter 490 (488) December 22, 1684 f 28

Epistle CCCCLXXXVIII To my Son

Son, Supposing that by this time Mr. Hussy1 may be return’d out of the Countrie, and considering how-much we are Oblig’d for the Continuance of his Respects to our Family, how honorable, and Ingenuous his proceedings have ben; It is not reasonable to hold him longer in Suspense:2 As to the Gentlemans present Fortune, we have little to O ­ bject 4 Cranbourn, identified in Diary IV.527 as “a Lodge & walke of my Lord Godolphins, in Windsor parke.” 5 Robert Boyle 1 John Hussey, a suitor for Mary Evelyn. See Letter 444, note 2. 2 Compare Evelyn’s advice to Mary on handling Hussey’s suit in Letter 444.

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(though we find it some-what lesse in the Particular, than at first it seemed to be) our present Circumstances likewise weigh’d (though I hope we may e’re long be able to make a considerable addition)[.] We do should not therefore in that reguard discourage his Addresses, were there any appearance of that mutual Correspondence betweene the Parties, which can onely render that Condition desierable and happy in the middst of the greatest Affluence: I assure you we have not ben wanting of representing to your Sister the satisfaction it would give us, to see her bestow’d upon one so worthy of her: But since we find she cannot obtaine of her-selfe to come to any firme Resolution (after so long deliberation) It is by no meanes adviseable Mr. Hussy should any longer waite, and depend upon it; whilst in the meane time, we all most sincerely wish it were in our power to make him happy, and think our-selves extreamely Oblig’d for the greate Esteeme of us he has express’d upon this, and all other Occasions. You will take a decent opportunitie (as you soone as conveniently you can) to let Mr. Hussy know, what I had rather signifie by you, than by giving him farther trouble: I am Your Loving Father: JE:

Says-Court 22: December: – 1684

Anne Spencer Letter 491 (489) January 8, 1685 f 28v

Epistle CCCCLXXXIX To the Countesse of Sunderland:1

[LM: Marrying her Daughter2 to the Earle of Clancartie:] Madame, I am so infinitely concern’d for the prosperitie of your illustrious Family that I ought no longer to suppresse the greate Satisfaction3 I receive in all Accessions to it, and sooner had I come with my Congratulations, had I (’til very lately) receiv’d the least assurance

1 Anne Spencer responded on 13 January (Add 15889: f 88 [13.1.1685]). 2 Elizabeth MacCarty, née Spencer (1673–1704; Diary). Daughter of Robert Spencer, 2nd earl of Sunderland, Elizabeth was married when 11 to Donough MacCarty. The marriage was a rushed business arranged by Donough’s uncle Justin MacCarthy with the connivance of the king. 3 By 1688 Evelyn was disabused. On 3 August he wrote that MacCarty “gives no greate presage of worth; so universaly contaminated is the youth of this corrupt & abandoned age” (Diary IV.595).

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of it. I have not the honour of being known at all by my young Lord4 (your Ladyships now Son-in Law) but the Countesse of Clancartie5 ownes us among her Relations, and sometimes acquaints me with her Concernes, though she is pleas ’d to say nothing to me of this, since she went last into Ireland, from whence I now and then receive a letter from her: I am so much a Servant to that excellent Lady, upon my knowledge of her Piety, and extraordinary Vertus, that I am sure no man Augurs you more real Joy and happinesse than I do upon this occasion; And I hope I may live to see it redoubbl’d upon another like it, when your Ladyship will not think me bold if I challenge a Favour, who am Madame Your etc. Says-Court 8: January 1684/5

Robert Berkeley Letter 492 (490) January 12, 1685 f 28v

Epistle CCCCXC To Robert Berkeley Esquire etc.

Sir, You render my Debt unsolvable by an accumulation of Civilities, and I am in paine where how to answer them with anything worth your Acceptance, this Winter having strip’d us of the little the last had spared: That it has dealt more indulgently with Mr. Berkeley I both hope, and most heartily wish: It may suffice me to have enjoy’d some Hortulan Diversions long enough not to complaine and murmure; but then to have You so soone discourag’d would extreamely grieve me. I have receiv’d of late an Account of their Greene-houses1 in Holland, which at small charges in the fabric, secures their Curiosities without stove or fire during the severest seasons: The Paper describing it, I have lent the Earle of Clarendon,2 but shall take care to send you a transcript, not that you may neede it; but to shew how ambitious I should be to serve You, if you did. I have ben forc’d quite 4 Donough MacCarty, 4th earl of Clancarty (1668–1734; ODNB). Sent to Christ Church, Oxford, by his Protestant mother, and placed under the supervision of John Fell in order to keep him away from Catholic influence, he was married without the knowledge of his family to Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of the earl of Sunderland, when he was 16 on 31 December, 1684. Evelyn was recruited by Sunderland to break the news to his mother. When he returned to Ireland, he converted to Catholicism. MacCarty forfeited his estates and title in 1691 and was imprisoned in the Tower, from which he escaped in 1694. When he returned to England in 1698, he was betrayed by his brother-in-law, Charles Spencer, and again imprisoned in the Tower. Subsequently, he and his wife went into exile. 5 Elizabeth MacCarty, née Fitzgerald 1 See Kalendarium Hortense (1691), “A New Conservatory, or Green-House,” 150–62, and Chambers, “John Evelyn and the Invention of the Heated Greenhouse.” 2 Henry Hyde

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to alter my poore Garden since it had the honor of your Presence;3 but ’tis a late day with me to begin new Paradises here: May yours be allwayes flourishing, allways verdant. Sir, I returne you our most humble thanks for the noble Present you sent us (the best Venison that ever was put in chase crust)[.] I wish it were in my poure [power] to expresse the sense of my greate Obligations more effectualy; for there is none honours you more than dos Sir Your etc. Says-Court 12: January – 1684/5

Elizabeth MacCarty, née Fitzgerald Letter 493 (491) January 15, 1685 ff 28v–9

Epistle CCCCXCI To the Countesse of Clancartie:

Madame, The honor which my Lady Sunderland dos me sometimes communicating to me her Affaires,1 brought me the first tidings of my Lord (your Sons) Marriage, which she was pleas’d to write me word of into the Country: I confesse I was a little Surpriz’d at the suddainesse of it, however wishing her much joy, as I do your Ladyship, with all manner of happy Augure: I have now seene and well consider’d the little Spouse,2 so grave, so discreete, and qualified to entertaine her excellent Mother-in-Law, as well as her spritefull and hopefull young Lord and Husband: But Madame, though I am never better pleas’d, than when I am surpriz’d with the newes of what I think of mutual satisfaction to those I esteeme, the greate Obligation I have to your Ladyship and concerne for the Prosperity of all who belong to you, rendred the various Reports of this suddaine Conjuncture the more wellcome to me, after my Lord Sunderland had acquainted me with some Circumstances,3 and the honorable Intentions which I find they have of Performing all-things which your Ladyship can wish-for, that may contribute to your Ladyships satisfaction[.] I understand indeede, there had ben some more expedition in concluding this Marriage than is usual, or

3 The severe winter of 1683–4 caused considerable damage at Sayes-Court, and forced extensive replanting. See Letter 474, note 3. 1 See Letter 491. Evelyn was solicited by Robert Spencer to help conciliate Elizabeth MacCarty, who had not known of her son’s marriage. 2 Elizabeth Spencer was 11. 3 Donough MacCarty had been removed from Christ Church on the basis of a letter signed by Charles II and Robert Spencer, commanding that he spend Christmas in London with his uncle, Justin MacCarthy, who was instrumental in the plan to marry him to Spencer’s daughter.

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might have ben desir’d: My Lord Sunderland being qualified both with honor, and place to have promis’d himselfe a favourable and equal Reception from your Ladyship, of such a proposal as your Ladyship might have embrac’d without this precipitation, what-ever the Circumstances were, which hindred that decent and usual method: But that being now past, I am not more oblig’d by my Lady, than dispos’d of my owne accord, to assure your Ladyship (what I am very confident of ) that there will be the uttmost care in the world of my young Lords Education, by placing a very religious and sober person to Improve him, which is the thing (I tell my Lady) will above allthings, be to your satisfaction, and conciliate your approbation of what is don: Other Particulars my Lord has ben pleas’d to acquaint me with, that I cannot but say are very generous and honorable, and I firmely believe will be punctualy perform’d to your liking: I neede not add in how greate favour his Lordship is with his Majestie, nor should have presum’d to importune your Ladyship with what I have here written, had not my Zeale for your Ladyships happynes, and assiduous Prayers for the Continuance of it ( joyn’d with my Lady Sunderlands Commands) assur’d me of your Ladyships Pardon to Madame, Your etc. I beseech your Ladyship to present mine and Wifes most humble services to my Lord Chiefe Justice,4 with all our accknowledgements for the honour he did us at our poore Cottage etc. White-Hall 15: January: 1684/5

Samuel Pepys Letter 494 (492)1 February 9, 1685 f 29

Epistle CCCCXCII To Samuel Pepys Secretary of the Admiralty:

Sir, I doubt not but our Præsident and Council will think it our Duty to make our humble Submissions, and Congratulatorie Addresses to his Majestie2 and Crave his Protection of a Society founded by his Royal Predecessor: If that should happen to be the Buisines of this day among you, it will be my misfortune to be detained at home, upon an inevitable Occasion: And on Thursday I am oblig’d to attend on the Sherif of this County (at Bromely) for the Proclayming the King there: I am not so vaine to expect this Addresse should be deferrd 4 Sir William Davis, the second husband of Elizabeth MacCarty 1 See Particular Friends, C19, 147. This is the only text of this letter. 2 James II had succeeded to the throne on 6 February. Evelyn describes Charles II’s final illness and death, and the events surrounding the accession of James in Diary IV.405–14.

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upon my account; but if it should be appointed any day the next Weeke (by which time every-body will be in their mourning Weedes) I should be very ready to waite upon the Ceremonie; and I believe our President will think fit, that in the meane time we bespeake the Countenance and Assistance of the Duke of Norfolck,3 Earle of Clarendon,4 Lord Vaughan5 and other noble persons of our Society to accompanie and introduce us: Sir, You will do me the favour to acquaint me by this bearer, what is resolv’d-on in this matter, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 9 February 1684/5

Sidney Godolphin Letter 495 (493) February 11, 1685 f 29r–v

Epistle CCCCXCIII To my Lord Godolphin one of the Lord Comissioners of The Treasury etc.

What is all this World! What is all the Glory of it! as a Dreame when one Awakens, so passes it away, and is gon: My Lord, We have made a greate, a surprizing losse: [RM: upon the Death of King Charles the Second] Indulge me the way I take to discharge my sad thoughts a little, which I cannot speake without disorder: I came the other day to condole with you, that you might not mourne too much within and alone, which were unprofitable for you; and You, and I have pass’d through so many changes, and irreparable losses, as ought, by this time, to have exhausted all our passions for the things and Enjoyments of this vaine and empty world: This is True my Lord; but the losse of a King, a King that loved You, that lov’d you so particularly, so dearely is, I confesse, enough to Create another Spring of Griefe, and breake-up new Abysses[.] If then this be such a losse to you, what’s that of three Greate Nations! of the most Orthodox Church under heaven! of an hundred other things which occurr and crowd upon me too big for name! Sufficient to o’erwhelme us with sorrow, drowne us in teares, and take up every period of the Prophets Lamentation: But my Lord Your breast is too narrow to containe this mighty tide; poure then your Complaints into that vast Ocean, where it may have more roome to flow, and to which, God will yet in his good time set bounds, and say, Hitherto shalt thou come, and no farther: A World of Atheisme, Prophanesse, Uncharitablenesse, and Ingratitude, requir’d this severe Rebuke; and you know I have long apprehended it; but you are safe and in the Arke: What shall I say! We have seene an end of all perfection; 3 Henry Howard, 7th duke 4 Henry Hyde 5 John Vaughan, 3rd earl of Carbery (1639–1713; ODNB, H). Educated at Oxford and the Inner Temple, Vaughan was knighted in 1661 and was an MP for more than twenty years thereafter. Styled Lord Vaughan in 1667, he succeeded as earl in 1686. He was governor of Jamaica (1675–8), and president of the Royal Society (1686–9).

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but thy Law is exceeding broad:1 Whether then there be prosperity, or Adversity; let the Mountaines be removed, and the people never so unquiet: Though the figtree should not blossome, nor fruit be in the Vine; though the labour of the Olive should faile, and the field yeild no increase; yet let us trust in God, and depend on him, whose power is seene in Weaknesse, who can, and will take charge of his and restore Comforts to us. To tell you truth, I was not after one or two days trial, able any-longer to sustaine the pressure of my Griefe, both for the present losse, and future apprehensions, and therefore having (as I said) made two unsuccessfull attempts to condole with you, I went home to compose my mind, that I might Returne with lesse Disorder, and more sedatenes: I am not much apt to espresse my greatest sorrows by words of forme, and outward complaints ( parvæ dolores loquuntur)2 when my very Soule is most inwardly affected; but sure I am, that besides the Publique, whatever touches you, adds sorely to my Affliction. As to your particular: Call to mind a little what once you writ to a friend – “Remember then that from henceforth, I looke upon you as the depositary of all my Concernes, Spiritual and Temporal, to be wholy guided and directed by you in the former, to have allways greate reguard to your opinion in the latter:”3 Indeed you knew not then how inconsiderable a friend you had received into your Confidence, and therefore that indearing expression was cast-away upon me: You had a stock of Judgement and Prudence of your owne, able to carry you through the greatest difficulties; And if then I presum’d to urge you the continuance of your Application to Buisines; it was because the World tooke notice of your Abilities, and that I thought it your Duty (as still I do) and that you may not wast yourselfe in Thinking and Melancholy Reflections, when you may do good in an active Station by your Industrie, and virtuous Example: This I speake, fancying that you are meditating a Retreate againe, and think of pulling-away the shoulder from the weight, after all the abillities, and experience you have acquir’d to be yet farther use-full to the publique; and that if I should perswade you (as formerly I did) not to do it, it might seeme, as if I wish’d it to serve an Interest: But the advantages I have made in so many yeares, during the power of so many profess’d Friends, (and such as best were acquainted with my Circumstances) will acquitt me of that meane suggestion, and declare whether I have now any reason to hope for anything, but that my best friend will reguard his Health, continue his friendship (which is to me above all Interests) excuse my Impertinences, and Accept of that true, steady and unfain’d Affection, I shall ever beare to you and yours: I will constantly pray for you, and wish it were in my power to be any-ways serviceable to you: But God be blessed, You are too-greate to neede me, and too good and generous to abandon me: This is then my Comfort, in all events, that I shall live in hopes of one-day Rejoicing with you, and those whose memory I love, after all these Losses, all these Afflictions: Farewell dearest Friend I am Your: etc. Says Court 11 February–1684/5

1 The following lines are an amalgam of Psalm 119:96, Isaiah 54:10, and Habakkuk 3:17. 2 an allusion to “Curae leves locuntur, ingentes stupent”: “Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.” Seneca, Hippolytus 607 (Miller, trans) 3 Evelyn quotes from Godolphin’s letter of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]), written shortly after Margaret Godolphin’s death.

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George Evelyn Letter 496 (494) February 23, 1685 f 29v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle CCCCXCIV To my Brother George Evelyn of Wotton etc.

Deare Brother, As for your Loyaltie to his late Majestie (concerning which I know of no-body who makes any question) I am my-selfe aboundant Wittnesse; nor doubt I but it will still continue so to the present King;1 nor can you better testifie it, than by serving your Countrie like an honest-man, and according to a well informed Conscience, from which I would not have you depart for all other Interests in the World: There certainely never was Conjuncture, in which there is likely to be more neede of sincerity, and Worthy Members to sit in Parliament; and therefore far be it from me to disswade you from standing: What I replied to the Duke of Norfolck2 was, that I had heard you did not intend to stand any more in Competition with the Candidates, being now in yeares, and meditating repose; and that you would serve Sir Edward Evelyn (our Kinds-man) before another as I believed, and that I would write to you as his Grace desired, for the satisfaction of his Majestie who it seemes, wished you would transferr your Interest and make him knight of the sheere, in case you did not seeke it for your selfe, who have already had that honour so many Parliaments:3 Other communication I had not from him, nor shall I care to let him know your Answer, unlesse he enquire it, being very far from officiousness in this matter; the question and discourse being wholy Accidental to me in the Privy-Chamber; nor will I concerne my-selfe any farther about it: I tha[n]ke God with all my heart, to find you are so strong and healthy, as to be resolved and able to serve your Country againe, if which I doubt not but will make choice of you (whither you appeare in the field or not, if you shall signifie your acceptance) nor can they pitch upon a better: In the meane time I rejoice in the hopes you give me of seing you here next Terme upon so good an occasion, who am with all Affection and unfain’dnesse Your etc. Says-Court 23: February–1684/5

1 George Evelyn had voted to exclude the duke of York from the throne in 1679, and was reported to have exclaimed, “Is not the Duke of York the public enemy of the kingdom? ... [I] would not have him under a temptation,” when speaking in support of the removal of Laurence Hyde in the second Exclusion Parliament. He assured his brother of his loyalty to the king (H). 2 Henry Howard, 7th duke, who recruited Evelyn to persuade his brother not to stand in the upcoming elections. 3 James II had announced his intention of summoning Parliament on 9 February. The election was held on 8 April. As it happened, George had decided to stand, but, as his brother notes, was defeated by “a trick of the Sherrifs” (Diary IV.433), losing to candidates (including Sir Edward Evelyn) backed by the court.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Ann Sylvius Letter 497 (495) March 19, 1685 f 30

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Epistle CCCCXCV To my Lady Sylvius etc.

Madame, It has pleas’d God to take to his mercy this Deare Child, when we were almost at the Crisis of hoping she might have escap’d: [RM: my Daughter Mary:1 in the 19th yeare of her age; dying of the Small Pox 14 March 1684/5] A most bitter Affliction to us, and of all the losses and calamities I ever sustain’d the most sensible, the most touching and penetrating: But so it has pleas’d Almighty God to dispose of the best, the most pious, the most resign’d Creature, that ever I think pass’d through a severe Disease: Her patience, and other Christian Vertues carry’d her, yet through all those sad Circumstances, with an unparalleld firmenesse and without the least reluctancy, though in perfect senses to the last moment, not so much as uttering one complaint during all her sufferings, to our wonderfull astonishment, considering her sometimes apprehensions of lesser dangers: nor this the Effect of the least Consternation; but (I am perswaded) of an extraordinary Grace, greate Piety, and reflections full of Reason, breathing an intire resignation to the Will of God either of Escaping or Suffering-on: I have beheld many sick to death, and some expire; but in my life did I never see the Characters of a better soule, or more prepar’d for a better state: How did she rejoice in the humble hope she had of having prevented a Death-bed-Repentance when she receiv’d her blessed Lord! This was is comfortable[.] But that which breakes our hearts, is the parting with a child, who express’d so much love, so much duty, and in so tender and extraordinary a manner: This I confesse is hard upon us: She came home full of health and good looks (in all appearance) to die in our armes: She spake it without feare, and with a certaine solemn Cherefullnesse that was yet foreboding; telling us that she should be the better all the days of her life, for the Observations she had made in Towne this Winter, of the Vanities of the World; and how glad and happy she thought her-selfe at home: Mother (sayd she) I would never go from you whilst I live, if I might have my Wish; I am no where so well, no where so pleas’d; so happy I think my selfe with you, and my Father, and so oblig’d to you for your care: her mind seem’d to be so at rest, her countenance so cherefull, her humor so and conversation so sweete, as there was nothing more distant from our thoughts, than that which happen’d to our unexpressible affliction: We were now in treaty with no lesse then three who had

1 Mary Evelyn Jr (1665–85). There is a more detailed account of her illness and death in Diary IV.420–31. Evelyn had first heard of her illness in 7 March; she died a week later. Her funeral was 16 March. This letter is in reply to two from Ann Sylvius (Add 78309: f 43 [8.3.1685] and f 45 [13.3.1685]) expressing concern during Mary’s illness. See Darley, John Evelyn, 268–70 for the deaths of Evelyn’s daughters. Evelyn also composed a commemorative poem, “On my Deare Child ME Elegie to her Harpsichord” (Add 78357: ff 32v–3).

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offer’d proposals to us,2 and some of them very advantagious: but God had reserv’d her for other nuptials, and she is now in his blissfull armes: Madame, your Ladyship knew her a little, and I thought I had known her well; but ’til of late, I did not discover the Treasures that were in this excellent Child of ours; so as without the least partiality, recollecting whither amongst the many of her sex, and youth (whom I have known, and convers ’d with) I did ever find one either better principl’d or of a Mind more adorn’d with more Vertues (not to reckon other Ornaments and qualities, which yet were not despicable nor common) I do confesse, I can name none: She had cultivated an understanding that was Conversation very agreable to all who knew her, and some of them able to distinguish, and she had the happinesse of a greate deale of Love and Esteeme, and now of Regrett for her: But all these do but aggravate our Losse, and imbitter the Remembrance of it, not hers (who is infinitely happy) so prevalent is selfe-love, so excusable natural and paternal Affection, which has transported me so far, as to forget, what I ought to do; namely to returne you greate Thanks, for your Constant kind Concerne for us, and wishing you, and all our Friends, they may never experience the losse of so greate a Comfort, as this poore Creature was to us, not onely in prospect of the present, but in prospect, had it pleas’d God Almighty to have spard her longer: But she is safe with him, a most assured Saint in Heaven, where, if I had not hopes and earnest aspirations shortly of seeing, and enjoying her (and other my dearest Friends) to part no more forever, this Affliction would render me an Object of exceeding Compassion: I am in the meane time in greate paine for my disconsolate Wife, who I verily believe (fortified as though she be with her owne reason, the sense of her submission to God, and all that can be applyd to aleviate her sorrows) will hardly overcome this deepe and piercing stroke. and The Impression this losse has made, is not indeede to be describ’d, but realy deplord; and the parting Article being of all the sorrows I have ever seen, or had a feeling Ideä of, the most sad and dolorous on her part; the most sedate, deare and obliging on her Childe, renders it the more afflicting: But Madame, I entertaine you too long in the house of Mourning: We have perform’d the last Offices, and rely on God Almight[y]s infinite mercy, to Compose us, and that this severe chastizement may passe into usefull Graces, and to his Glory. Your Ladyships Says-Court 19 March 1684/5

2 Evelyn records proposals from: Randle Wilbraham (1663–1732) Diary IV.315 and n. 4; Charles Weston (b. c.1659) Diary IV.425 and n. 3; John Hussey (1658–85) Diary IV.454–5 and n. 5. Evelyn’s letter of 5 March 1685 to his wife suggests that there was another suitor whose father was a baronet in Oxfordshire (Add 78431: f 148 [5.3.1685]). See also Letters 444 and 490 for John Hussey’s suit.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Sidney Godolphin Letter 498 (496) March 20, 1685 ff 30v–1

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Epistle CCCCXCVI To my Lord Godolphin: Lord Chamberlayn to the Queene1

[LM: on the death of my most deare Daughter] My Lord: Though I am not yet susceptible of the Consolations which I once endeavord to give your Lordship on the Losse of an excellent Creature;2 yet I cannot but perswade myselfe, you retaine some Compassion for me, who have lost a Child, and a Daughter of all that yet I ever knew, the most resembling that unparallel’d Lady, in the Course of her Piety, and many other the most Conspicuous Vertues, not onely in the hopes and expectations of what they would be, but the Experience of what they were: I will not say much of her other perfections, the gracefull and innocent Ornaments of her Sex (which I find not so very common amongst it) but that she had a mind cultivated with extraordinary virtue and piety above all. Shall I tell you she spake and understood thre Languages; That she had not onely Read, but digested in Writing and material notes, a great-deale of antient and moderne Historie, had read all the good Pöets, was very well vers’d in Geography, had a rare Memorie, and so admirable facility and Inclynation to Musique, that she sung not onely with judgement, but could accompany, the sweetest voice (that yet I ever heard) with a thorough-basse on the Harpsichord: But this had all ben nothing (nothing but Vanity and vexation of spirit) without that early piety, and Serious Sense of Religion which was the Crowne of all her other qualities. For she had also Read, Collected, and retained an incredible Store of Excellent things, and could give Account of the gracious Talents which God had lent her; in all which, and the private Rules, she had set-downe in order to the Conduct of her life, daily Conversation and duty upon all Encounters and Occasions (for so we find them under her hand) shewes the feare and love she had to God, and Care of Improving her-selfe and others:3 This accompanied with a spritefull, cherefull humor, extraordinary Witt, greate modesty, honorable Inclinations, a chast mind, a gracefull motions, and an intire love to her parents (and indeede all that I could wish-for in a child) made her not onely deare to us as a Daughter, but as a Friend and Companion; for so had

1 Godolphin was appointed lord chamberlain to the queen by James II in February, and was replaced at the Treasury by Laurence Hyde. 2 Margaret Godolphin; Evelyn sent annual letters of condolence to Sidney Godolphin, beginning in 1679. See Add 78307: f 117 [9.9.1679] and Letter 411, note 1. 3 Mary Evelyn’s papers are Add 78440–1. Evelyn compiled an inventory of Mary’s papers after her death, “A Note of what Books and papers were found written by my late Daughter Mary E. after her decease” (Add 78440).

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she cultivated her Understanding, and furnish’d her selfe mind, that it were Conversation very agreeable to the most discerning; and as it was accompanied with greate humility and discretion, such as deserv’d our esteeme, and all the good things I could say of her, had she ben no Relation to us: My Lord you may happly think me extreamely Transported; and that all this would better have become the Report of another, than from her Father: But you will also call to mind that (though I am far from comparing my selfe to the meanest of them, save in my irreparable Losse) it is but what the Parents of Cæsarinus, St. Augustin of his son Deodati: Nectarius to St. Basile of old; Julius Scaliger of his son Audectus, Monsieur Mauriere to the Learned Grotius, and severall others of Late (not to speake of Heathens)4 Christian, modest, and Indulgent Parents have don, not onely writing to their Private Friends, but publish’d what they writ, without reproch: But this my Lord is yet here the least of what I aime at: For whilst I am describing the Vertues of my child, I do onely copy after a most accomplish’d and finish’d piece (Your late happy Lady) the Image of whose Perfections, I am sure, is still deeply imprinted in your heart; and whose Example this (now blessed Soule) transcrib’d into her selfe, and has left us so many Characters and Assurances of it, as if she had held her hand, and guided both her Thoughts and pen: Let it not then be imputed to me; if the veneration I had (and still retaine) for that Sacred Friendship, and the Benefit to be deriv’d from Such Examples, hath some yeares past urg’d me to Discharge that Obligation that I ow’d to her precious Memorie, which is long-since in the hands of *One [LM: Lady Sylvius] ye both Esteem’d:5 This (my Lord) I mention here; not that I ever thought it worth your Consideration; but because I had your leave to do it, for my owne Satisfaction, and the importunate Requests of the Lady who exacted it; and for that this Deare Child of ours would it seemes have a Copy of it Read to her (though unknown to me) by a pious Friend and confident of hers (who assisted her in her sicknesse) so soone as ever she tooke her dying bed; expressing in that Devout, and altogether Christian End she made; how much she had profited from the life and lear[n]’d by the Example of that admirable Saint: Thus my Lord have you a just Apologie for all that I have said of my Dearest Child, and the reason I have at this time of more particularly imparting it all to you: For whither should I carry all my Comforts, but to you? from whom expect 4 Illustrious precedents for consolatory rhetoric: Caesarinus probably refers to Caesarius, the brother of Gregory of Nazianus, whose parents are consoled by Gregory in his Oration VII, “Panegyric on his Brother S. Caesarius”; Adeodatus was Augustine’s son by his concubine; Basil of Caesarea’s letters to Nectarius and his wife (Epistolae 5–6) were important examples of a Christianized classical rhetoric of consolation; J.C. Scaliger’s “Oratio in luctu Audecti Caesaris filii” is reprinted in his Epistolæ et Orationes (Leiden, 1600), 312–51; Grotius’s letter of consolation to Aubéry du Maurier (27 February 1621) was printed in the collection Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650; in the 1687 library catalogue), 67–92 and translated into English as The mourner comforte:d· An epistle consolatory; written by Hugo Grotius to Monsieur du Maurier the French embassadour at the Hague (London, 1652). Evelyn cites this text elsewhere (e.g., Letter 103). Evelyn is probably also invoking his own translation of The golden book of St John Chrysostom (London, 1659) written in memory of his son Richard (1652–8). 5 Evelyn had written The Life of Mrs. Godolphin at the instigation of Ann Sylvius, who was given one manuscript, while the other was retained by Evelyn. It was not printed until 1847. Add 78391 contains “Devotions of Mrs Blaggs which I copied out at the Request of my Lady Sylvius & from whom I borrowed them afterwards & intend to Restore.”

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my greatest but from you? in all my Afflictions, on all Occasions: I had once the most solemn Assurances of your Friendship6 – I say the most solemn that were ever made – And though there has since happn’d Circumstances which have worthily plac’d you far above me (a thing most necessary to that that indear’d Relation) yet if my Sincerity be not Wanting, Love and Friendship ought still to make us Equal: As to the Rest, I am humbly confident of the happinesse of my Deare Child, whom I Resigne to our blessed Saviour; and if selfe-love extreamely imbitter the parting with her so soone; it is what I beg of you, and all my experienc’d Friends to helpe me in asking Pardon, and that it will please Almighty-God in Mercy, to sanctifie this greate Affliction to us: Says-Court, 20 March – 1684/5

Jael Boscawen Letter 499 (497) March 23, 1685 f 31

Epistle CCCCXCVII To Mrs. Boscawen:

Madame, Upon second thoughts, I beg many Pardons for writing to my Lord1 as I find I did, and doubt not but both he, and you looke on it as a fond Impertinence: The truth is I hardly knew what I did; for having been looking-over a whole Cabinet full of this poore Childs Papers, and finding as you will see (and must acknowledge when you see) so many little Images and Resemblances of the devout spirit of that incomparable Saint (your late Sister in Law)2 whom I find, (and therein rejoice) she had proposd’ for her Imitation: I could not containe imparting to him the blessed Fruits of her Example: Besides being top-full of Sorrow and of Reflections for the losse of so good, and so well-qualified a child, I hasted to Ease my Affliction by discharging my Thoughts, and recounting many particulars, which (though she deserv’d all I could or did say of her) might Savor of Vanity, and over-weaning fondnesse: My Lord may yet happly call to-mind, how he himselfe was affected with me, upon the losse of one he loved, when he was pleas’d to require my Assistance in looking-over and sorting those holly Collections, which shewed how that inimitably devout Lady had spent her time, in the midst of so many disadvantagious Circumstances of a vaine Court, and Sensual Age: I do not compare my Deare child to that perfect and Consummate Christian: But by what I shall shew you under her owne hand (much of it conceal’d from me, whom she knew did not encourage Young Womens toiling 6 a reference to Godolphin’s letter to Evelyn of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]) 1 Sidney Godolphin; see Letter 498. Jael Boscawen’s letter of condolence is Add 78309: f 90 (23.3.1685). 2 Margaret Godolphin. One of Mary Evelyn’s surviving manuscripts is a notebook, “Mary Evelyn Her Booke of sermon notes 1679” (Add 78440), which uses the pentacle symbol which her father associated with Margaret Godolphin. It is also found in her miscellany, “Miscelania or a Book of several designes and thoughts of mine for the regulating my Life upon many occasions” (Add 78441).

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themselves with Surcharging, and formal Devotions, to which their tender Spirits dispose them, not without prejudice, and needelesse Scrupule) I say, when you shall see what she has left, breathing a sincere Love to God, and taking-up her most serious Thoughts in the midst of all her outward Cherefullnes, and other Exercises (which one would believe were enough to take-up a young creatures time) you will see the Effects of an excellent Example, and that it was from her by name, and by particular Accknowledgement, that by Gods especial Grace, these pious Resolutions were wrought in her, of devoting the maine of her time and thoughts to Religion, and the Service of God: We have oftentimes cheq’d her being so much in her Closet alone; but it was not (it seemes) to reade Romances, or be idle: For indeed she was of a strange industrious Spirit, and too intent of Learning, and knowing every-thing: We now find how she was employ’d, and ’tis a greate support to my Mind; since it pleases God she should not receive the Reward of his Grace in her, in this World, but in a better: To whom then could I more naturaly give the Account I did of this extraordinary Vergin, than to him, who had in some sort ben depriv’d of a Comfort so unexpectedly, and therefore hope his Lordship will beare with my Weakenesse, and the Confidence I have in his Friendship: I had a mind to send you some books and Composures of my deare Childs, that you might judge if she what Correspondence there was in both these Early Pious Creatures, especialy if happly there may have come to your sight what I (sometime since) deliverd to your Brother of his Ladys more private thoughts and Resolutions: But which I am Confident my Daughter had never perus’d, since I ever kept them from her under lock and key, to the end, it might not engage her into any extraordinary Course of Devotion, to which she was of her owne inclination carried[.] In the meane time, I would not have you believe, I should have sent them to you as things of any value above others, for their Composure (though the method be innocent, and pretty enough, considering them as private Intercourses onely betweene God and her soule) but as marks and characters of a gratious heart, a truly religious soule; for which I have greate reason to Esteeme her memory, and for those many other Endowments both of Body, and mind, which renders her losse the more Afflicting: But Gods will be don: May he (of his infinite goodnesse) make your Ladyship more happy, who have also a daughter3 of extraordinary hopes, by blessing her with a longer life, that she may be here a more lasting Comfort to you etc. Says-Court: 23 March –1684/54

3 Dorothy Boscawen (later Lady Meadows) (d. 1749? Diary). The daughter of Jael Godolphin and Edward Boscawen, Dorothy married Sir Philip Meadows (c.1672–1757) in 1696 (Add 78433: f 100 [13.3.1696]). Her sister married Evelyn’s grandson, Sir John Evelyn. All of the Boscawen sisters remained friends of Mary Evelyn who saw them frequently in London. 4 Jael Boscawen’s reply of 28 March urges Evelyn and his wife to come to town “and try the noise of it, and conversation of friends” as a remedy for their grief (Add 78309: f 91 [28.3.1685]).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Hyde Letter 500 (498) March 23, 1685 f 31

763

Epistle CCCCXCVIII To my Lord the Earle of Clarendon Lord Privy Seale etc.

My Lord, I take this (though unhappy and sad) Occasion of giving your Lordship Thankes for the honour you did our sad Obsequies and Last Office, in sending us your Coach to accompanie my poore Daughters Herse etc.1 and have upon me aboundance of other Obligations to your Lordship, my Lady,2 and your whole Family for innumerable Favours and Civilities, under the sense of which I live impatiently for want of Merit to Deserve the least of them: But your Lordships Generous Nature has no measures but its owne Emanations, which are perpetualy flowing on My Lord your etc. Says-Court 23 March –1684/5

Christian Berkeley Letter 501 (499) March 25, 1685 f 31v

Epistle CCCCXCIX To my Lady Berkeley etc. Baronesse of Stratton etc.

Madame Next to the Consolation of having resign’d to God, One,1 who (through his early and peculiar Grace) was prepar’d for a better World; [Se letter 444: p. 30]2 there is nothing of equall Comfort, or more aleviating these Extraordinary and overwhelming Sorrows than the Charitable Condolences of our Friends, and of those especialy, who have so deepely tasted the Losses of a dutifull and hopefull Children, as your Ladyship has don:3 Infinitely are we obliged for the Part your Ladyship takes in your Resent’ments of our greate Losse, 1 Evelyn notes that “There were divers noble persons who honor’d her Obsequies, & funerall, some in person, others in sending their Coaches, of which there were 6 or 7. of six horses” (Diary IV.430). 2 Flower Hyde 1 Charles Berkeley 2 See Letter 446 (12 August 1682) to Christian Berkeley, offering condolences for his death. 3 Lady Berkeley’s letter of condolence was sent on March 20 (Add 78308: f 208 [20.3.1685]).

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which is indeede unexpressible, for many eminent Vertues and Endowments of a most desirable and Obsequious Child, taken from Us (as your Ladyships was) by so severe a stroke: But it is Gods holy Will, who best knows what is most Expedient for us to keepe or loose in this miserable and uncertaine World; To him therefore (Madame) let us submitt and I most humbly beg your Prayers, that I may make a Sanctified Use of this greate Affliction to Madame Your etc. Says-Court 25 March 1685

Sidney Godolphin Letter 502 (500) May 22, 1685 f 31v

Epistle D To my Lord Godolphin Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie

My Lord: I am ever as tender of giving you trouble as the Circumstances I lie-under will permit me, without being wanting to my selfe, and to your Lordships friendly disposition of assisting me: But the Children are come to the birth1 – Wherefore I trust you will not reprove my solicitude for this Installement, the good successe of which lies intirely now in your Interest with my Lord Tressurer:2 Make me then once a joyfull man, that I may continualy pray, and blesse God for you upon a double Obligation: One that you will deliver me from the Trouble which others give me, and that which I give your Lordship with so greate unwillingnesse: I leave therefore the timing of it to your prudence, and shall signifie my Accknowledgement by that which I know you will best accept, a Gratefull heart and memory of a Seasonable Kindnesse, without ostentation of Words, that your Charity, and your Friendship to me may be rewarded from above: The Event I waite from your Lordships intimation with a peacefull mind, knowing you will take care of me, returning home to my (yet disconsolate) Wife: By my Lord Tressurers accidentaly mentioning (this morning) to me that he had a petition of mine, I believe it to be that which my Lord Sunderland so long-since delivr’d to his Majestie and my Lord Sunderland told me (being lost) I should renew againe: That I have don too, a fortnight since; but his Lordship has forgotten me, and perhaps the other’s as well, and that I shall not neede to repeate it. White-hall: 22 May –1685

1 2 Kings 19:3. The reference is to Evelyn’s long-standing suit for recompense for the expenses he incurred on behalf of Sir Richard Browne. See Letter 443. 2 Laurence Hyde, who had been appointed lord high treasurer on 16 February, 1685

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Ann Sylvius Letter 503 (501) July 29, 1685 f 31v

765

Epistle DI To my Lady Sylvius

Deare Madame, I am so o’rewhelm’d with Affliction, that I hardly can tell what I do, or where I am: You have doubtlesse e’re this understood the Cause; and by what Clandestine Intrigue this poore unhappy child1 has ben inveagl’d, and carried away from us,2 and Married, when ’twas too late to prevent it: I cannot possibly charge any Complice in my whole family of either sex, upon the Severest Scrutinie: The Education she has had, principles of honor, duty to her Parents, Piety to God, have (you know) ben carefully infusd: Nor has her demeanor, til this moment, discover’d any thing dissagreable to our fairest hopes, but rather banish’d all suspicions of this nature; and being now grown-up, and become the first of our Care, had all assurances of our decent provision for her; so as this behaviour (so unliketo all the rest) plainely astonishes us: Deare Madame, In what a miserable Condition think you, is my poore Wife, betweene her sorrows for a good and gracious Child;3 and this unhappy Creature, the more to be regreatd: But thus it pleases God to exercise your Friends. I know you’l be much Concern’d: Assist us with your Prayers to Almighty God, that we may support it as becomes us and when you go to my Lord Privy-Seales,4 and Countesse of Sunderland, shew them what is befalln us: They’l condole with us, and pardon, that under this Confusion, I come not to do my duty to them for innumerable favours, a generous and sincere friendship, which I must ever accknowledge both to them and your Ladyship who am Yours Says Court 29: July 1685

1 Elizabeth Evelyn; see Diary IV.460–1 for 27 July. Elizabeth died of smallpox on 29 August (463–4). 2 Elizabeth had eloped with one of the nephews of Sir John Tippetts (fl.1660–90; Diary, Pepys Diary). Evelyn also came to believe that Elizabeth Halford (formerly Lady Burton, née Prettyman), the daughter of his wife’s uncle, Sir John Prettyman, had been instrumental in this elopement. 3 Mary Evelyn Jr; about the death of these two daughters William Glanville wrote to Mary Evelyn: “untimely death is less to be bee deplor’d, then the ruin of another” (Add 78434: f 51 [4.8.1685]). 4 Henry Hyde, appointed Lord Privy Seal by James II in February; Ann Sylvius’s reply to Evelyn (Add 78309: f 46 [29.8.1685]) commiserates the deaths of both daughters and promises to call on Hyde.

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Samuel Pepys Letter 504 (502) August 3, 1685 f 32

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DII To Samuell Pepys Esquire Secretary of the Admiralty:1

Sir, By what you were pleas’d to comunicate to me yesterday, that you had written to Sir John Tippet;2 and the Zeale you expresse for my vindication; I find my Obligations still accumulating[.] He were a Malevolent Wretch, who should heare of an Intent to rob his Neighbours house, and give him no notice of it: I thinke he would be counted Accessorie by our Laws, and punish’d too: Yet such Neighbours I have found: It has ben sayd you were meditating Laws, to make Capital this irreparable out-rage to families: I wish it for the peace of Others, whilst my unhappy fate, renders me uncapable of its effects: As to those little fellows, who think they have assisted in a brave exploit, and merited of their Hero; I passe not; nor ought I to expect other from giddy, and ill-nurtur’d rudnesse, that have no sense of honor or good manners: But why I should find so little kindnesse from Mr. Edgebury3 (whom in all my Life I never injur’d so much as in one thought) and who values himselfe not a little to have seene the world, dos very much abate of the esteeme I had for his humanity, to say no more: He pretends himselfe a Gentleman, this is no greate marke of it: There is one Prestman (whom to this moment I never saw, or to my remembrance heard the name of ) that has had the impudence to glory in the part he had of managing the seacret, to a friend of mine: I am not willing to name another Complice, for the greate respect I have to his Brother in Law,4 my Worthy Neighbour, and one that I am assur’d, would have detested so base a action: But you will have me name them to you and leave them to your Revenge: Sir, All the Revenge I shall ever take will be to dispise, and pitty their Mallice and ill manners; and All I shall desire of you, is such a Reprimand as may make them sensible, they have ben ayding to an unworthy Action, and don an irreparable injury to one who deserv’d it not from them upon any account: This coming from you will mortifie their boast, and let the proudest of ’em know, tis from merely from the Indulgence of the Persons whom they have don this outrage dishonor to, that you resent it not in the highest manner it will beare; and that Officers who are placed here, to inspect and mind his Majesties Service, should be combining in so base and vile an Outrage: This Sir, is what I assure my selfe your generosity will prompt you to; and tis all the Revenge I shall ever seeke or wish ’em. ’Tis enough you take it ill, and are pleas’d 1 Particular Friends, C23, 153–4. The original version is Pforzheimer Ms 35G. 2 Sir John Tippetts, whose nephew eloped with Elizabeth Evelyn 3 Possibly a relation of Sir Ken[d]rick Edisbury. His accomplice, Prestman, is probably the Henry Priestman in Letter 709. For Priestman, see also Particular Friends, 153, n. 5. 4 Sir Dennis Gauden (1600–88; Diary, Pepys Diary). A tenant of Evelyn’s at Deptford, Gauden, was a contractor for the navy at various times between 1660 and 1677 (Add 78318: f 27 [18.2. 1685]). He was sheriff of London (1667–8).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

767

to owne my Complaint, and the Reproofe is reasonable, and perhaps lesse rigorous than your Justice, and the sense you have of this Affront, would make you use, should I take advantage of your generous Indignation, and the reiterated permission you allow me to discover, and Expose them to your severer Animadversion: Sir, I am for infinite Civilities, and in particular for this honorable proceedure etc. Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 3: August 1685

Mary Evelyn Letter 505 (503) August 18, 1685 f 32

Epistle DIII To my Wife

[RM: upon my daughters1 falling sick of small pox and in great danger:] My deare, I receiv’d a Letter directed to you from Mrs. Cowdon2 ( just as you had taken Coach to visite your Daughter) which (requiring a suddain Answer) I open’d and found it an account of Bettys dangerous condition, with her desire that I would come-up with you, and bring Dr. Holden3 to give her the Sacrament: Dr. Holden (you know) is not return’d from his journey, and a better man (to make her sensible of her *folly, [RM: *marrying one of Sir John Tippets Nephews clandestinely against our will and knowledge. She died with the small pox and I went to her poore deare Creature as my Wife desir’d:] and give her such Instructions and consolations as are proper) cannot be found than Dr. Sharp:4 But as for my owne coming (though as a Christian I heartily forgive her, and as a Father Pray for her) I must be excus’d for many respects, which I neede not here particularize: You must be resign’d to God-Almightys will and pleasure in all these events and dispensations; especialy if this Chastizement may be a meanes to make her seriously reflect on her faults, as well as that unworthy man, who has betrayd her: Pray do not presse me farther to come up as yet: I have trouble enough to compose my selfe in any sort here where I am, when I think of the sorrows and Afflictions pressing thus uncessantly upon You. And 1 Elizabeth Evelyn; see also Evelyn’s letter of 8 August 1685 (Add 78431: f 161 [8.8.1685]) and Diary IV.463–4. 2 Mrs Cowden was part of the household at Sayes Court. 3 Richard Holden, rector of St Nicholas, Deptford 4 John Sharp (1645–1714; ODNB). A graduate of Cambridge (MA 1667, DD 1679), he was rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London, and dean of Norwich. In 1689 he became dean of Canterbury and in 1691 archbishop of York.

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my deare: If she grows worse, I will give you the satisfaction of coming, according as I next heare from you: Your etc.

Says-Court 18. August – 1685

Ralph Bohun Letter 506 (504) September 14, 1685 f 32v

Epistle DIV To Dr. Bohune:

I will add nothing (nor neede I) to what I am sure has ben reciprocated betweene you and my Wife, relating to the reiterated stroakes which God has ben pleas’d to lay on our poore Family: To have every-thing successfull here, is as ’tis rarely found, so nor is it perhaps allways safe, or any certaine Character of his displeasure, though I have reason enough to think it is: I therefore submitt to God, who best knows what is best for us to Enjoy, or loose: How bitterly it afflicts me (you may imagine) and especialy for One,1 whose losse and Conversation, I am every day more and more sensible of: But since we must not suffer good Nature wholy to discompose our Duty; I strive all I am able to over-come this fondnesse and selfe-love, and most heartily thank you for the part you take in our Calamity, and especialy for your good Counsel to my disconsolate Wife: In the meane time, God is pleas’d to send me a Diversion (honorable enough) which I neither sought, expected, or deserve: [LM: His Majestie nominating me one of the Comissioners of the Privy Seale]2 This is the Account of our Solitude here: One thing more I am to say: Are you willing to accomodate Mr. Churchil,3 with your Hornius’s Geographia Antiqua,4 who it seemes wants that booke to consult for a Map of old Italy and to adorne a new Edition of Livy?5 This is all: Vale: Says-Court: 14: September 1685

1 Mary Evelyn Jr 2 This appointment was for the period when Henry Hyde was absent in Ireland in the post of lord lieutenant. Evelyn reports Clarendon’s appointment and his own nomination on 3 September (Diary IV.464–5). He was sworn into the position on 24 December (494). 3 Awnsham Churchill (d. 1728; ODNB, I), publisher. He published the 1695 edition of Camden’s Britannia to which Evelyn contributed. 4 Georgius Hornius, Accuratissima orbis antiqui delineatio, sive geographia vetus, sacra, et profana, etc. (Amsterdam, 1653). Ralph Bohun’s reply of 19 September, offering condolences, includes a promise to send Evelyn a “map of Italy, taken out of Cluverius his Italia Antiqua” when he is next in London, and includes congratulations on Evelyn’s appointment (Add 78314: f 31 [19.9.1685]). 5 The Roman history written in Latine by Titus Livius, ed. Edmund Bohun, published by Awnsham Churchill (London, 1686; in the 1687 library catalogue).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 507 (505) September 15, 1685 f 32v

769

Epistle DV To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame I have hitherto ben unwilling to disturb your Ladyships tranquil and sweete Recesse at Althorp, by troubling you with the late reiterated stroke1 God has againe ben pleas’d to inflict on my poore Family: Accidents, that were they certaine Characters of divine displeasure, would be altogether unsupportable: This is however a sore Rebuke, and such as ought to make me looke about me, and sit very loose to all worldly expectations of Repaire: And doubtlesse I should be over-borne with Regrett, were almost any Calamity able to add much to my former losse, which continualy recurrs: So as I find it will be unadvisable to think of patching-up new satisfactions by future hopes, on the remaines of former, which would be but to Launch out againe after a Ship-wrack: We have then but one sure post, which is to regulate our desires and passions, not as fondnesse, and good nature requires, but as Duty, and Submission to God exacts; and to Consider things below, as they are in their fraile Constitution, and the Methods of Providence, and not as we our-selves needes would have them: After this Resolution Madame I endeavor to sustaine this new Affliction with greater Resignation than it was possible for me to do the first, not onely loosing a Child, but a Child of greate Virtue, and qualified to my no lesse so greate satisfaction: Madame, I grieve for my Unhappinesse and Losse! But ’tis in vaine: Ther’s but a short Space betweene us; A few yeares, or days makes all Even – But Madame whilst I thus poure my Complaints into your boosome, and seeke to aleviate my sorrows, I do not forget to Accknowledge my Obligation to my Lord2 for an honorable diversion,3 to which he has Contributed with my Lord Lieutennant of Ireland (the Earle of Clarendon)[.]4 If any thing in this uncertaine World were capable of affording that real Consolation Satisfaction which we tire our-selves in pursuite of, and which I most heartily wish your Ladyship may attaine (without these unfortunate Appendages) in as greate a measure of happinesse and prosperity here, as can be Consistent with more lasting and permanent hereafter: This Vote, I daily put for your Ladyship who am Madame Your etc. Says-Court 15. September–1685

1 the death of his daughter Elizabeth Evelyn on 29 August 1685 2 Robert Spencer 3 Evelyn’s appointment as one of the commissioners of the Privy Seal. Jael Boscawen’s letter of 29 August suggests that this was to happen (Add 78309: f 95 [29.8.1685]). 4 Henry Hyde wrote to Evelyn to commiserate the death of Elizabeth Evelyn on 2 September (Add 78678: f 90 [2.9.1685]).

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Henry Frederick Thynne1 Letter 508 (506) September 22, 1685 f 32v

Epistle DVI To Henry Fredric Thynn Esquire Secretary to the Queene Dowager:

Sir, Understanding that you are not yet furnished with such a Clearke as may be every-way qualified to serve you; I make bold to recommend Mr. Bland2 (bearer hereof ) to you: I should not bespeake your favour for him, were I not most assur’d that in it I should do you as greate a kindnesse as ’tis possible upon this Occasion; because I am sufficiently acquainted with his Capacity, Industrie, and fidelitie extraordinary; and, that (being himselfe in no Circumstances of Necessitie, for Subsistence) he will be able to Serve you with the more Credit and fidelitie: If (upon these Assurances and on which you may depend) you think fit to receive him: As you will certainely do your-selfe a Pleasure; so will you very much oblige Sir, Yours Says-Court 22: September. 1685

Samuel Pepys Letter 509 (507) September 23, 1685 f 33

Epistle DVII To Samuell Pepys Esquire Secretary of the Admiralty:1

Sir, I were very unworthy of your Late and former Favours, should I not render you some Assurances, that I am often meditating on them; and that I shall ever (according to my small force and Capacitie) Obey your Commands: Without more Ceremonie then, – I am in the first place, to give you an Account of Colours:2 But you will be better pleas’d to

1 Henry Frederick Thynne (d. 1705; Diary). With his brother, James, he was keeper of the Royal Library (1677–89) and a commissioner of the treasury in 1684–5. Evelyn records meeting him on 1 August 1679 (Diary IV.178). 2 possibly Edward Bland, who was supernumerary clerk of the wood yard (1680–5) 1 Particular Friends, C25, 156–8. The original of this letter is Add 78314: f 66 (23.9.1685). 2 the symbolic use of colours in naval matters

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

771

receive it from the learned Gilbertus Cuperus’s Apotheosis Homeri,3 in his curious Conjectures upon an Antique Sculpture; where speaking of the Rhapsodists4 that were us’d to sing the Ballads of Ulysses’s Errors5 and Maritime Voyages, they were wont to be clad all in Blew: When his Iliads, and fighting Poemes, in Red; and were so superstitious, as allwayes to Cover those Books or Rolls in Parchment of those two Colours: He pretends that one Oenomanus6 first invented Distinction of Colours in the Ludi Circenses,7 where Greene was the Ensigne of Combatants by Land; and Blew at Sea; so as when those who were clad in Greene gain’d the Prize; They look’d on it as Præsage of a fruit-full Harvest: If the Blew-Coates prevail’d Successfull Expeditions and exploits at Sea: The first, it seemes, concern’d the Husbandman, the other the Mariner: He farther observes, that when there was any Commotion or Rebellion in the parts of Italy or Gaule, the General of Horse carried a Blew Cornet, for as much as that generous creature, was produc’d by Neptunes Trident, and first Menag’d by that Sea God; and that whom ever signaliz’d his Courage on that Element, was honor’d with a Flag of the same Colour; which Suetonius gives a remarkable Instance of, in the Life of Octavius Augustus: M. Agrippam in Sicilia post navalem Victoriam Cæruleo Vexillo donavit:8 after the Naval Victorie obtain’d against young Pompey: It were ostentation to cite more Authors, Statius, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch in Vita Themistocles9 etc. Enough to give you an impatient desire of those the excellent entertainement Themistocles Cuperus will aford you, not on this subject onely, but in a world of other choice and curious Erudition. Sir, I do not remember you charg’d me with any-other Particular of this sort; but as I am both dispos’d, and esteeme my selfe very happy in serving you, and though but as a pioner10 to dig Materials for a more skillfull hand to square and polish, and set in Work: So if in my desultory Course of reading and among the rubbish, I lite on any-thing, which is worthy your notice, and may contribute to it; reckon that you have in me a ready, and faithfull Servant; Acquir’d by many Obligations: but (I assure you) by none more, than our that singular love of Virtue and things Worthy an excellent Person, which I discover, and highly honour in you. In the Notes of Isaac Vossius upon Catullus – Sive utrumque Juppiter simul secundus incidisset in pedem,11 he has many learned Observations about Navigation; particularly, that of sailing to severall Ports opposite to one another, by the same Wind: iisdem Ventis

3 Gilbertus Cuperus, Apotheosis vel Consecratio Homeri. Sive, Lapis antiquissimus in quo poëtarum principis Homeri consecratio sculpta est, commentario illustrates (Amsterdam, 1683). 4 professional reciters of poetry 5 wanderings 6 Oenomaus, the father of Hippodamia, who required his daughter’s suitors to engage in a chariot race 7 games in the Circus Maximus 8 “He presented Marcus Agrippa with a blue banner in Sicily after his naval victory.” Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum: Divus Augustus 25.3 (Rolfe, trans). See also Particular Friends, 122, n. 5. 9 Statius, Thebaid; Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheke; Plutarch, Life of Themistocles. 10 excavator; i.e., tanquam explorator 11 “or Jove came down astern on both sheets at once” Catullus 4.20–1 (Cornish, trans). See Isaac Vossius, Cajus Valerius Catullus et in eum Isaaci Vossii observationes ([Leiden], 1684; in the 1687 library catalogue), 22–3.

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

in contrarium navigatur prolatis pedibus (as Pliny12 expresses it) and it was (you may remember) on this hint, that I inform’d you Vossius had by him a Treatise Περὶ Ταχυπλöὶα:13 I enquir’d of him (when last I was at Windsore)14 whether he would publish it; to which he gave me but an uncertaine Answer: In the meane time, you’l not be displeas’d at what he tells us of a certaine Harmonie produc’d by the Snapping of carters whipps, us’d of old at the feasts of Bacchus and Cybele; and that the Tartars have to this day no other Trumpets, and are so adroit, as at once to make the whip give three distinct clapps, and that so loude, as to be heard very far off; and then speakes of a Coach-man of Maestricht who plays several tunes with his Lash: To a Lover of Music and harmonie, I could not omit this scrap, though I know you’l laugh at me for it, and pay me with the Tongues and Gridyrons:15 But e’re I leave Dr. Vossius, I dare say you have perusd what he writes (in his late Opuscule)16 touching the Reformation of Latitudes and Eclipses; and his asserting the Mediterranean, and other places, to be much larger than our Geographers report: He has something also of the North Passage to the Indies; of the Construction of Gallies, the Pico Teneriffe17 etc. of all which you best are able to judge, and doubtlesse have form’d your Remarks on: Whilst I was running on comes Mr. Dummer18 to give me a Visite, and I am so charm’d with his Ingenuity; that I looke on it, as a new Obligation to you; and if you find I cultivate it for my owne sake a little; you will let him understand (by all that I am to speake to you of him, upon this short tast) how much I wish him the Improvement of your Favours, who am for so many my-selfe Sir Your etc. Says-Court 23: September–1685.

12 “Vessels by means of slacking sails can sail in contradictory directions with the same winds.” Pliny, Historia Naturalis 2.48.128 (Rackham, trans). 13 Concerning swiftness in sailing 14 Vossius was a canon of Windsor 15 torment me 16 The following treatises are contained in Vossius, Isaaci Vossii variarum observationum liber (London, 1685; Eve.a.141). 17 a landmark in the Barbados; see “An exact Relation of the pico Tenariff, taken from Mr: Clappham, who had long resided in that Iland,” read before the Royal Society 13 March 1661 (Royal Society, Classified papers VII (1) 1; Beal, Index EvJ 91). 18 Edmund Dummer (1651–1713). Pepys claimed that Dummer had been apprenticed to Sir John Tippett as a “clerk in writing and drawing” (Pepys Ms 1490; see Fox, “The Ingenious Mr Dummer”). He had been promoted as a surveyor (a post he held in 1692), Pepys claimed, “upon the Credit only of his Designeing and makeing of Draught” (Pepys Ms. 1490), a reference to Dummer’s survey of the Mediterranean between 1682 and 1684 (BL Ms King’s 40). Pepys described him in 1686 as “an ingenious young man, but said rarely to have handled a tool in his life” (Samuel Pepys’s Naval Minutes 395, n. 1). Evelyn thought highly of him. He corresponded with him in 1688–90 when Dummer sent him some rare birds (Add 78318: f 39 [4.7.1689]; Add 15857: f 224 [9.6.1690]). Dummer was a surveyor of the navy in 1692, and became one of the commissioners of the navy.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Hyde1 Letter 510 (508) October 7, 1685 f 33v

773

Epistle DVIII To Dr. Hide Oxford

Sir, Though my Losses and Sufferings for this Unhappy Man,2 upon reasonable estimate, amount to (at the least) £500; yet I am not unwilling to harken to any-thing which may Consist with any tollerable hopes, that we be not farther involv’d as I am certaine we shall be, unlesse some Effectual Course be taken, that what shall for the future be received, be duely, and honestly applied to takeoff his and our Engagements here for him, and which in all is Swell’d to £300 principall, besides two or 3 yeares Interest behind unsatisfied: It was his unaccountable Negligence to let it run on so many yeares, and which has so augmented the summ, without so much as once acquainting us with it; but pretending he had from time to time pay’d it duely, when during all that time, he never minded it, but let it run-on ’til there became another £100 due for that alone, and which had e’re this ben trebld, had not I by chance (as it were) inspected the Scrivenors booke; and since which yet he has not paied any-thing considerable as you may perceive by this Inclos’d: So as Mr. Tooke3 and my selfe stand All liable still to those Bonds, in which we are mutualy Engag’d, and in danger of much trouble very suddenly, unlesse some Course be taken speedily, to keepe the Interest (at least) in ballance, which I feare will come to neere £50: In the meane while, so far am I from oppressing a Calamitous man, that I am not onely ready to do him kindnesse, but returne you many Thanks for your so charitable advise and assistance, whereby he may be relieved, as far as is Consistent with any likelyhood and appearance, that the Interest accrewing be regularly discharg’d, and something of the principal, lest it still accumulate to a more desperate bulk: I do therefore (with all my heart) give my full Consent, that (since you are pleas’d to take upon you so charitable an office for him) you should both Receive, and dispose of what proceedes from this Sequestration, according to your discretion, having reguard (as I doubt not but you will) to our and his Intanglements here, and the Consideration of Mr. Tookes engagements, who has no other Expedient to extricate himselfe, and who already has so deepely smarted: 1 Thomas Hyde (1636–1703; ODNB). Hyde assisted Brian Walton with his Polyglot Bible while still an undergraduate at Cambridge. He went to Oxford (MA 1659) and became keeper of the Bodleian (1665– 1701). Catalogus impressorum librorum bibliothecæ Bodleianæ in Academia Oxoniensi (Oxford, 1674; Evelyn Library, no 1117, a copy inscribed on behalf of the university by Ralph Bathurst) appeared under his name. He obtained his DD in 1682, and became Laudian professor of Arabic (1691) before becoming Regius professor of Hebrew and canon of Christ Church (1697). See Toomer, Eastern Wisedome and Learning. 2 Christopher Wase, who was supervisor of the university press; see also Letter 548. 3 Benjamin Tooke (c.1642–1716; I). Tooke wrote to Evelyn on several occasions about Wase’s debt: Add 78314: f 88 (2.6.1682); f 89 (12.10.1683); f 90 (27.5.1684). Wase also wrote to Evelyn about his debts on 22 October 1668 (Add 78318: f 43 [22.10.1688]).

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

This Consideration cannot possibly leave any greate matter towards the pacifying those Creditors you mention; but to avoyd greater Inconveniencies and (such as you hint) what is fit to be don, I do for my part refer wholy to your Judgement: As to the other particular, touching the Accompts and Fees, I have indeede ben Inform’d, that greate Injurie has ben don: Wherefore, if you will please to receive, and take Cognizance of it for the future, that it may be applied to the suffering-Mans Ingagements, it will be an addition of his Obligation to you, as well as to Ours: You have therefore Sir, not onely my Consent, but my humble Thanks and Acknowledgement to you for what you propose to Sir Your etc. Says-Court 7: October – 1685

Anne Spencer Letter 511 (509) [n.d.] [October 1685]# f 33v

Epistle DIX To the Countesse of Sunderland etc.

Madame, Though Joy, and cherefullnesse of Mind are so little suitable to my late Melancholy Circumstances, that I am hardly yet compos’d enough to do my Duty to your Ladyship and to thank you for the part you take in my Concernes at all times; yet I cannot hold from congratulating the honour which I heare, her Royal Highnesse has conferrd on my Lady Ann,1 to whom I Augure all the good-fortune, the Virtues deriv’d on her from your Ladyship renders due to her Merites: Nor at the same moment am I a little Reviv’d, that my Lord Chiefe-Justice2 is made Lord Chancelor,3

1 Anne Spencer’s daughter, Anne Douglas, had been made a lady of the bedchamber to Princess Anne. 2 George, 1st Baron Jeffreys (1645–89; ODNB) had been made chief justice of the King’s Bench in 1683 and was appointed lord chancellor on 28 September 1685. 3 Slightly more than a line is deleted here. The next leaf, which included the rest of Letter 511 and Letters 512–13 has been removed. According to Evelyn’s index to the collection, Letter 512 was addressed to Pepys, and Letter 513 to John Evelyn Jr. See Add 78299: f 165 and introduction, page xxx and note 41.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys Letter 514 (512) December 31, 1685# f 34

775

Epistle DXII To Mr. Pepys Secretary of the Admiralty:1

Sir, Though I am sufficiently assur’d the favour you have shew’d Mr. *Dummer [RM: *afterward one of the Commissioners of the Navy] (and of which he is so gratefully sensible) proceeds meerely from your owne discernement of his merit; yet (seing he will needes perswade me, that you were the kinder to him upon my Intercession) mithinks there lies an Obligation on me to return you ma[n]y thanks for it; at least he thereby fancies his owne Acknowledgements will come with the better inforcement: I therefore most humbly thank you in his behalfe, and that with the greater alacrity, as I verily believe his Majestie will receive the fruits, and you the Satisfaction of having Advanc’d a dilligent, and most ingenious man: I am indeed Sir, (as I ought to be) much pleas’d with what you have don for him; but if I might have wish’d a favour for my-selfe without prejudice, it should have ben for his continuance in that station here, and not at Chatham: That had ben indeede doubly to have oblig’d me, and I am perswaded, not have displeas’d Mr. Pepys, when he should have come to know the reason of the others refusal of Chatham (contrary, as I heare, to his first Resolution) but on which depends a tale – a seacret at least, which might happly move you to Suspend your yet Consenting to his choice, ’til you are inform’d of the Intrigue: Now should I whisper in your eare, what is Towne-talke (and indeede no seacret at all, that there is a certaine proper Gentleman2 very Sweete with ------------- who prevailes with the good-natur’d husband by all meanes to stay at Deptford; you would pronounce me an errant Goship, and should I name the Gentleman – that there remain’d something – alta mente repostum;3 I acknowledge I can have no mighty fondnesse for either; but at the same time, conjure you to believe, that I am much superior to this poore revenge, however injur’d in a very sensible part, as you very well know: There is not yet (I repeate it) the least ingredient of it in me I thank God: But this I confesse; that if by removing a Scandal, or idle habitude, Mr. Dummer were fixed here, and the other translated to Chatham, I should not be sorry. Thus Sir, you see how far Selfe-Interest extends; nor will you reprove it, if I rather also wish that (by Mr. Pepys’s addresse) I might have the neighborhod of an Ingenious Man (whom I could sometimes converse with) than of

1 Particular Friends, C29, 164–5. The original version is Houghton Library (Harvard University) bMS Eng 9991 (118) and is dated 2 January 1686. 2 The gentleman is unidentifiable: see Particular Friends, 165. The woman is obviously Mrs Dummer. 3 still in the mind: probably a reference to his daughter Elizabeth’s elopement

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Persons I have so little reason to esteeme either for their Neighbourhood, or their Morals: But all this in perfect submission to those better Reasons, by which you are allways govern’d. I am Sir Your etc.

Says Court 31: December – 1685

Edward Hyde1 Letter 515 (513) December 31, 1685 f 34

Epistle DXIII To my Lord Vicount Cornbury:

My Lord, I cannot dissemble the unquietnesse I am in, ’til I heare from you what my Lord Lieutennant2 is, and how he has hithertoo pass’d his tedious journey: The late impetuous Tempests would exceedingly affrite me, if I believ’d it possible to put to Sea (especialy the Irish-Seas at this season) whilst the Winds are in this quarter: I am sorry this Moone has so faild our Expectation of more propitious Weather; but you know she is an unconstant Lady planet, and we must hope for better, and I humbly pray for it. But There is another Progresse3 also my Lord which (had I Confidence enough to enquire after) I should rejoice to heare of; but I will not anticipate the satisfaction I hope to receive from your Lordships owne Mouth, intending (God willing) to kisse your Lordships hands within a day or two, who am My Lord Yours etc. And now my Lord having lost all my patrons and patronesses4

31 December – 1685

1 Edward Hyde, 3rd earl of Clarendon (1661–1723; ODNB, H). The son of Henry Hyde, 2nd earl of Clarendon, Hyde was Viscount Cornbury (1674–1709) until becoming the 3rd earl. He was an MP for Wiltshire (1685–95) and successively lieutenant colonel and colonel of a Royal Regiment of Dragoons (1683–9). 2 Henry Hyde, who was travelling to take up his position as lord lieutenant of Ireland, having left London on 16 December 3 Cornbury had just been made master of the horse to Prince George of Denmark. 4 This note is added by Evelyn in a later hand, and probably alludes to Hyde’s falling out with William III after 1689.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys Letter 516 (514) January 1, 1686# f 34v

777

Epistle DXIV To Mr. Pepys Secretary of the A[d]miralty:1

Sir, I am sure that what you excogitate to bring about, cannot misse of its desir’d Effect; therefore, as to Mr. Dummers2 Concerne, I leave it to you with intire acquiescence: In truth, I think him worthy your favour; for, in my life have I never observ’d a young man (qualified as he is, in his way, more susceptible of what can be wanting) lesse pragmatical, and of greater modesty; besides his so humble, cherefull, and becoming dedication of himselfe to his Patron3 alone, which is a mark of his discretion, as well as of his duty. Now Sir, to the other part of your Letter: I cannot but think it a very venial fault (if it be a fault) to Consigne a Wife to her owne Husband, when the Charmes are not (as I am told) extraordinary, before they are quite vanish’d and effeete: Surely the good man owes you thanks rather, for makeing it so easy to him, and so honorable: But what ever he may faile of in this particular, I am sure I owe you mine for the honour you have don me, in substituting me your Proxie on so weighty an occasion a negotiation, as the Commands you mention: Sir, I shall take care to performe your trust with all possible fidelitie; but whether the Lady will accept of it, because I represent Mr. Pepys, I much doubt whether the whole Sex would be as kind to Sixtie as to Fourty (Or rather I do not doubt but they would not) were there no other Consideration (as there is a greate deale to the advantage of Mr. Pepys) betweene the Principale and the Proxie: – But Sir, to leave this part of Gallantrie, ’til we meete, and have opportunity of proposing it to the Ladye; Receive from both Proxies (with the Augurs of my happy New yeare) our reiterated Acknowledgements for all your greate Civilities, and particularly for those at present to Sir, Your Sayes-Court 1. January – 1685/86

1 Particular Friends, C30, 166. Original version (dated 8 January) is in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Ms (British Authors Case 10, Box 29). 2 a reference to Edmund Dummer’s transfer to Chatham; see Letters 509 and 514. 3 Sir John Tippetts

778

Richard Raines1 Letter 517 (515) January 12, 1686 f 34v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXV To Dr. Reines etc. Judge of the Prerogative Court:

Worthy Sir, There is one Mr. Greene,2 who has (it seemes) a Cause depending in your Court concerning an Administration, and he has desir’d me, so far to Recommend him to your favour, that he may receive no prejudice in his just pretence, upon any account of his being unworthy of it: I have told him, that my not having the honour of being knowne to you, I fear’d my Suffrage would be no farther advantagious to him, than my Testimony of his being Recommended to me by that late most worthy and learn’d Divine Dr. Beale of Yeavell in Somerset-shire (whom perhaps, you might not know) for an honest, Loyal, modest, and industrious Student; which likewise for during some yeares I have observ’d: He is in some streits, which by a Providence, and your favour, he hopes to Emerge out of, without reproch: I am not acquainted with Particulars, but am assur’d he will neede no farther Intercession, than the merites of his Cause, before so worthy a Judge: Sir, I beg Pardon for this Interruption, and am Sir Your most etc. Sayes Court 12: January – 1685/86

1 Sir Richard Raines (1636–1710). Raines was admitted advocate in 1671, knighted and made judge of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in 1685, and judge of the Admiralty Court (1686–9). 2 unidentified, but see Letter 409 to Beale

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Halford1 Letter 518 (516) January 22, 1686 f 35

779

Epistle DXVI To Sir William Hollford Baronet

[RM: of Wellham Licestershire: he married the Daughter of the Earle of Salisbury] Sir, I am greatly oblig’d to you for the honour you do me, in thinking me capable of Serving you; but should be much more happy, were it in my power to serve you effectualy. When I reflect upon your Person, your Qualitie, and Circumstances of your Education; I am far from thinking anything yet in Prospect here worthy your looking after: I meane, amongst the Souldiers, whose Commands are uncertaine, their Lives unsteady and desultorie, such as I cannot imagine should be pleasing to you. There are as honorable stations in Court, that Persons of your Interest and Alyance may decently aspire to, without putting yourselfe into the Guards (where there are few Officers of any Value, but such as will be apt to Impose upon those who come into their forme unacquainted with their Method) but it is necessarily requires a Sedulous, and un-wearied attendance upon the Place, ’til the Gap be open, and then a Subjection which few of your fortune and figure in the Countrie usualy Condescend to, unlesse the Advantage be Considerable as well as Splendid: Nor is this to dehort you, but faithfully to describe the aire of this peculiar [word deleted] Climate, (the Court)[.] You must be here yourselfe, arm’d with infinite Patience, Seene, and Known, and make your Constant Court; and then you have advantages, that the absent cannot hope-for; but by some Lucky Chance, which is very Extraordinarie; there being so many here eager after Places, and snatching at every-thing that stirrs. Sir, I heartily wish it were in my Power to do more for you than Advise: Be assur’d, if any-thing occurr, wherein I may signifie (who am so little Courtier) I should be highly ambitious of serving you: I am with my most humble service to my Lady Frances2 Sir Yours etc. and kindsman: White Hall 22: January: – 1685/6

1 Sir William Halford (1663–1709; Diary, C). Halford was the son of Sir William Halford (1638–82) and Elizabeth Prettyman (1638–98), the daughter of Evelyn’s uncle by marriage, Sir John Prettyman. By her previous marriage to Sir Thomas Burton, Elizabeth was the Lady Burton, whom Evelyn believed instrumental in the elopement of his daughter Elizabeth (Diary IV.461). This suspicion probably contributes to the mock deference in Evelyn’s tone. Halford lived at Welham in Leicestershire, and first courted Henrietta Yarborough (Add 78431: f 148 [5.3.1685]) but married Frances Cecil, daughter of the 3rd earl of Salisbury. He was made a baronet in 1706. 2 Frances Halford, née Cecil. The daughter of James Cecil, 3rd earl of Salisbury, she married Sir William Halford and was a correspondent of Mary Evelyn (Add 78300: f 51 [19.9.16 95]).

780

Sidney Godolphin Letter 519 (517) January 22, 1686 f 35

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXVII To my Lord Godolphin Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie:

My Lord, I have not that felicitie and Reliefe I once promis’d my-selfe (and more than ever neede) of your Consolation: Indeede you neede not mine, having had so many, and so weighty things to divert, and take you wholly up, which has allwayes made me tender of Importuning you: But, now that you seeme to be more at leasure (though perhaps you are not so) Reflect a little on (now) an old, intirely-faithfull and devoted Friend. The best, and almost onely use of Friends, and Friendship is the Advantage of Advertising and Assisting one-another; and you have often told me, why you did not think it seasonable for me to presse my Buisinesse,1 whilst that Creature (the Dutchesse of Portsmouth)2 was here: And since, I have (according to your advice) sought the favour of my Lord Tressurer3 and ben promis’d that my Adversaries Accompt, should be laid before his Lordship that I might have some Reliefe upon my just pretensions: But, there’s nothing don, and Mr. Guy4 tells me, he heares no more of it: I beseech your Lordship Speake in my behalfe to my Lord Tressurer as you would do for a Friend you Lov’d (effectualy) [.] He cannot think it unjust to perfect for me what both their Majesties5 and you (their Commissioners) thought so just and reasonable; so easy and little disadvantagious to his Majestie. Lift then your poore friend Client out of the Clay. I once againe beseech your Lordship. Indeede I can but pray for you, and that God would direct you for the best in all your *Actions [RM: *he is one of the Cabinet Counsel.] and Concernes, and especialy (I say especialy) in this conjuncture: And if God Almighty heare me, I do what I am able, and as much as you desire for all your favours: Pray think of me sometimes, who often think of you, and proove what I may be, when through your kindnesse I am shelterd from the storme: Time and Opportunitie passe, and are irrevocable. 22. January: 1685/6

1 the long-standing suit with Sir William Prettyman; Godolphin’s intervention is being set up as decisive in the resolution of the affair by Laurence Hyde (see Letter 537). 2 Louise de Kéroualle, duchess of Portsmouth (1649–1734; ODNB) had returned to Paris. It is not clear why her presence was an obstacle to Evelyn’s suit. 3 Laurence Hyde, whom Evelyn blamed for blocking his appeal 4 Henry Guy (1631–1711; ODNB, H). Admitted to the Inner Temple (1652) and a graduate of Oxford (MA 1663), Guy was an MP for Hedon, Yorkshire (1670–95 and 1702–5). He became secretary to the Treasury (1679–89 and 1691–5). 5 Charles II, James II

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Henry Hyde Letter 520 (518) December 2, 1685#1 f 35

781

Epistle DXVIII To my Lord Clarendon etc.

My Lord, The Bearer hereof is the Gentleman (a Relation of my Wifes) whom your Lordship may remember, I sometime recommended to your favour: Having ben (he tells me) formerly in Ireland and appearing to be of an Industrious Spirit, he is not without hopes of succeeding in something that may employ his Talent, with your Lordships approbation, if you should be pleas’d to give him favourable Accesse, and some particular reguard for the sake of those whom you have already so infinitely oblig’d, that nothing but the experience of your never ceasing to do good and oblige, could Countenance this presumption of My Lord, Your etc. 2 December. – 1685

Henry Hyde Letter 521 (519) February 1, 1686 f 35v

Epistle DXIX To the Earle of Clarendon, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland etc.

My Lord, The Tidings of your Excellencys Safe Arival, Reception, and honorable Susception of your greate, and weighty charge, has fill’d all our hearts with Joy here, and our Toungs with Thanks to God Almighty;1 and both our Tongues and Penns with Congratulations, and happy Auguries: It is in every-bodys mouth, how well his Majestie is satisfied with all the Circumstances of this happy beginning; and I do not doubt but it will affect the whole Progresse of your Excellencys Government: I am sure you have the constant Prayers of

1 Hyde left London on his way to Ireland on 16 December, “with him neere 200 Coaches, of all the Greate Officers & Nobilitie” (Diary IV.491) to take up his appointment as lord lieutenant for Ireland. 1 Hyde entered Dublin on 9 January. Evelyn’s celebratory rhetoric contrasts with the concerns expressed to Hyde’s son about the journey in Letter 515.

782

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

all who have the honour to know your Merites; but, of none that has more Cause to with the continuance of all Good-things to you, than one so deepely oblig’d, as is My Lord: your etc.

White-hall: 1 February 1685/6.

Flower Hyde Letter 522 (520) February 1, 1686 f 35v

Epistle DXX To the Countesse of Clarendon etc.

Madame, I should do but halfe my Duty, should I not at the same time moment with his Excellency felicitate your Wellcome, and safe Arival, and no-lesse-happy Reception:1 I have told my Lord Lieutenant,2 how the Echo of it has rebounded from his Majestie to every-bodys Joy and Satisfaction: How my particular Interest is bound up with your intire Prosperitie, your Excellency knows so well, that you would be assur’d of my assiduous Prayers for its perpetuity, though I had no other Ties (as I have innumerable) of Veneration for your Pietie, and other Vertues: Upon those Madame, I could dilate, with Pleasure and greate Truth; but, must for this time, give way to a thousand Congratulations as well as mine, which are showring upon both your Excellencys from every quarter of the Kingdome, and all that honour you, though none with more gratefull and sincere Devotion than Madame etc. White-hall 1 February 1685/6

1 Evelyn’s letter crossed with one from Lady Clarendon of 9 February (Add 78678: f 87 [9.2.1686] and Hyde, Correspondence, I, 237–8) in which she complains of Ireland as a country that Evelyn has not cultivated. “Not a tree or a shrub is here!” she says of Chapel Izzard, which she describes as “a clos walk of Ashes, and Box hedges,” as contrasted to “the Garden of Eden” at Swallowfield. Her husband, answering Evelyn’s Letter 521 (1 February 1686), was pleased with Dublin and recommended the Irish Royal Society to Evelyn’s attention (Add 78678: f 91 [14.2.1686]). 2 See Letter 521.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mary Evelyn Letter 523 (521) February 3, 1686 f 35v

783

Epistle DXXI To my Wife etc.

My deare, I am sorry ’twas so late, before your Summons came to White-hall, and that I am forc’d to deny my-selfe the honour of waiting on Sir Gilbert1 this afternoon: But I suppose there’s nothing presses; there being onely yet initial Civilities and proposalls2 which you know require time to Consider of and ripen on both Parties: You also well know, in what Circumstances I am, both as to my present station and employment here,3 and what other Occasions I have to make use of the kindnesses and favours of some greate and honorable Persons (now at the helme) amongst whom I find Sir Gilbert may unhappily have ben misrepresented:4 I should therefore hope for both our sakes (and especialy, before we enter farther into Particulars) that all Missunderstandings of this Nature were Clear’d: It is a jealous, and tender Conjuncture; and my Obligations are so greate to his Majestie, that I am assur’d Sir Gilbert will receive this no otherwise, than as what becomes my greate reguards for the honour he is pleas’d to do me, being ever ready to expresse my high Sence of it upon all occasions: Yours White-hall 3: February 1685/6

1 Sir Gilbert Gerard (c.1620–87; Diary, C). Gerard was sheriff of Durham (1665–75) and held a number of minor offices. His second wife (1660) was Mary Cosin (whom Evelyn calls “Jane”), daughter of Evelyn’s Parisian acquaintance John Cosin. He proposed marrying his son to Evelyn’s daughter Susanna (see ­Diary IV.503–4). 2 Concerning the proposed match between Gerard’s son and Susanna, Evelyn notes “The father being obnoxious, & in some suspicion & displeasure of the King, I would receive no proposal, ’til his Majestie had given me leave, which he was pleas’d to do” (Diary IV.502). 3 his position as one of the three commissioners of the Privy Seal, for which he received the patent on 22 December and took the oaths on 24 December (Diary IV.493–4). 4 On 28 November 1685, he was acquitted of charges of “being at a consult to make an insurrection” (Diary IV.502, n. 5).

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Henry Hyde Letter 524 (522) March 13, 1686# ff 35v–6

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXXII To my Lord Lieutennant etc.

My noble Lord, Though frequent Letters I turn to your Excellency from so uselesse a Creature as I am, can hardly be Read, much lesse Answer’d, but at the Expense of moments devoted to the Publique; yet your Excellency honoring me with Lines so full of Grace and favour; I cannot but returne my most humble Accknowledgements; Nor conceale what an Accession of Joy I receiv’d, at the Recital of your Excellencys happy Progresse, and especialy of your health, under your owne noble hand: I am just now (my Lord) together with my Wife (who most humbly kisses your both your Excellencys hands) come the first time to inhabite, the Court Tennement, which I professe onely to hold under your Excellencys beneplacit; and where those Ladys you mention invite themselves a Housewarming Moneday last,1 and both your healths were drunk, and (which is the better way of signifying our Duty) heartily praid for; and we daily wish for you (do what we can) neerer than the Cock-pit:2 This your Excellency must suffer, and I know will accept the Gratefull Sentiment of your favours, in the best manner we can expresse them. My Lord, the Laudable Character which your Excellency gives of the Place and People etc. where you are, will (I doubt not) render your greate and weighty station, the more supportable, and contribute both to your health, and Satisfaction: And the honour your Excellency has don the Royal Society here, by the protection you promise that Colonie of it in Dublin,3 shall be reported to our Assembly here, with all due Recognition: My Lord the Addresse they made to your Excellency, was so far from flattery, that it was a mark of that discernment which dignifies them Philosophers indeede, and Lovers of Wisedome: I shall not faile of acquainting our Præsident with what your Lordship writes of the Vicount Mont-Joy,4 that the honors of the Society5 may accordingly be don him:

1 This letter is misdated. Although Evelyn had begun to take possession of his lodgings in Whitehall on 8 February, the house-warming he refers to occurred on 15 March (Diary IV.500, 504) 2 a block of buildings opposite Whitehall used as offices by the Treasury and the Privy Council 3 Clarendon discusses the Royal Society in a letter to Evelyn of 14 February (Add 78678: f 91 [14.2.1686] and Hyde, Correspondence, I, 250–1). See Hoppen, The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century. Lord Clarendon also sent Evelyn a commendatory account of vegetable gardening in Ireland (Add 78678: f 93 [25.5.1686] and Hyde, Correspondence, I, 406–7). 4 William Stewart, 1st Viscount Mountjoy (1653–92; ODNB, P). The leader of the Protestants in Ireland, Stewart was a soldier who succeeded as second baronet in 1662 and was created Baron Stewart of Romalton in 1683 and Viscount Mountjoy in the same year. He was made master-general of the ordnance for life in 1684 and served in the army in Hungary and Ireland. He died in William III’s army at Steenkirk. 5 the Royal Society; see Birch, History of the Royal Society, IV, 468 and 475–9 for relations between ­Dublin and London

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

785

The Newes of your new Lord Chancellor,6 the Amours of the Duke of Northumberland,7 and Marriage of the Lord Chamberlaine8 will come to your Excellency from better hands, whilst I take off mine from giving you farther troubles that I may reserve you for my next, who am My Lord Your Excellencys: etc. White-hall Privy-Seale Lodgings 13 March – 1685/6

Flower Hyde Letter 525 (523) March 13, 1686 f 36

Epistle DXXIII To her Excellency the Countesse of Clarendon at Dublin

Madame, I’le adventure (for once) to say, that I am exceedingly pleas’d, that I displeas’d your Excellency: Could you have meditated me so much evil, so wretched and un-gratefull a creature, as to have indeede incurr’d the deserved Reproch due to those un-thinking Girles?1 who both deserve to be sent (do I say) into Denmark? yes, to the Hyperborean-Pale for their wiccked negligence; and for which I shall be sure to discipline them severely: Your Excellency tells me Ireland lies uncultivated; however propitious be the Aire and Soile; ô what mightier blessing could it possibly receive, either as to its political or Natural Capacity, whilst it has such a Lieutennant to invigilate, and take-care of the One, and your Excellency for the other! Whatever the Countrie might be at your Excellencys Arival; mithinks I see what a Paradise it will be hence-forwards, when by your Excellencys Inspiration, the Genius will be Planting; and Fruits and Flowers fill the Parterrs; Hibernia become Hesperides, and the Garden of Chapell Izard,2 the Swallow-field 3 of the 6 Sir George Jeffreys 7 George FitzRoy, duke of Northumberland (formerly Palmer) (1665–1716; ODNB) had just married clandestinely Catherine, the widow of Thomas Lucy of Charlecote. 8 John Sheffield first married Ursula, née Stawell (d. 1697), the widow of Edward Conway, earl of Conway on 18 March 1686. 1 This is probably a reference to Evelyn’s daughter, Susanna, and daughter-in-law Martha. In a letter of 9 February 1686, Lady Clarendon remonstrated: “All yor Children may be in Denmark [with Lady Sylvius] for any good they do me, I have not had a word from any of them” (Add 78678: f 87 [9.2.1686] and Hyde, Correspondence, I, 237. 2 the Clarendon residence, Chapel Izod, in Leinster, 3 miles west of Dublin on the Liffey 3 the Clarendon estate in Berkshire, near Reading. Evelyn provides a description of the gardens in describing his visit in October 1685 (Diary IV.480–2).

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Kingdome, emulous of ours: This I prædict Madame, rather than wish for; least charm’d with the delices of your owne Culture, it should render you un-willing to Return to your owne, and Deptford (which your Excellency so kindly mentions) become a Desert, before it has the honour of receiving you: Madame, I shall pray Almighty-God for the Continuance of your Excellencys health, and that All-things may succeede both where you are, and where you sometimes (I perswade my selfe) you wish to be, and are perfectly honour’d by all, but by none more than Madame Your Excellencys etc. White-hall. 13. March – 1685/6

Edward Hyde Letter 526 (524) March 15, 1686 f 36

Epistle DXXIV To my Lord Vicount Cornbury etc.

My Lord, There were nothing in the world I should embrace with greater joy and satisfaction, than an Occasion of shewing my grateful sentiments for the Obligations, I must ever acknowledge, due from me to your Illustrious family: I have ben at your Lordships house, to acquaint you; that in order to what your Lordship desir’d I should first enquire after (upon the motion I lately made of a Certaine Young Lady, virtuous, beautiful and greately Rich) I find her not onely wholy dissengag’d;1 but (by the Instrument I make use of in this affaire) that her Father hearkens to the Proposal I have made: ’Tis suggested to me onely, that in reguard my Lord Lieutennant (your Lordships Father) is absent, the farther Treating, might be countenanc’d and own’d by my Lord Treasurer your Lordships Unkle: This is the progresse I have made, and the Answere I receiv’d, and now waite for such directions and commands as my Lord and you shall think fit in a concerne of this nature; I would therefore gladly waite on your Lordship might I know when you will be contented to suspend your Martial thoughts,2 for softer Impressions, and wish it may not be long e’re I receive your Lordships Commands to My Lord your etc. White-hall: 15 March – 1685/6

1 It is not clear to whom this refers. On 10 July 1688 Hyde married Katherine O’Brien (1673–1706), later Baroness Clifton of Leighton Bromswold, whose financial prospects were less secure. 2 Hyde was lieutenant colonel of the Royal Regiment of Dragoons in 1683 and colonel (1685–9).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 527 (525) March 14, 1686* f 36r–v

787

Epistle DXXV To the Countesse of Sunderland etc.

Madame, I most humbly thank your Ladyship (as I am allways oblig’d) for all your favours, but, amongst them all, for none more, than this last, which you sent me this morning; because it has afforded me so profitable and delightfull Contemplations of the greate Goodnesse of God to you, in Recompensing your Piety and Care with such early Graces, and solid Fruites, as (to the rest of his Blessings) God has Superadded, in giving you so accomplish[ed] a Daughter, [RM: Lady Ann Spencer:] so Religious and well-dispos’d a Lady, and in a Court and Station where such Examples are rare in this declining Age:1 That Fountaine must certainely be Cleare, from whence so chrystal a streame proceedes, and that Building stand un-shaken, which is set on so firme a Basis: And this, I am perswaded your Ladyship lookes-on as a mighty Providence in this Conjuncture of Temptation, and Daily Seduction, against which, the Grace of God and your Ladyships timely Vigilance,2 have timely provided. What your Ladyship has ben pleas’d to send me, is from all these Instances, not onely above all expressions of Praise that I can give it; but has the Approbation of God him-selfe; whom (with yet a deepe sense of my owne late afflicting losse of a gracious Child, emulous of this her Vertue) I earnestly supplicate, may LongContinue to you this unspeakable Comfort to your Ladyship and brightest Ornament of the Court, who am Madame Your etc. Madame, I hope you send me this Treasure to reserve without expecting I should returne it in kind: If you did not, Plainely, I cannot part with it: ’Tis to do greate Good that I detaine it; nor do I think I robb my Lady Ann, who has all that in her heart, which I have here under her faire Hands: In contemplation of that, I presume your Ladyship will pardon this bold period.

White-Hall 14: March 1685

1 Anne Douglas was twenty, and Evelyn may be alluding to a document she had written in support of Protestantism. 2 As a lady-in-waiting to Princess Anne, Anne Douglas was caught in the tension between her mistress’s Protestantism and the Roman Catholicism of the king.

788

George Legge Letter 528 (526) May 3, 1686 f 36v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXXVI To my Lord of Dartmouth: Master of the Horse to his Majestie and Lieutennant of the Ordinance

My Lord, My son had come sooner to waite upon you, had he not heard you were gon down the River for some daies: I have in the meane-time, acquainted him with how-much Civilitie your Lordship was pleas’d to receive the Objection occurring upon proposal of making Publique, and common, a Way that has (time out of memory) ben kept a Private one: The Woolfe-aker Lane,1 being under that expresse name, graunted to Sir Richard Browne, not of Grace onely, but on valuable Consideration: This, I make bold to mention; because my Son tells me; there come one lately to him, intimating as if it had ben procur’d by some Indirect, or false Suggestion; and that he had Order from your Lordship, immediately to breake downe open all the Gates, and lay the lane in Common: I told my Son, your Lordship being pleas’d to assure me, you would by no meanes require any-thing that should in the least be prejudicial to him; I could not believe you gave any such peremptorie Command; at least, that you would suspend it, ’til my Son (whose Interest it is) had acquainted you with his concerne: He comes now (my Lord) not to Expostulate with your Lordship (whom I am sure he will find both Just and Generous) both to satisfie your Lordship in what Circumstances he should Suffer, were the Lane made at all times a common Roade; but and to shew your Lordship how freely yet he is dispos’d to serve your Lordship by something he tells me he has to offer, which may happly accommodate your Lordship without prejudice to either: As to its being said to be his Majesties Way; Besides that there are many private Passages about this Citty, and other Places, which are at all-times open (and as this shall ever be) when he is pleas’d to make use of them: They are (your Lordship knows) at other times, open kept shut by Gates, and Gate-keepers, as is this, and not made common: This is allways open to any Gentleman much more to his Majestie though I cannot learne, that ever either his Majestie or Predecessors made use of it, being in truth very-far about, through Marshes, and nothing so convenient (as that through which his Majestie allways goes to Greenewich) nor were it a small summ would make it tollerable, or indeede a Wholesome passage for him, as your Lordships-selfe will Judge upon Inspection: I add

1 See Add 78629: G (“Survey of the Fee Farm sold to Mr Vocking for my daughter Draper’s Portion” [1693]) in which “Woolpicker Lane” is indicated in one of the “surveys of the Grounds at Says Court and Roads in Deptford belonging to Jo: Evelyn.”

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

789

my Lord no more, but my greate ambition to Serve your Lordship in all that lies in my power, and I am sure my Son comes with no lesse resignation, than dos, my Lord Your etc. White-hall 3 May–1686

Anne Spencer Letter 529 (527) May 6, 1686 f 36v

Epistle DXXVII To the Countesse of Sunderland etc.

Madame, My Lord1 has so generously confirm’d his promise of nominating to the Charter-house,2 the son of a destitute, and deserving Widdow (intended him likewise by the late ArchBishop of York)3 that this comes onely by your Ladyships advise, to accknowledge My Lord Presidents greate Charitie, and to leave a note with your Ladyship of the name of this pregnant Youth, if there should be occasion to put his Lordship in mind of it, when the Election approches -- His name is William Cock:4 White-hall 6: May – 1686

Henry Hyde Letter 530 (528) May 6, 1686 f 37

Epistle DXXVIII To my Lord Lieutennant etc.

My Lord, Though I had much to say; yet have I little to acquaint your Excellency with, but what you receive from better hands: Those dubious Matters, in this ticklish conjuncture, which might happly give umbrage to some you love; his Majestie has graciously ben pleas’d to 1 See Diary IV.511 for Spencer’s support. 2 For Evelyn’s account of the school then in Smithfield, London, see Diary III.192. 3 John Dolben (1625–86; ODNB, Diary). He was successively canon of Christ Church (1660), prebend of St Paul’s (1661), and dean of Westminster (1662–83). He became bishop of Rochester in 1666 (where he was responsible for the vicarage of Deptford), lord high almoner in 1675, and archbishop of York from 1683 until his death. He and Evelyn saw one another socially frequently. 4 Possibly he was the son of George Cocke (d. 1679).

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

passe-by Immediate *Warrant [RM: *Dispensations to divers Papists to Exercise Publique Charges as well in Church Colleges and as other Civil Offices, without requiring us to passe it under the Privy-Seale which we could by no meanes legaly have don.]1 for which, your Lordship may be sure, I am not sorry, who looke upon my-selfe as Responsible to your Lordship as well as to his Majestie for my behaviour in this Trust and Station. The Drums, and Trumpets and preparation for the Camp2 now approching, gives my Lord Cornbury3 so much buisinesse, and serious application, that I have not the Comfort, I promis’d my-selfe of enjoying, and rend’ring him those Services due to him, and all that have any relation to your Excellency which, is, I assure your Lordship, no small mortification to me: He has of late ben Indispos’d, and I am just now going to kisse his hands; though he sends me word, he will prevent me: I heartily Wish he may passe this Hounslow Campagne well; and that we may (before this summer end) make a little Visite to Swallow-field; remembring the obligations I lie under to both your Excellencys, to give you an Account of a place you are so deserv’dly fond of, though I know you will not neede it. We have earnestly sought my Lord Montjoy,4 and to passe upon him the Civilities of the Society, due to his Merites and your Excellencys Recommendation (which I caus’d to be read in publique) but on all attempts, our President5 could never be so happy to meete him; and ’tis now a moneth since he has given us the slip, being (as is said) gon towards Hungrie to militate against the Turke: I assure your Lordship I made it my buisinesse to have found him out, but ever with the like misfortune. This is my Third to your Excellency, from whom One I have receiv’d so full of Kindnesse, that if I never receive any more, you have ben before hand anticipated all I can pretend to; however, since it has ben reported, my Lady6 had not of late enjoy’d her health so perfectly well (though now we heare she is better) it would be no little Consolation to receive the Confirmation of it to one who am is in all Duty My Lord Your Excellencys etc. White-hall 6: May: – 1686

1 See Diary IV.509 (5 May). Evelyn had been worried that “we should be required to passe a ­Doquett, ­Dispensing with Dr. Obadia Walker & 4 more … to hold their Masterships, fellowships & Cures … ­notwithstanding they no more frequented, or used the pub: formes of Prayers, or Communion with the Church of England” (509). Hyde responded on 25 May (Add 78678: f 93 [25.5.1686]). 2 A camp for the army had been established on Hounslow Heath in May (Diary IV.513, n. 5). 3 Edward Hyde 4 Sir William Stewart (see Letter 524) 5 Samuel Pepys, president of the Royal Society from 1684 until replaced in November 1686 by John Vaughn, 3rd earl of Carbery (1639–1713; ODND, R) 6 Flower Hyde

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Jenner1 Letter 531 (529) May 6, 1686 f 37

791

Epistle DXXIX For Sir Thomas *Genner one of the Barons of his Majesties Exchequer etc.

[RM: *who hearing my Lord Sunderland (President of the Council) had given me the nomination of a Youth to the Charter-house Schoole (where he would be competently provided for) was very importunate with me to perswade the widdow (his mother) to give this Election to a younger son of his owne, for a gratuity of mony, which truly, I could not counsell her to do.]2 Sir, I have us’d your Arguments to Mrs. Cock3 to comply with your desiers, and the offer you so generously make: But reflecting upon her total disabillitie to provide for her Child so well, should she misse a Charity she has so long, and so industriously sought (first by my Lord Arch-Bishop of York4 lately dead, and since of my Lord Sunderland upon my account) I cannot prevaile, nor in truth seriously advise her to any accommodation, lesse than what she I have obtain’d for her son: Her Condition is realy to be pitied, as it was formerly opulent, and very prosperous; having brought so ample a fortune, to an unfortunate husband,5 who left her many children unprovided for. I should otherwise have ben very ambitious to serve you, who am Sir Your etc. White-hall: 6: May – 1686

1 Sir Thomas Jenner (1638–1707; ODNB). A barrister of the Inner Temple (1663), Jenner became recorder of London (1683) and was knighted in the same year. In 1684 he became king’s sergeant and in 1686 baron of the exchequer. He was also a member of James II’s ecclesiastical commission, and was captured with James at Faversham in 1688. 2 Evelyn records the success of this suit on the same day in Diary IV.511. 3 See Letter 529, note 4. 4 John Dolben 5 George Cocke (?)

792

Robert Phelips1 Letter 532 (530) May 18, 1686 f 37v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXXX To Robert Phelips Esquire one of the Commissioners of the Privie-Seale etc.

Worthy Brother I think my-selfe greately oblig’d to you, for the Præface of your Letter but infinitely more for your friendly Advertisement at the *Close; [LM: *Advertising me of a License to Walker2 for vending divers Popish-books etc. to which I absolutely refus’d to put the seale.]3 and that you continue to Indulge my frailties, with so much Generositie: The same kindnesse of yours, will also make my excuse to my Lord Teviott4 (if occasion be) that I attend not this Seale to-morrow,5 who am Dear Brother Yours etc. Says-Court 18 May – 1686.

Sidney Godolphin Letter 533 (531) May 23, 1686 f 37v

Epistle DXXXI For my Lord Godolphin Lord Chamberlaine to her Majestie Queene Consort etc.

My Lord, and deare friend, It has laine some time upon my Spirit, to Consult your Lordship what I should do in the station, which the providence of God, and kindnesse of Friends have (unsought, as to this particular) plac’d me in; and I acknowledge, that as to my Circumstances, it came seasonably to me, and the more agreable, for the leasure it affords me to cultivate such other

1 Colonel Robert Phelips (1619–1707; Diary, H) was one of the commissioners of the Privy Seal in 1685. Phelips became an MP for Stockridge in 1661 and for Andover in 1665. In 1687 he was appointed ­chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1687–89). 2 Obadiah Walker 3 Evelyn dates this refusal as 12 May 1686 in Diary IV.512. 4 Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot 5 Evelyn notes on 19 May that “I was not at the seale” (Diary IV.512).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

793

Inclinations of mine, as I trust, are Innocent, and to some, Usefull: And thus-far, with my Brother Commissioners have I sedulously attended the Privy-Seales; nor did there passe any thing for some time, which I thought, might render us obnoxious. But if (of late) there have ben some Doquetts offerd, which, I heare it sayd, I have signified my dissent to;1 I do not, I may not deny it. Perhaps I make more Scrupule more than I neede: In the meane time, that However, these (to me at least) dubious matters, and in this ticklish Conjuncture, might (I question not) passe by immediate Warrant, were his Majestie so pleas’d: Why therefore might not your Lordship (who are your selfe a Privie Counselor, and have so much Interest in my Lord Presidents,2 and I dare say, some kindnesse for me) suggest it to his Lordship, that such particulars, and Indulgences as concerne Religious matters etc. inconsistent with our Oathes, and statutes still in force, might passe by Immediate Warrant, as some of that nature have already don? How much this favour would oblige the rest of my Brethren, as well as my selfe, I am sensible of prone to think, and therefore more earnestly recommend it. But my Lord, I leave the manner of your hinting it to his Lordship when as you find a it seasonable opportunity; your Lordship knowing under what Circumstances I am, whilst that other greate Concerne of mine3 is still suspending under before my Lord Tressurer4 whose kindnesse to me I earnestly beg your Lordship to improve. This being onely to declare to your Lordship that in all Events (as to my present Trust and station) as I never have; so nor ever will I (by the grace of God) do any thing unbecoming an honest man 23: May Says-Court Whitmonday 1686

E Your Lordship may oblige me to keepe this paper by you: The Doquetts which I conceiv’d ought to have ben suspended, and therefore desir’d my Lord Tiviott5 to consult my Lord President about, were January



1 2 3 4 5 6

Mr. Lytcolts6 Secretary to the Ambassador to Rome.

See Letters 530 and 532. Robert Spencer the settling of the Crown’s debt to Sir Richard Browne and of the suit of William Prettyman Laurence Hyde Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot Sir John Litcott (1646–?; Diary). Litcott was appointed secretary to the English embassy to Rome (1686), knighted in 1687, and made English agent in Rome (1667–88). He lived thereafter at St Germain.

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18 March Recusants coming to Court etc. March Mr. Hills}7 Licenses to print and publish divers prohibited Books, May Mr Obadiah Walker}8 expressly prohibited by many Acts of Parliament etc. – which yet pass ’d the Privy Seale, unknowne to me and unassented to by me: Two of the Commissioners being a Quorum without me.

George Evelyn Letter 534 (532) June 8, 1686 f 38

Epistle DXXXII To my Brother George Evelyn:

Deare Brother I send my servant on purpose to Congratulate with you, and my Cousins, the Newes of the Birth of a Young-Heire1 to Wotton, and with as much hearty Joy, and Satisfaction, as one can possibly have for the Prosperity of a Family so neerely related; and Augure, and wish you as much Joy as a Grand-father, and Parents ought to have for so signal a Blessing; and my Wife (I assure you) dos equaly Congratulate to you, with Thankfullnesse to God, and Praying for his Continuance of this, and all other his favours to you and Yours: I am Deare Brother Yours etc. Sayes Court: 8 June–1686

7 On 12 March, Evelyn notes that “a doquett to be sealed importing a Lease of 21 yeares to one Hall” [sic] “for the printing Missals, Offices, Lives of Saints, Portals, Primers &c: books expressly forbidden to be printed or sold” and that “I refused to put the seale to [it], & made my exception against, so it was laied by” (Diary IV.503–4). Henry Hills (c.1625–88/9; ODNB, I). Printer to the Council of State (1649–60), Hills also became printer to the King from 1670 onwards. A convert to Roman Catholicism, Hills had applied to the Privy Council in 1686 for permission to reprint missals and other devotional works. He briefly became master of the Stationer’s Company in 1687, but was replaced and his shop destroyed by an anti-Catholic mob in 1688. 8 Evelyn notes on 12 May that “I refus’d to put the P: Seale to Dr. Walker licence for the printing & publishing divers Popish Books” (Diary IV.512). 1 This unnamed grandchild died in infancy. See Letter 601 to George (19 December, 1688).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Richard Parr1 Letter 535 (533) June 8, 1686 f 38

795

To the Reverend Dr. Parr: Epistle DXXXIII

[RM: Sending me his life and letters of the Primate of Armagh:]2 Worthy Doctor I was extreamely Sorry at my absence from home, when you lately did me the honour of a Visite, and Left that Golden-Present for me, my Lord Primat’s Life and Letters. This comes to returne my most humble thanks for your bounty to me, that best ornament of my formerly (but now no longer) poore Librarie: I read over the Life, and a greate many of the Epistles, before I could give-over, though I came late home on Friday, nor was it in my power to desist, after I had begun: What shall I say? You have most worthily acquitted your selfe of the Province you undertooke: The Subject is rich, the style is natural, unaffected and becomming the matter; In a word, it could not have ben better written; nor (though it comes later than all good men desir’d) more seasonably publish’d; because it will ever be seasonable as long as the Examples of good and Excellent Persons are necessary: Nor has your learned *Collegue [RM: *Mr. James Tyrell:]3 lesse merited in Vindicating that incomparable Prælate (his Grand-father) from the malevolent and peevish Doctor in divers momentous Passages; by which he not onely dos right to an excellent

1 Richard Parr (c.1617–91; ODNB, Diary). A graduate of Oxford (DD 1660), Parr was vicar of Camberwell and chaplain to Archbishop Ussher (1643–56). He published The Life … of James Usher in 1686. Parr had preached the funeral sermon for Robert Breton, vicar of Deptford, in 1672 (A sermon preached at the funeral of that faithful servant of Christ, Robert Breton, D.D. [London, 1672]; in the 1687 library catalogue). 2 James Ussher; on 18 April, Evelyn notes that he went to Camberwell to visit Parr (Diary IV.507–8). Richard Parr, The Life … of James Usher, Late Arch-Bishop of Armagh, Primate and Metropolitan of all Ireland (London, 1686; Evelyn Library, no 1146) had been delayed when the Licensing Act was revived in 1685, and finally completed with changes in 1686 (see 508, n. 1). The published version nonetheless contained probably forged letters of John Bramhall, archbishop of Armagh, and Sir William Boswell, detailing “popish practices to pervert this nation” (507). Evelyn notes that the letter attributed to Bramhall (whose authenticity he appears to accept) “was the cause of the whole Impressions being seiz’d on, upon pretence, that it was a political or historical account, of things, not relating to Theologie, though it had ben licenc’d by the Bish: &c: which plainely shewe’d what an Interest the Popish now had, that a Protestant Booke, containing the life, & letters of so eminent a man was not to be publish’d” (507). 3 James Tyrell (1642–1718). Son of Sir Timothy Tyrrell (and therefore a distant cousin of Evelyn through the Godstone branch of the Evelyns), Tyrell was the grandson of James Ussher. In 1657 he entered ­Oxford and graduated MA in 1663 before going to the Inner Temple, though he seems to have remained in touch with Ralph Bohun there and with Mary Evelyn (Add 78435: f 193 [12.4.1668]; f 195 [10.5.1668]). He became a Whig theorist of the constitution and copublished with Locke Patriarcha non Monarcha (1681).

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and greate man; but to the Church of which he has so highly merited of. The Choise Collection which you have made of the letters is another Character of your Judgment, as well as Industrie; nor less Obliging to the Learned World: I have read a good many, and am wonderfully edified: Is it possible that any Protestant, any son of the Church of England, should envie the publication of such a Treasure?4 O Tempora! – Whither are we going! plainely, at this I am astonish’d – puduit hæc opprobria5 –Sir, I most humbly againe, and again thanke you for this Illustrious Gift, and have inscrib’d the Donation as becomes the Beneficiary Your most humble and most oblig’d etc. Sayes-Court: 8: June 1686

Samuel Pepys Letter 536 (534) June 29, 1686 f 38r–v

Epistle DXXXIV To Mr. Pepys Secretary of the Admiralty:1

Sir, You were pleased not long-since, to say you would continue to me the favour of ordering that the Watchman (whose station is at the dore of his Majesties Yard, next my staires) should, as formerly he did, take care of them, to clense them, and the Ca[u]seway, which are (since this short Interruption) allmost all cover’d with mud, and render’d uselesse by it: I come with the more assurance that I shall obtaine this kindnesse of you without prejudice to his Majesties Service, in as much as by our Articles, those Stayers and Causey are to be maintain’d and repair’d by his Majestie during the Terme of the Lease, and in case their clensing be neglected, they will soon be ruin’d. Now in reguard of the Passage2 reserved by me out of Sir Dennis Gaudens3 Lease, through which I consent that

4 an allusion to the attempts prior to and following its printing to suppress the book (see note 2); Ussher had also been criticised by Peter Heylin in Respondet Petrus (1658), an attack that was replied to in the appendix to Parr’s biography. 5 “Ashamed am I that such an insult could have been uttered.” Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.758 (Miller, trans) 1 Particular Friends, C32, 168–9. The original version was in the Rosenbach Museum in Philadelphia but is now apparently lost (Particular Friends, 168). The text had been published in Marburg, Mr Pepys and Mr Evelyn, M35. 2 This appears to be the passage known as Woolpicker Lane referred to in Letter 528. 3 See Letter 504, note 4.

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Work-men may at all times have recourse to the Mast-dock, it was mutualy agreed, that the Watch-man who kept that doore, should also have a key to the Stayres for the use of the Commissioners onely; so that there was to be no other intercourse through it, but to them, and my Family, for the more Security of the Dock: Such a Lock was promis’d should be put-on, and will so be don, and all the rest too, when you shall please to signifie so much to your Commissioner here, who, I am sure, will be a kind Neighbour to us: As to the Watch-man (who has little else to do a greate part of the day, but to walk about) it will be but a small exercise to him, when a foule tide requires it; and I do not use to forget the poore man at the yeares-end: Sir, you will also take a time to call for the book, and give orders for its ingrossing, which as yet it wants, through the unaccountable negligence of our late famous Admiralty, or their officers:4 This I mention to prevent accidents in this mutable world: The prejudice might be to his Majesties more than mine, whilst the lease remaines un-seal’d: Something then I merit for this Advertisement, but I would have all my greate Obligation from your kindnesse alone, who am Sir, Your etc. Says-Court 29 June: 1686

Laurence Hyde Letter 537 (535) July 7, 1686 f 38v

Epistle DXXXV To my Lord High Tressurer of England etc.

My noble Lord, The Summons which I have received to attend your Lordship to morrow at the Tressury, incourages my humble hopes, that your Lordship has kind intentions towards me: If I bespoke your Lordships Favour by my dearest friend, my Lord Godolphin,1 it was because I have ben so miserably broken with this tedious and unmercifull processe: Let me humbly beg this charity of your Lordship; that having to deale with one2 whose Interest it is to perplex and never to make an end; Your Lordship would over-rule all unreasonable pretences, and præscribe the method of peace, I intirely resigning my Cause to your Lordship

4 The commissioners of the Admiralty had had their commissions revoked on 22 May 1684. When James II came to the throne he managed all naval affairs through Pepys. 1 See Letter 519. 2 William Prettyman

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with out reserve,3 and must, and shall ever derive the good fruits of it, to your Lordships Virtue, your Justice, and continual favour to My Lord Your etc. White Hall 7 July – 1686

Ann Sylvius Letter 538 (536) July 9, 1686 f 38v

Epistle DXXXVI To my Lady Sylvius etc.

Madame, I was so long detain’d at the Temple on Friday, that when I came to Whitehall, it was too late to call upon your Guests in Suffolck-streete;1 and next morning (such is my indulgence to your Sex) that I could not suffer my Wife to remaine in the Country a moment, without bringing her-home my selfe the joyfull newes of my Lord Tressurers kindnesse to her,2 as well as to my-selfe; and you (I know) will joyne with us both, in giving his Lordship3 thanks: In earnest Madame you may be glad I did not come that night, I was so top-full of Jubilee (deliver’d as I began to be out of Egyptian Law and 14 yeares, Good Lord! Just as long a servitude as Jacobs was to Rebecah)4 that I should certainely have fall’n into some extravagance amongst the grave Company, and indanger’d the throwing your little-house out at Windows, so transported I was: For know that I am now as it were a new man, have got a new suite, bespoken a new Vehicle, and Equipage, and intend to carry you, and my Wife, and all in solemn maner, and all little enough to assist the expression of my Gratitude to his Lordship and then wee’l returne to my Lodging, and drink his Lordships health in Myristic,5 and Jack 6 shall celebrate it, and I will from that moment call my Lord my Patron, my Restorer, and erect a Mnemonical Inscription at Says-Court: ô the bony, gey humor, this generous Lord has Inspir’d your Melancholy friend with! In

3 On 24 June, Evelyn records “My L: Tressurer settled my greate buisinesse with Mr. Pretyman” (Diary IV.516). 1 the London house of some of the Godolphins 2 Laurence Hyde’s settling the suit with the Crown and William Prettyman that had been Sir Richard Browne’s suit. See Letter 537. 3 Sidney Godolphin 4 Evelyn conflates the Egyptian servitude of the Israelites (Exodus 14) with the fourteen-year period that Jacob had to serve to win the hand of Rachel (Genesis 29). 5 a drink made from nutmeg oil 6 John Evelyn Jr

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sober earnest Madame, I am reliev’d from a Tyrannous and unjust persecution, craftily taking advantage of Sir Richards7 forgetfullnesse, greate Age, Impotence and Infirmitie to defend himselfe, and making as sure of my inexperience to supply any better: But God Almighty has rais’d me up this noble deliverer, and I must all my Life-time acknowledge it, and the prayers, and constant good-wishes of your Ladyship who am Madame Your Ladyships etc. Sayes Court. 9 July: 1686

Laurence Hyde Letter 539 (537) July 13, 1686 f 39

Epistle DXXXVII To my Lord High Tressurer of England:

[RM: Rochester] My Lord, I was last night to give your Lordship my most humble Thanks for all your Favours; and how could I let-passe a night in omission of that duty without Ingratitude? Your Lordship saw how craftily they would have retain’d a pretended Sum1 un-mention’d, and in reserve to bring me (after all) into new troubles: This snare your Lordships firmenesse and sagacity onely has prevented, and it is just I pay your Lordship for it, with a particular and profound Acknowledgement: Your Lordship being now pleas’d to grant me a Privy-Seale of the summ I stand accomptable for, and from which (after all this Referrence) I can expect little in proportion to the ruinous Expenses of so many yeares suite, to bring it to this decision: Crowne this Accumulation of your goodnesse to me, by such an Auctarium2 as may aleviate

7 Sir Richard Browne 1 The Crown owed Evelyn £11,846 for the expenses incurred by Sir Richard Browne pursuing his service as resident in Paris. William Prettyman was suing them for £4181 17s plus interest for thirty years. In this letter Evelyn is asking Hyde to take that augmented debt to Prettyman into account in settling his claim against the Crown. In pursuance of this business Anne Spencer had assisted Evelyn (Add 78309: f 60 [1.1.1683]). 2 addition or augmentation

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my Sufferings and expenses in all Events: My Lord, I most humbly beg it, though upon discount: More than £4000 is exacted of me, cast in a fist, and make it easy to me by an emanation of your bounty to My Lord your etc. White hall: 13 July – 1686

Robert Berkeley Letter 540 (538) July 16, 1686 f 39

Epistle DXXXVIII To Robert Berkeley Esquire etc.

Sir, I am extreamely sorry, that I can be no more usefull to you, upon this occasion of your going-abroad, my former habitudes and Corresponde[n]ces being now so long-since worn-out: Now though I know you will be curious of informing your-selfe of all that is rare both in Art and Nature, among so very industrious a people you will find in Holland; I perswade my-selfe you will make your Remarks on their Horticulture none of the least of your darlings, and communicate the fruite of it to your Friends: Gardens are there so universaly affected (the narrownesse of the Country, and frugality of the Inhabitans, denying them most other Diversions) that their Veneration of Flora, and the Parterre is extraordinary; and though the French at present, may boast of their vast designes, their Versailles, and portentous workes; yet Gardens are no where so spruce, and accurately kept:1 You will therefore, I am sure, besides those of Monsieur Bentings2 at the Hague, see my Lord Bevernings,3 Pensioner Fagels,4 Myn heeredes Mares and De Finnis neere Utrecht at Haarlem;5 and especialy that of (as I think his Aunts) Madame de Finnis’s neere Utrecht, a Lady of Marvelous Ingenuity and Curiositie:6 Also the Garden of Madame Gunterstein, on the Brenclow:7 She, I think, by birth Spanish; and if you looke at any time towards North-Holland, that of myn Heere de Woolfe8 upon the Purmere: I do 1 See de Jong, Nature and Art, and Hunt, “But who does not know what a Dutch garden is?” Berkeley describes some of the gardens he has visited in a letter of 16 August (Diary [1887] III.282–4). 2 Willem Bentinck, later 1st earl of Portland (1649–1709; ODNB), the favourite of the future William III, had the garden “Zorgvliet” (“Banish Care”). 3 Jerome Beverning (Hieronymus van Beverningh) (1614–90), diplomat and regent of University of Leiden, had a famous botanical garden at his estate, Oud-Teylingen. 4 Gaspar Fagel (1633–88), had a garden at Leeuwenhorst; see Den Hertog and Teune, “Gaspar Fagel.” 5 Philips de Flines, related to Agnes Block’s second husband, had a garden at his estate at Spaarnhout. 6 Agnes (Agneta) Block, later Madam de Flines (1629–1704), had the garden Flora Batava at Vijverhof. 7 Magdalena Poulle, Lady of Gunterstein (1632–99), had a garden at Grauerstein. 8 Pieter de Wolff (1647–91), stepson of Agnes Block, had a garden at Purmer.

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not mention the publique Gardens of the Botanists at Leyden, Amsterdame etc. because you cannot misse them;9 but if you would see all thats magnificent and greate in one Circle, give a visite to that of the Duke of Arscuts10 in Flanders, which is for extent, fountains, Terrace, Parterrs, Grotts, Statues, Plants and all the hortulan Amœnities, beyond all description: Sir, If these may proove any direction to you, upon your first Enquires, I shall have don the best Service I am able: These being all I can at present recollect from among my Confused papers, and notes, or order to a designe I once was so vaine to shew you the Plan of:11 Sir, with a thousand good-wishes for your Prosperity, Going, Abiding, and Returning, I kisse your Ladys12 hands and remaine Madame [sic] Your most etc. Says-Court 16: July – 1686

Henry Hyde Letter 541 (539) July 20, 1686 f 39v

Epistle DXXXIX To the Earle of Clarendon Lord Lieutenant of Ireland etc.

My Lord, When you mention to me a Debt of Letters; In what vast Arrears am I plung’d to your ­Excellency not for Letters onely, but for a thousand other Favours! It is certaine I should be allways Scribling, had I any-thing worthy the Entertaining you, or that could Justifie the injurie I might do the Publique by diverting you a moment from better thoughts: I should

9 See the discussion of the medical gardens at Leiden and Haarlem in de Jong, Nature and Art, 129–56. 10 The Duke of Arenberg’s garden at Enghien was the subject of a book, Nikolaas Visscher, Villa Angiana, vulgo het perc von Anguien (Amsterdam, [1650?]; in the 1687 library catalogue), which was engraved by Romein de Hooge. See Letter 577. 11 “Elysium Britannicum”; Berkeley had seen Evelyn’s plan for the book when he was in London, and is here plainly being encouraged to contribute to it. Berkeley expressed his concern that Evelyn’s appointment as a commissioner of the privy seal would “not hinder, or divert you from finishing your grand design” (Add 15857 f: 42 [4.1.1686] and Diary [1887], III, 280). 12 Elizabeth Burnet (1661–1709; ODNB). She is commonly known by the surname of her second husband, Gilbert Burnet, whom she married in 1700. When she was married to Robert Berkeley, his cousin Elizabeth Packer described her as “a truly ingenious and vertuous woman” who was an acquaintance of Mary Astell (Add 78436: f 89 [22.2.1695]) and in “the company of the learned” at Salisbury (Add 78436: f 91 [6.6.1695]). See Harris, “A Revolution Correspondence.” Her book, A Method of Devotion, was published in 1709. The account of the attack on her maidservant by Peregrine Osborne is given in letters from ­Captain Warburton and others (Add 78318: f 33 [10.10.1686]).

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give your Excellency an Account of Books, were I not sure that Mr. Frasier1 (who is a living Nomenclator)2 did not prevent me, with all thats Curious in that kind: And for the Garden and the Parterre, what can be added to the Consummate, and Universal knowledge of my Lady?3 Flowers Spring-up where ’ere she treads, and never was Ireland so fruitfull and Odoriferous, as since both your Excellencys set foote upon that Country: Every-body is charmn’d with her Conversation, and feares nothing so much, as that a any Clowd should o’re-cast, and Interrupt the kind Influence all that Kingdome receives from your pru benigne, and prudent Government: I have ben at our famous Camp4 (more than once) to kisse my Lord Corneberys5 hands, so taken-up with his Heroic Employ, that there was no hope of seeing him, but in the field of Honor; whilst all the faire-sex are languishing his absence, are Raffling, Dauncing, Drinking and vying Viyng Manteaus at our English Spa: Lady Sylvius, Graham,6 etc. are gon thither, and now the Camp is breaking-up at Hounslow; the Femal-Host are pitching their Tents at Tunbridge,7 and we daily expect Exploits emulous of those Men-of-Warr, who so long have lain i’th Field and Doing – Nothing: And now (my Lord) that I spake of Ladys, Here is with us one, who most humbly presents her service to your Excellencys, and is every moment repeating the greate obligations she owes her best of Friends, your Lordship. ’Tis my poore Lady Tuke:8 of whose health I wish I could pronounce some thing of more assur’d, than realy I can; and that whilst her Majestie9 gives her leave to make us happy with her company, Goates-Milk and Garden-Aire (which is all she feedes on) might contribute to her perfect Recovery: And now ag’en, I mentiond Gardens, Though I have not ben at Swallow-field since I waited on her Excellency there; I have not ben un-mindfull of calling on Mr. London,10 whom I have injoyn’d to make a Journy thither, and see in what Condition things are there; for I Consider’d, that (though you have a very good Gardner in the place) his Inspection might be convenient, and that there are some Niceties in so curious, and we choicely furnish’d a Plantation, which might require his Advice: He tells me, he had gon e’re this, but for want of something 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

possibly the Mr Frazier referred to in Letter 472 “a book containing collections or lists of names or words” (OED) Flower Hyde the military encampment on Houslow Heath; see Letter 530, note 2. Edward Hyde the two sisters, Ann Sylvius and Dorothy Graham Tunbridge Wells, the favourite spa and assembly Mary Tuke, née Sheldon, Samuel Tuke’s widow. Evelyn notes (1 August): “Came my Lady Tuke to be some time with us, being in an ill state of health” (Diary IV.522). 9 Catherine of Braganza 10 George London (1650-1714; ODNB, Diary). London was employed by Bishop Compton at Fulham and founded the Brompton Nursery in 1681, taking Henry Wise as a partner in 1687. He recommended gardeners for Evelyn in 1682 and 1693 (Add 78318: f 17 [29.9.1682]; Add 78318: f 79 [16.10.1693]). London worked at Burghley in 1683 and in association with the architect, William Talman, at Bretby and Chatsworth in the 1690s. His gardens of that period include New Park at Richmond, Longleat, Dawley, Cholmondeley Hall, Dyrham Park and Wanstead, some of which are commemorated in Kip and Knyff’s Britannia Illustrata (London, 1706). The translation of de la Quintinye’s The Compleat Gard’ner (1693) with which Evelyn was involved was largely done by him and he acted as an agent in January 1695 (Add 78305: f 82 [26.1.1695]) for renting Sayes Court to James Chadwick.

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under your Excellencys hand (which you promis’d) to Countenance his Visitation, should he find Occasion for it: This Delegacy (my Lord) I have ben bold to arogate in your Name, and shall not despairing of your Pardon. And now, since your Excellency, like the greate Cato11 (in the midst of Publique Cares) has descended to the Potagere; the Probleme of the Irish Aspargus not leaving the usual Tincture in the Urine,12 seemes to be solv’d by its their longer stay and Concoction through the passages, than our English-Kind, which making a Speedier Circulation and as well as percolation, and loosing little of its qualitie behind; which (if equaly Diuretic) whether a Vice, or Vertue in it, I leave to the disquisition of the Skillfull: That generaly Rootes, are better with you, than with us, must needes be imputed to the exuberance of the soile, which being naturaly more fertile, needes not that continual Letation to Force their gro[w]th, which allways imparts some smack of the Compost, or genial bed – These (my noble Lord) are deepe Speculations to Entertaine a Vice-Roy with: But that you Condescend to poore Capacities, ambitious as I ever shall be of the meanest Office, by which I may expresse to all the World how much I am My Lord Your Excellencys etc. Says-Court 20 July – 1686

I most humbly kisse my Ladys hands, by the inclos’d deferent,13 which repeats our Dutys to both your Excellencys. May I be so bold as to beg of your Excellency, a Charity? That if you have not dispos’d of your next turne in the Charter-house Schoole here, you will give me leave to recomend the yong son14 of a most Vertuous, though afflicted gentlewoman?

Flower Hyde Letter 542 (540) August 14, 1686 f 40

Epistle DXL To the Countesse of Clarendon:

Madame, I take the boldnesse to accompanie the Inclos’d to my Lord Lieutennant, to convey my humble duty to your Excellency. And to let you know, that my Lady Tuke1 (e’re she was 11 Marcus Porcius Cato (234–149 BC), soldier and politician, author of De agricultura. 12 In his letter to Evelyn of 25 May, Hyde had noted that Irish asparagus seems not to affect the smell of urine (Add 78678: f 93 [25.5.1686]). See also Correspondence of Henry Hyde, I, 406–7. 13 Letter 542 14 William Cocke; see Letter 531. 1 Mary Tuke, née Sheldon

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aware, at least as she pretends) had written so much to his Excellency, that she had not roome enough to crow’d in her humble service to your Ladyship and to do it in a Corner of her Letter, was not (she thought) agreable to the Dignitie of your Excellency and therefore has commanded me to make this Apologie, and that you will receive it as a mark of her profound Reguards: How your Excellency will admitt the Complement I do not undertake for her; but she tells me (what I knew long before) that you are the best natur’d Vice-Princesse in the World, and that she will adventure it. Madame, I presume my Lord, has acquainted you with a little of my Care for Swallowfield,2 and of which I shall endeavor to render you a fuller account before the summer expires, and do hope, that now the men of Warr are return’d to Quarters, my Lord Cornebery3 will call me to waite upon him thither: For ’tis Impossible, he should not be very kind to a Place you are so deserv’dly fond of: All our Friends are still at Tunbridge; Never was that Rendezvous so full of Ladys, never Towne so empty of them: But I believe the late impetuous raines, and our Gallants returne from the Camp, will make them also have a mind to change their Castramentation,4 and fill againe the Vacuities of the Citty: In the meane time, I make no question but my Lady Sylvius accquaints your Excellency, with what Adventures and Exploites daily happen, who is there with her sister,5 drinking the Waters: And now Madame, I mention Exploits, give me leave to enquire about a Miracle: I am told there is to be seene in Ireland, a Child6 scarse twelve yeares of Age, who is not onely perfectly skiI’d in the Art of Musique, but in the more abstruse Sciences of Geometrie and Algebra: I am sure, if any such there be, it cannot have Escaped both your Excellencys Curiosities: – And now Madame, That I may not be guilty of the same inadvertancy, with my Lady Tuke: Though I put not my Wifes most humble service in the heart of my Letter Yet is your Excellency in both our hearty Prayers for the Continuance of your Prosperitie, and this comes from the heart of Madame Your Excellencys etc. Sayes-Court 14: August – 1686



2 3 4 5 6

See Letter 541, note 10. Edward Hyde encampment Dorothy Graham See Birch, History of the Royal Society, IV, 468. This child was a girl “not above 11 Years of age” who was brought to the Royal Society in Dublin in 1686. As well as being skilled in algebra, mechanics, chronology, geography, and astronomy, she “showed her skill in practical music upon the fiddle” (Hoppen, The Common Scientist in the Seventeenth Century, 157). Lady Clarendon wrote to Evelyn on 29 January 1687 to describe a subsequent “trial” in which the girl “did answer to all the most heard questions in Geometry” as well as “playing the composure of the last Opera in France” in a consort (Add 78678: f 88 [29.1.1687]). See Correspondence of Henry Hyde, II, 149. Evelyn was interested in child prodigies. He wrote of his godson, Francis Godolphin in this vein and he records the youthful genius of William Wotton (Diary IV.172–3) and the son of Andrew Clench (Diary IV.616–18).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 543 (541) September 12, 1686 f 40r-v

805

Epistle DXLI To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, I am not un-mindfull of the late Command you layd upon me, to give you a Catalogue of such Books, as I believ’d might be fit to entertaine your more devout and serious hours:1 And I looke upon it, as a peculiar Grace and favour of God to your Ladyship that amidst so many temptations, and Grandure of Courts, the Attendants, Visites, and Diversions (and other Circumstances of the Palace, and the way you are ingag’d in) you are resolv’d that nothing of all this, shall interrupt your duty to God, and the Religion you professe, when ever it comes in competition with the things of this world, how splendid soever they may appear for a little, and (God knows) uncertaine time: Madame, ’tis the best, and most gratefull Return you can make to Heaven for all the Blessings you enjoy, amongst which, there’s none you are more happy in, than in the early Vertue, Early and solid Piety of my Lady Anne,2 and progresse of your little son;3 both of extraordinary hopes: Madame, the foundation you have lay’d in those two blessings, will not onely build, but establish your illustrious Family, beyond all the Provisions you can make of Gallant and Greate, in estimation of the world; and will find the Comfort of it, when all this noise and hurry shall vanish as a dreame, and leave nothing to support it in time of neede: I am perswaded you often make these Reflections, from your owne greate Judgement and experiences of the Vicissitudes of things present and prospect of future, which is onely worth our Solicitude. The Catalogue I send your Ladyship may perhaps be larger than you require. But I have don it, that when your Ladyship has mark’d what Books of them you already have, you may make choice among the rest of what you think fit, and give me notice in what manner you will have them bound, and whom your Ladyship uses to employ: Your Ladyship will quickly discover, why I rank them in these Classes and Method: and that I add Books of Resolution and Controversie amongst them: I am sufficiently satisfied, how well your Ladyship is confirm’d in your Religion: However, among all the rich and costly furniture of our houses, we should be stor’d with good Books to furnish our best Appartments, and Cultivate our Minds: You see Madame, how the best Church in the World is daily assaulted; And your Ladyship has here a Magazine of invincible 1 Another version of this catalogue is contained in the lists of books in Add 78639: ff 76–80 (“Books of Devotion for a Ladys Library”). 2 Anne Douglas 3 Charles Spencer, 3rd earl of Sunderland (c.1674–1722; ODNB, H). On the death of his elder brother Robert in 1688, Charles became Lord Spencer (1688– 702) and succeeded as 3rd earl of Sunderland in 1702. Evelyn had high hopes for his scholarship as a boy; as a teenager he corresponded with Evelyn in Latin (e.g., Add 78679: f 130 [3.2.1690]) and went abroad in 1689. He became MP for Tiverton (1695–1702) and was made one of the English commissioners for the union with Scotland and a member of the Privy Council in 1706.

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Armes to defend it: Verily, I looke upon it as a Character extraordinary: That her Children are not onely devout in their Religion, but permitted to Understand, and able to give an Account of what they believe: This inestimable Blessing, did others enjoy it, would soone make a wonderfull change in the World, where engagement to a party, secular Interest, and ignorant Zeale did not interpose: –The Rest of the Books are to entertaine your Contemplations, and pious Recesses, and are the Choycest that I yet have seene of devotional, though there may be (and doubtlesse are) many others:4 I am Madame, Your etc. Sayes Court. 12 September – 1686

The Holy Bible: Notes on the Old Testament} Diodati                New Testament} Dr. Hammon: Upon the Creede {Bishop Person: {Dr. Borrow­­­­­­­ Homilies Bishop Andrews, Dr. Sanderson: Dr. Stilling fleete: Dr. Tillotson: Dr. Barrow: Mr. Farington: etc. Truth of Christian Religion Grotius: Natural Religion: Bishop Willkins: Demonstration Evang: Bishop Parker: Cases of Conscience Bishop Taylor and Dr. Sanderson:

Concerning the Church of England The XXXIX Articles: Rogers Canons Ecclesiastical: Exposition of the Christian Catechism Taylor Practical Catechism: Hammon; Upon the Commandments Dr. Tours: Rationale of Common Prayer Bishop Sparrow In Defence of the Church of England Bishop Jewels Apologies: Sir Humphrey Lynd Vid Decus et Recta: Mr. Hookers Politie: Bishop Laude against Fisher: Mr. Chillingworth: Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Barlows severall late Treatises:

4 The following are the editions of the works recommended that were in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue. Where no edition appears in that catalogue we have cited the first edition and shaded the entry. In some cases, it has not been possible to identify individual titles from Evelyn’s list. Works in the British Library from the sale of Evelyn’s books in 1977–8 are asterisked. London is the place of publication unless otherwise noted. Evelyn prepared a similar (though not so extensive) list for his wife: see Add 78431: f 150–2 (30.7.1685).



The Holy Bible Giovanni Diodati Pious annotations, upon the Holy Bible. 1643 Henry Hammond A paraphrase, and annotations upon all the books of the New Testament. 1671* John Pearson An exposition of the Creed. 1669* Isaac Barrow A brief exposition of the Lord’s prayer. 1681

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

All the late Treatises of Dr. Tennison: Dr. Stillingfleet: Tillotson, Sherlock, Sharp; Hicks; Evans and others of the London Divines, against both popists and dissenters: in 2 4° vol. Advice to Roman Catholicks: Dr. Comber: Dr. Barrow of the Papal Supremacy: The Late Tracts in Answer to the Bishop of Meaux: Dr. M: Moore against Transubstantiation etc. Dr. Cosin: Bishop of Durham: Canon of Scripture etc. Church Historie Josephus Sir Edwin Sandys Survey of the W: Religions Dr. Caves Lives of the Fathers: His Primitive Christianity

807

History of the Council of Trent History of the Reformation: Dr. Burnet: Contemplative and Practical Devotion The Whole Duty of Man, and other pieces of the Author: Dr. Taylors Rules of {holy Living: {holy Dying Dr. Scotts-Dr. Patricks: Pilgrims His expositions of Psalms: Pro: Eccl: Cant: Dr. Fowlers Designe of Christianity Mr. Howes Vanity of this mortal life Judge Vaugh Hale’s Contemplation Harmony of Divine Attributes} Existence of God, and    } Dr. Bate Soules Immortality:    } Final happiness of Man: Dr. Patricks Mensa Mystica Prodigal Son: Dr. Goodman

Prayer-Books Bishop Andrew’s Manual Christian Sacrifice } Dr. Patrick: Devout Christian } Dr. Cumbers Annual Feasts etc. Dr. Feately, Handmaid: And many more I might add, to every Head both of Exposition, Controversy, Cases, History, Contemplation and Devotion, but I conceive these are sufficient, for (I think) all possible Occasions, and better than which has no Christian Church in the World. And Your Ladyship may call this Catalogue (if you please) The Protestant Ladys Library.

Homilies Lancelot Andrewes XCVI. Sermons. 1641* Robert Sanderson Twenty sermons formerly preached. 1656 John Tillotson Sermons preach’d upon several occasions. 1671; Sermons and discourses … The Third Volume. 1686 Edward Stillingfleet A sermon preached November V. 1673. (Matt. 7:15–16) 1674  A sermon preach’d before the King Feb. 24, 1674/5. (Hebr. 3:13) 1675  A sermon preached on the fast-day, November 13. 1678. (1 Sam. 12: 24–5) 1678

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The mischief of separation. A sermon preached at Guild-Hall Chappel, May 11. MDCLXXX. (Phil. 3. 10) 1680 Of the nature of superstition. 1682 Isaac Barrow Sermons preached upon severall occasions. 1678* Anthony Farindon Hugo Grotius The truth of Christian religion. 1683 La Vérité de la Réligion Chrestienne. Paris c.1640*  De Veritate Religionis Christianæ. Paris 1640 John Wilkins Of the principles and duties of natural religion 1675 Samuel Parker A demonstration of the divine authority of the law of nature, and of the Christian religion. 1681 Jeremy Taylor Ductor dubitantium, or The rule of conscience in all her generall measures. 1660 Concerning the Church of England Thomas Rogers The faith, doctrine, and religion, professed, and protected in the realme of England, and dominions of the same. Expressed in thirty nine articles. 1633 Canons of the Church of England. 3 editions Jeremy Taylor A short catechism for the institution of young persons in the Christian religion. 1652 Henry Hammond A practicall catechisme. 1649* John Towers Anthony Sparrow A rationale upon the Book of common prayer. 1657* In Defence of the Church of England John Jewel An apology for the Church of England. 1685 Humphry Lynd La Voie sûre, conduisant un chacun chrétien. Geneva 1654 Richard Hooker Of the lawes of ecclesiastical politie. 1639* William Laud A relation of the conference betweene William Lavvd … Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: and Mr. Fisher the Jesuite. 1639* William Chillingworth The religion of protestants a safe vvay to salvation. 1638* Jeremy Taylor A dissuasive from Popery. 1664 Thomas Barlow Popery: or, The principles and positions approved by the Church of Rome. 1679 A letter concerning invocation of saints. 1679 Thomas Tenison Of idolatry. 1678 Thomas Comber Friendly and seasonable advice to the Roman-Catholicks of England. 1675 Isaac Barrow

A Treatise of the Pope’s Supremacy.

Henry More A brief discourse of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ … wherein the witty artifices of the Bishop of Meaux and of Monsieur Maimbourg are obviated.

1680

1686

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Cosin

A scholastical history of the canon of the Holy Scripture. 1657

[See also Letter 333 for Evelyn’s views on the controversy over the Eucharist.] Church History Flavius Josephus Histoire des Juifs écrite par Flavius Joseph sous le titre de “Antiquités judaïques”. Brussels 1676 Edwin Sandys Europæ speculum or, A vievv or survey of the state of religion in the vvesterne parts of the world. 1637 William Cave Apostolici or The lives of the primitive fathers for the three first ages of the Christian church. 1677 Primitive Christianity. 1673* Paolo Sarpi The History of the Council of Trent. 1676 Gilbert Burnet The history of the reformation of the Church of England. 1681–3* Contemplative and Practical Devotion Richard Allestree The causes of the decay of Christian piety. 1667* Jeremy Taylor The rule and exercises of holy dying. 1652 The rule and exercises of holy living. 1650 John Scott The Christian life. 1681 Simon Patrick The parable of the pilgrim. 1668 The Book of Psalms paraphras’d. 1680 A defence and continuation of the ecclesiastical politie 1671 Edward Fowler The design of Christianity. 1671 John Howe The blessedness of the righteous opened … the consideration of the vanity of this mortal life. 1673 Matthew Hales Contemplations moral and divine. 1682 William Bates The harmony of the divine attributes. 1675 The divinity of the Christian religion. 1677*  The soveraign and final happiness of man, with the effectual means to obtain it. 1680 Simon Patrick Mensa mystica. 1667 John Goodman The penitent pardoned. 1679 Prayer Books Lancelot Andrewes Simon Patrick Thomas Comber Daniel Featley

A manual of directions for the sick. 1655 The Christian sacrifice. 1672* The devout Christian instructed how to pray and give thanks to God. 1678 A companion to the temple. 1684* Ancilla pietatis. 1626

809

810

Henry Hyde Letter 544 (542) September 9, 1686 f 41

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXLII To my Lord Lieutennant of Ireland; at Dublin-Castle

My Lord, I had e’re this given your Excellency my most humble Thanks for yours of the 7th past,1 but that I was expecting the Event of some *extraordinary things, [RM: *the Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs which suspended the Bishop of London2 etc. and gave greate offence to all the Nation] then in Suspence, and when I have say’d this, I neede not tell your Lordship what I am assur’d I have receiv’d from better hands, nor make any farther Reflections on it, than to acquaint your Excellency, that I know of no new Commissions which your Lordship desires to understand the meaning of, and that make (it seemes) no lesse noise with you, than they do here: The Character your Excellency gives of the *Huffing greate Man, [RM: *Lord Tyrconnell]3 is just: [insert: what the noise he makes] it will operate, I know not little of; what it dos with you (and would every-where do else) is sufficiently evident: But God is above all, and your Lordships Prudence, Courage, and steady Loyaltie, will, if not surmount all Malevolence, purchase you the estimation of all good Subjects, and I doubt not, but of his

1 Add 15949: f 5 (7.8.1686) 2 Henry Compton (1631/2–1713; ODNB), bishop of London, was suspended on 6 September by the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Diary IV.524), a probably illegal court set up by James II (519–20), for refusing to silence John Sharp of St Giles in the Field for preaching against Roman Catholicism (516, n. 1 and 524, n. 1). 3 Richard Talbot; Talbot had been created earl of Tyrconnel in 1685. He was appointed lieutenant-general of the army in Ireland earlier in 1686 and had arrived in Dublin about 5 June (Diary IV.514, n. 4).

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811

Majestie also: I am plainely amaz’d at what your Excellency tells me of Ireland, which country we have seene given twise-conquer’d into his Majesties fathers, and Brothers hands (our late sovraines) hands, at no small Expense of blood and treasure; and therefore question not, but his present Majestie dos both see, and well consider the infinite importance of cherishing its Improvements and Tranquilitie. My Lord Teviot4 I think has quite abandon’d us, ’tis neere 4 moneths since we have receiv’d any Assistance from him at the Seale;5 so as I have not ben able to make any excursion as yet this Summer, and when I shall now make my flight to Swallowfield, I am uncertaine: I have agen ben to enquire out my Lord Cornbery;6 but his Lordship is still so employ’d twixt the Court, and his Military Charge, that I cannot expect the happinesse I promis’d my-selfe of accompanying him thither, and to go without him, would be a Melancholy thing: The Ladys are still at Tunbridge, tempted by the continuance of this paradisian season, whilst we are here mightily in the dark, and curious (if po lawfull) to understand, whether a certaine New-Countesse,7 came lately over hether with his Majesties knowledge and permission: I tell the Inquisitive, I know nothing of it; but that I am sure your Excellency dos nothing save what becomes you, and with good Advise: Now that Buda is taken, all our Eyes are on Hambrow and Denmark:8 I pray God give peace to Christendome, and continue it in little England, with all prosperitie and blessings on your Excellency, and Illustrious family: The assiduous Prayers of My Lord Your Excellencys etc. Says-Court 9. September – 1686



4 5 6 7

Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot the Commission of the Privy Seal Edward Hyde Esther de la Tour, the wealthy widow of the marquis de Gouvernet, had come to England as a refugee from persecution in France (Diary IV.517-18). Her daughter, Esther, was married to Henry Saville (1661-87), son of the marquis of Halifax. 8 Buda (Hungary) had been besieged by the imperial forces and was taken from the Turks on 2 September 1686 (Diary IV.524). Hamburg had been besieged by the king of Denmark, who had been the father-inlaw of Princess Anne since 31 August.

812

Sidney Godolphin Letter 545 (543) September 9, 1686 f 41

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXLIII To my Lord Godolphin Lord Chamberlain to her Majestie etc.

My Lord, There’s nothing truer, than that whatever Friendship is founded on Beauty, Diversion, Interest, or Secular Advantage, it cannot long be lasting; because these being all of them mutable and perishing things, that which is built upon them, must sink and decay with their Causes: Though I have ben, and still am the most obliged for your Lordships Inclinations to do me Kindnesses; yet I do not find that any expectations of their Effects, are the least motives to the true, and sincere Affection I have allways profess’d you; from the moment that excellent creature1 departed from us: I was hers in all the capacities of a disintrestd and perfect friendship, and so of right it belong’d, and pass’d to your Lordship. I wish I could say to any degree of Advantage, farther than of my prayers and readinesse to Serve you better, were it in my power: But you will wonder at to what this præface leads: To a Duty (my Lord) which you long-since injoyn’d me, Never to suffer you should forget this Solemn Day: You told me you were afraid of nothing more, then that Time should weare-it out; the very thought of which you were not able to support: I do not believe you neede this Memento (I am sure you do not) but ’tis an Annual Obsequy due to a Saint, and you have not yet reprov’d the best expression I can make of my Respect to you, as well as to her, whose Memorie I celebrate; and ’tis at least to signifie, that the veneration I have truely for it, is Un-Changeable; and I tell her often of it still (for still she lives to me) and ô that I could retaine the Sentiments of a Contemplation so profitable, so agreable to me! – I know not how my Lord you’l indure this continual liberty of mine; but since so many yeares are past, that you do not chide me, I take it for Granted you still allow it: Though now your time is not totaly employ’d in state Affaires,2 I should not be sorry (sometimes at least) to receive the assurances of your pardon; for though I confesse, that in this I satisfie my selfe (and pay a duty) yet, possibly, I may not you. Says Court ix September 1686

1 This was the anniversary of the death of Margaret Godolphin. 2 Godolphin had been replaced at the Treasury by Laurence Hyde in February 1685, but returned as one of the commissioners when Laurence Hyde was dismissed in December, 1686. He held the position of lord chamberlain to the queen during the intervening period.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jael Boscawen Letter 546 (544) September 17, 1686 f 41v

813

Epistle DXLIV To Mrs. Boscawen, Sister to my Lord Godolphin

Madame I have not ben without continual Company ever since I saw you here, and now my deare Brother1 (the onely Brother I have surviving) is coming to stay a few daies with me: I am likewise held to weekely Atendance at White-hall: My Lord Teviot2 having (I think) given over all thoughts of the Privy-Seale: When shall I see my friends at Cranburn,3 when blesse and kisse my deare Massie:4 I assure you Madame ’tis no small affliction to me: Do not think I live with any satisfaction, whilst I nor see, nor heare from you: The little Baby5 thrives, I went my selfe to visite him on Sonday. Let us heare sometimes what you think of matters, what you do, and how long you purpose to stay, that I may make an effort at least, and (if possible) waite yet upon you before your retreate: I heare not a Syllable from Lady Sylvius, but that they tipple, and daunce, and raffle at the Wells,6 and are in another world where they think of no body here: I was yesterday at London, and went to give Doctor Tenison7 a visite, but found him neither at home, nor in his Library,8 and as I thought to have saluted Suffolck-Streete,9 was hurried home to meete new Guests. This is the state of Says-Court: I make bold to charge your pacquett with some letters, but do in neither of them speake a word of Venison to entertaine my Friends; though I should not be sorry some generous body did send me a Warant for any Parke about us: My Lady Sunderland was wont to be very kind without asking, and when I did not neede it; but she’s not at Althrop;10 and I am 1 George Evelyn. Evelyn notes his arrival on 22 September (Diary IV.525). Jael Boscawen’s reply to this letter is Add 78309: f 100 (19.9.1686). 2 Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot 3 Cranbourn Lodge near Windsor, where Lord Godolphin had taken a lease 4 Francis Godolphin 5 John Jr and Martha’s son John, who became Sir John Evelyn 6 Tunbridge Wells 7 Thomas Tenison (1636–1715; ODNB). A graduate of Cambridge (DD 1680) Tenison gained early fame as a preacher and as an adversary of Hobbes as well as for his controversy with the Jesuits. Noted for his philanthropic work, he established a school and the first public library in London. He was chaplainin-­ordinary (1676–91), vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields (1680–92), rector of St James’s Piccadilly ­(1686–92), archdeacon of London (1689-91), bishop of Lincoln (1692) and archbishop of Canterbury (1694). He was a close friend of Evelyn and his family. 8 Tenison’s disgust with young men wasting their time in coffee houses led to his establishing a library in Castle St in 1685 (Diary IV.367–8). See Hoare, “Archbishop Tenison’s Library at St Martin-in-theFields.” 9 the Godolphins’ London house 10 the Spencer estate in Northamptonshire

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modest, if she were: I tell you againe, I am too stout so much as to hint it: ’Tis true Holyroode11 is past a day or two since; but ’tis as true, that Venison is as good a whole Moneth after, if the weather continue so dry: I say no more, you guesse my Mind, by my gaping:                  Yours most faithfully:      My most humble service to the    Vice-Provost of Eaton:12 Sayes-Court 17: September – 1686.

Robert Berkeley Letter 547 (545) September 21, 1686 f 41v

Epistle DLXV To Robert Berkley Esquire at the Hague

Sir, With extraordinary Satisfaction I have received the assurances of your safe Arival, by yours of the 16 past.1 And together with it, so accurate an Account of what you have already seene and observed; that one would believe you rather a long Inhabitant in Holland, than a transitory Passenger: for so you will yet allow me to call you, being then so newly landed, and hardly out of sight of salt water: If one may Calculate, by the particulars enumerated of what you have seen, and taken-notice of in so short a time, I find you will soone have reaped all that is worth the Collecting in that Country (how buisy and Industrious soever) to furnish inrich and adorne your-owne: Captaine Warberton,2 who is deferrent of this (and dos me the favour to present it to you) has acquainted us with so monstrous and unheard-of an Adventure,3 that hearing nothing of it either from your selfe, or others, is hardly to be credited: I am told, he has Accquainted Mr. Secretary of the Admiralty4 with it, who I dare assure you, will resent it in his, and your behalfe as becomes him, nor will you (I perswade my selfe) suffer such a Villanie to passe un-animadverted: But, Sir, I beg 11 14 September (Holy Cross Day) was the day on which the king’s huntsmen took their free buck in Richmond Great Park. 12 Henry Godolphin 1 Berkeley’s letter to Evelyn of 16 August 1686 (Add 15857: f 46 [16.8.1686]) includes an account of Huis Ten Bos and Bentinck’s garden (Zorgvliet). 2 Captain Warburton’s account and related letters are in Add 78318: f 36 (10.10. 1686). 3 The attempted rape of Berkeley’s female servant by Peregrine Osborne, Viscount Dunblane (1659-1729; ODNB) was described in a letter to Mrs Evelyn by Berkeley’s wife, Elizabeth Burnet, accompanying Berkeley’s letter of 16 August 1686. It is referred to again in his letter of 6 December 1686 (Add 15857: f 48 [6.12.1686]). 4 Samuel Pepys

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815

pardon for entering so far into this unpleasant Historie, and after I have kiss’d my Ladys hands, conjure you to believe, that there is no man more sincerely honours you, than Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 21: September – 1686

John Venn1 Letter 548 (546) October 8, 1686 f 42

Epistle DXLVI To Dr. Venn, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford:

Sir, Though I have not the honour of being known to you; yet those who know any-thing of Oxford, and are solicitous for the prosperitie of the College where you Præside2 (and where I was once Alumnus) cannot but be pleas’d to heare that there is so worthy a person as Dr. Venn dignified with the Vice-Chancellor-ship of the University: The faculty you thereby have to oblige men, together with your owne greate humanity incourages me to Intercede for your favour towards this unhappy Creature Mr. Wase:3 ’Twere too long to Importune you with the circumstances of his sad Condition; nor is it in my power to aleviate it, without the Concurrence of his principal Creditor,4 whom I cannot menage, though I shall endeavour to assist in what is possible: And indeede I thought I had prevail’d with Mr. Tooke for the allowing him as competent a Maintenance, as his Sequestration would beare, Mr. Tookes Condition also consider’d: But, it seemes, there has ben some Interruption in it, of which I shall Informe my selfe, and Interpose as I am able: It realy Afflicts me, that a Person qualified with so much Erudition, and use-full Learning, should fall into this Calamitie and Contempt (especialy in a University and among Scholars) and that if he should be out of it, his Condition would yet be more deplorable: Wherefore, I cannot but Recommend him againe to your Charity, and Protection, after I shall have beg’d your Pardon for this Confidence of Sir Your etc. White Hall 8. October – 1686

1 John Venn (1647-87; ODNB). He matriculated at Balliol in 1662, and received his BA in 1666 and his MA in 1669. He was created DD in 1685. Venn was master of Balliol (1678-87) and vice-chancellor of Oxford (1686-7). 2 Balliol College 3 Christopher Wase; see also Letter 510. 4 Benjamin Tooke

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Robert Berkeley Letter 549 (547) October 22, 1686 f 42

Epistle DXLVII For Robert Berkeley Esquire, at the Hague:

Sir, After I have acknowledg’d the Receit of your Letter (with what was inclos’d) and the honor you do me, in esteeming me worthy of serving you; Considering the Importance and nicenesse of the Subject,1 I thought it not amisse, to take Advise what I were best to do, before I deliver’d your Letter to my Lord D–:2 They were all of opinion, that I should totaly forbeare the taking any notice of it to him (the fact having it seemes, taken vent, and so not so capable of a private Composition) but rather suffer to suffer him to serve his pretended Warrant on the Captaine, that being taken into custody; some Friend of his might put in Baile, and that then he should petition his Majestie and in his Petition relate the whole matter of fact: This is Sir, the Concurrent Judgement of some considerable Persons, whom I thought fit to acquaint with the Buisines, among whom there is one,3 who desires nothing more, than a just occasion to aggravate this Insult, in your behalfe; and especialy, for having (as he understands) presum’d to make his Majesties Banner (or Jack,4 as they call those Colours) a Pander to his Lewdnesse: For though the Vessel do not belong to his Majestie; yet, it seemes the Hector Lord, had allways carried and set up, the union flag in it, to countenance his exploits: Nor is it imputed to the Captaine;5 but to the Owner of the Yacht, and therefore constru’d as an Insolence worthy of Rebuke: By this particular, you will easily divine, who it is that gives me this Advice, and that he is very well able to direct, what is best to be don on this Occasion. As to the Crime (besides the Affront put upon a Gentleman in his owne Chambers) it were certainly no-lesse than Capital, should your Servant, make Affidavit, she were actualy forc’d; nor would it be easy for him to obtaine much Indulgence from a Prince, who not onely abhorrs such Actions; but would doubtlesse be glad publiqly to shew his displeasure at it; his Father being none of those Greate men, who (as I am told) deserve any peculiar favour from him; so that though she should not charge the Aggressor with a perpetrated Rape (for your certificate dos not so fully mention Circumstances) he would be grievously Fin’d, and Oblig’d to make the uttmost Reparation the Law could impose. There being therefore a Methodical Processe due to an Affaire of this Consequence, mithinks, there were nothing more natural proper and expedient, than your Recommending the Captaine, and the Cause to that worthy Gentleman your Brother in Law Mr. Dormer,6 who being himselfe a

1 2 3 4 5 6

the attempted rape of Berkeley’s servant by Peregrine Osborne (see Letter 547) Viscount Dunblane (Peregrine Osborne), or possibly Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby, his father probably Samuel Pepys a small ship’s flag used at sea as a signal Captain Warburton Robert Dormer (Diary). Married to the sister of Elizabeth Burnet, who, Evelyn claimed, painted “very finely in Oyle” (Diary IV.363), he lived at Lee Grange, Buckinghamshire.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

817

Counselor at Law, may both favour him in his Expenses, and give him such directions from time to time, as the Cause may require; Or if yet it should be thought convenient to Arbitrate the matter, that he be the Person to transact it; because it will require Legal Cautions, which others are not so Capable of. This Sir, is effectualy what I am Instructed to communicate to you, and to which there is nothing offers it selfe of weight, that I shall neede trouble you withall, who am, with most humble Service to your excellent Lady, and Augurs of all prosperity Sir Your etc.

Says-Court 22d October 1686

Richard Parr Letter 550 (548) November 4, 1686 f 42v

Epistle DXLVIII To Dr. Par etc.

Sir, I am heartily sorry I was not at home when your letter came, and know not well what Apologie to make for deferring the Inclosed1 so long: But you must pardon this and many other Infirmities in me, far greater Errata than any you have sent me; whilst that precious Booke will survive all the Impertinent Scribbles of a prostitute Pamphleteer2 – Deliria morientis sæculi.3 We are here deliberating about passing this approaching Winter at my Sons in London4 because of the necessitie of my frequent journeys thither these shortn’d daies; but this is no excuse for my Wifes not paying Mrs. Par her kind Visite: Let her come-oft as she can, so you continue to esteeme me, as in all sincerity I am Sir, your etc. Says Court 4: November–1686.

1 possibly the proofs of Parr’s Life of James Ussher, which was ready for printing in 1684 but not published until 1686 (Diary IV.507–8; Letter 535) 2 Parr’s emphasis on Ussher’s role as a defender of the Church of England against both non-conformity and Roman Catholicism exposed the biography to censorship and attack. See Letter 535, note 2. 3 “the madness of a dying age” 4 John Evelyn Jr had taken lodgings in Arundel Street in October, 1684 (Diary IV.392, 395). It was built on part of the site of Arundel House, demolished in 1678.

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 551 (549) October 9, 1686 f 42v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXLIX To my Lord Godophin:

My Lord I have quite spent all my Topics to move commiseration, and now support my-selfe onely with bare hopes; but Hope deferr’d (my Lord) makes the heart faint:1 If he who plows, plow’s in Hope, I may well say to your Lordship quantus exaravi literas!2 what a world of paper furrows have I made, that have yet yeilded me no crop: Would my Lord Tressurer3 once shine upon me, dissipate this clowd, and deliver me from the vexatious man,4 how happy should I be: Represent I beseech your Lordship, the Case of your poore Friend: He is of a generous nature, and I of no ungratefull: Realy, there is Charity, and Justice, and Mercy, and a Complication of Virtues in relieving me at this time: Too well is your Lordship acquainted, both with my anxious Condition,5 the expense of it, and above all, the torment of so many yeares Suspence, to neede new Information: I will say therefore no more on that Chapter, onely be mindfull of me to my Lord Tressurer that I may dye praying for my Benefactor, and depart in peace, quod faxit Deus:6 Says Court 9: October–1686

Sidney Godolphin Letter 552 (550) October 16, 1686 ff 42v–3

Epistle DL To my Lord Godolphin

My Lord, Your mindfullnesse of me, and of my Concerne,1 obliges me to give you an Account how my Affaire stands, since you spoke to my Lord Tressurer by whom you know, a 1 Proverbs 13:12 2 “How many letters I have ploughed!” 3 Laurence Hyde, who had granted Evelyn a privy-seal to compensate for his claims against the Crown in July (see Letter 537). 4 William Prettyman 5 The Prettyman suit was still not paid out. Evelyn refers to waiting on Lord Hyde on 4 November 1686 “about my long processe, where appear’d against me the Attorney Generall; but my Cause was comitted to Referrees” (Diary IV.529). 6 “God willing” 1 See Letter 551. The settlement of the suit seems to have been protracted (see Diary IV.529). It was finally settled on 14 June 1687 (Calendar of Treasury Books 1685-9, VIII.iii: 1404–5).

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competent time was set for our Referies2 to make Report of my Adversaries pretences (which was limited at first to Michaelmas) but in reguard of those Gentlemans absence, and uncertaine meeting most part of this Vaccation, they have not so much as ben able to make any enterance into it, and have therfore desired farther time: I doubt not in the least of their intentions to dispatch it, as soone as conveniently they can: But other Buisines of publique concerne will now come on, and (since it is for many reasons that I could shew) my Antagonists Interest by all meanes to procrastinate the Conclusion, in expectation of some Accident, or other (in this World of Revolutions) that may frustrate the just Effects of his Lordships favour, and leave me againe to Conflict with Suites, and Edicts of Chancery, which have already exhausted my Patience, as well as purse: My request to your Lordship is, to obtaine of my Lord Tressurer (what he promis’d) to enable me by a Privy-seale, for the Instatement of the Summ, which Mr. Prettyman has procur’d a Decree for, thereby to obviate his utmost demands, and at once deliver me from this million of Anxieties: For though there be nothing but the highest Injustice in all this procedure; yet were I once able to discover, the title I have to what he is Indebted to his Majestie and that debt Arreres transferrd to me, in part of Satisfaction of a much greater owing to me from the King: I should soon bring him to Reason, and compell him to give me up those Deedes and other Writings, which he has so long and injuriously detained from me, and those whom they concerne: My Lord in this misery of suspense, I have no more Spirit left me; Judge you what a Calamity I labour under, who no longer live than I have friends and Books to Support me; of the lat[t]er I have something on the Anvil,3 which would account for more laisure, than I am master of, and that I did not employ all my time amongst the Contentious: But you’l say, whats this to the purpose? The world is full of Impertinent Books, and they neede not be multiplied by mine: Sed me literulas stulti docuere parentes.4 and ’tis my Misfortune, my Foible, and who can say he has neither.

London 16: October 1686

2 The commissioners of the Treasury (as of 4 January 1687) were John, Lord Belasyse; Sidney Godolphin; Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover; Sir John Ernley; and Sir Stephen Fox. Evelyn’s lawyer was a Mr Brocket. 3 Evelyn’s next book was Mundus muliebris (London, 1690), but he may be alluding to work for a new ­edition of Kalendarium Hortense. 4 “But my foolish parents taught me my ABC.” Martial, Epigrammata 9.73.7 (Bailey, trans)

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Henry Howard, 7th duke Letter 553 (551) November 27, 1686 f 43

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLI To the Duke of Norfolck:

My Lord, Dr. Vincent,1 hearing that his Majestie would be all this day abroad (with his, and my most humble accknowledgements, for your Graces generous kindnesse) dos not think fit to give your Grace the trouble of staying at Court to introduce him, with his Petition this afternoone; but beggs he may be honor’d with the continuance of your Graces favour, upon some more propitious occasion: He is a very ingenious, Learned and worthy Person, and the kindnesse your Grace is pleas’d to shew him, is likewise an high obligation to etc. Saturday 27 November – 1686

Samuel Pepys Letter 554 (552) November 28, 1686 f 43

Epistle DLII To Samuel Pepys Secretary of the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society:1

Sir, I was with my Son to waite on you with Dr. Reeves,2 it is an excellent and learned piece; but, it seemes, the Infima is not easily to be met with: If you had ben at home, I should

1 Nathaniel Vincent (c.1635–1722; V). A graduate of Cambridge (DD 1679), Vincent was a fellow of Clare College and preached before the king in 1674. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1683 and withdrew in 1687. Vincent was petitioning to be chaplain to Hyde. See 15949: f 7 (27.8.1686) containing Vincent’s letter to Evelyn, and Evelyn’s draft of a letter to Hyde. 1 Particular Friends, C35, 172. This is the only surviving text of this letter. 2 Sir Thomas Ryves (1583?–1652) published three volumes of his Historia Navalis between 1629 and 1640. It is incomplete. The “infima” or final volume was unobtainable.

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have acquainted you, that your neighbour Mr. Bridgeman,3 takes it somewhat ill, that he never received any Sumons to meete upon our Anniversarie,4 he having now ben of our Society,5 many yeares, and I apprehend will resent it more, not so much as to find his name in the printed list of Fellows: You may please to Order a printed note, to be left at his house before our day of meeting, and to excuse other omissions as you see occasion. He gave an hint, as if Gresham Foundation6 would be inquired into by the Late Ecclesiastical Commission7 (to which, you know he is secretary) and that it might possibly be in his power to oblige our Society; supposing that the Salaries of some of the present Professors (such as Law, Rhetoric etc.) might be transferrd to the benefit of our Society, without invasion of the Gresham founders intentions: How far this is practicable, I cannot tell, however you will not omit the Compliment to Mr. Bridgeman I am etc. London 28 November. 1686

Thomas Osborne Letter 555 (553) December 3, 1686# f 43

Epistle DLIII To my Lord Treasurer Danby:

My Lord, After his sacred Majestie1 an Addresse is due to the Lord Tressurer2 of England; not onely for that the Preservation, and Inspection of his Majesties Timber and Forests, and consequently of his greatest Treasure is your Lordships no inglorious Province; but because by many signal Obligations, and after a long Series of Yeares, both abroad, and at home, your Lordship has not disdain’d to owne me, and with so much comitie entertain’d my Rural

3 William Bridgeman (c.1646–99; Diary, ODNB, H). Bridgeman went to Oxford in 1662 and was subsequently given a position in the secretary of state’s office (1669) by his uncle, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, who was lord keeper. Closely associated with Robert Spencer, he was MP for Bramber in 1685, clerk of the Council (1685–8 and 1692–9), registrar for the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs, and secretary of the Admiralty for much of the 1690s. 4 St Andrew’s Day, 30 November 5 the Royal Society 6 The Royal Society met in Gresham College 1660–7 and 1673–1710. From 1662 onwards there was a ­debate about whether the money for the lectureships at Gresham College had been properly applied ­(Diary III.328, n. 2; 330, n. 4.) 7 the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs 1 Sylva was dedicated to Charles II; Evelyn is presenting a copy to Osborne. This letter is more likely to have been written during Danby’s term as treasurer. 2 Danby had been lord treasurer from 1673 to 1679; the current holder of the post was Laurence Hyde

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Diversions: It was to one of your Lordships Illustrious Prædecessors (in the same Supreme Office which your Lordship beares) that I dedicated an Appendix to this work;3 which since from so many Impressions in so short a time, it gives faire presage of being Usefull, (and therefore lasting) I presume with the more Confidence to fix your Lordships name before it: But my Lord though I pretend not you should concerne your-selfe with these Entertainements, upon whose moments, the weight and successe of a whole Nation depends; yet had Augustus and other mighty Princes, their Malles Aditus4 and would sometimes heare Pöems recited, and Scipio would converse with Lælius,5 and sometimes with Lucilius6 too: Cicero, Hortensius7 and the Purpl’d-Senators in the midst of Buisinesse and State Affaires, went often to their Tusculans8 and Wimbledons9 to irrigate and refresh the Platanes10 with those very hands, they sign’d the Fate of Empires, and controll’d the World: It is of Importance to the Publique (however meane the Subject) that it be Encourag’d, and my aime being Publique Good, your Lordship who (next to his Majestie is arbiter, and concern’d with that) will fortifie my hopes, that what I have offer’d to his Majestie, and he has ben so gracious to Accept, your Lordship will not refuse to ------My Lord Your etc. Says-Court 3 December 1686

James Stephens Letter 556 December 6, 1686 f 43r-v

Epistle DLIV To my Cousin Steephens:

Deare Cousin, The sharp, and tender sense we yet retaine of the losse of Children, especialy of One,1 for her many, and extraordinarie Vertues, most deare to us (since you were so kind to visite us 3 Evelyn had dedicated Pomona to Danby’s predecessor, Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton, in 1664. 4 a walk bordered by trees 5 Gaius Laelius (c.190–after 129 BC), an orator, and a prætor and consul reported to be the closest friend of Scipio Aemilianus, and a participant in Cicero’s De Amicitia. 6 Lucilius Gaius (c.189–102/1 BC), a close friend of Scipio Æmilianus and Gaius Laelius, known for his satirical verse. 7 Quintus Hortensius Hortulus (114-49 BC), originally a politician, withdrew to care for his fish ponds. 8 the site of Cicero’s villa, and place of withdrawal from the affairs of state 9 Danby’s estate, formerly owned by the earl of Bristol (see Diary 111.315–16) 10 Platanus: plane trees 1 Mary Evelyn Jr

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here) never failes of re-returning [sic] severely upon my Wife and Me, when ever we heare of a Calamity like it: For ’tis yet but a few daies, since it was told us, you had lost your onely Son; and the very same having likewise happn’d in two Families of my neerest ­Relations, is no small aggravation of the common sorrow among us here: But none for which I can, or ought to be more concern’d, than for this of yours, when I consider how carefull and excellent a Father (I am assur’d) you were to principle and educate your hopefull son, in all those Improvements of Piety and Vertue, which might be a solid and real comfort to you, as well as an Example and Ornament to this Declining Age: But thus it pleases God to dispose of things and Persons, and to interrupt our Satisfactions, as if to have all things successfull in this life, were rather an ominous signe, that there were nothing left to be Rewarded hereafter: This Consolation then remaines (to me at least) after many Trials, and I praise God for it: But, Cousin, I pretend not here to give you precepts, who are so well furnish’d, or Entertaine you the vulgar Topics on this Subject, A losse above the Consolation of Sentences: Gods Will is don, and to be our Refuge, and the early Piety of our Children, fitted for him who lent them to us, our best and onely comfort: This, I know is yours, and without it, I confesse I were sometimes not able to support the ­Affliction I yet lie under for One I loved so intirely, and who was in all reguards so worthy of it: But thus, Cousin, it has pleas’d the divine Disposer to exercise a necessary Grace who best knows what to take from us, and what to leave us; And could we with the same Cherefullnesse Resigne, as we Receive Blessings, so it were happy: But I againe confesse to you, I am not yet arived that height of Indolence, as so indifferently to beare this losse of mine: ’Tis yet a Lesson I am Learning, and which renders me so very sensible of yours, and will, I hope, justify this unfain’d Condolency of Your etc. London 6 December 1686

Flower Hyde Letter 557 (555) December 27, 1686 f 43v

Epistle DLV To the Countesse of Clarendon:

Madame, The Paper1 which speakes so contemptuously of that most Reverend, learned and excellent Prelate Bishop Jewel,2 was certainly written by one who is very ignorant, or 1 probably the 1685 reissue of a 1629 pamphlet, The apology of the Church of England; and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio a Venetian gentleman, concerning the Council of Trent (London, 1685; in the 1687 library catalogue) 2 John Jewel (1522–71), bishop of Salisbury, was a strong controversialist for the reformed Church of England. He published his Apologia ecclesiæ anglicanæ (London, 1562) and a further Defence of the Apologie of the Churche of Englande (London, 1570).

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exceedingly Malicious: For as to what he pretends, of this greate mans being no Bishop, and sends you to the Nags-head 3 for his Ordination; let his Fatherhood (if he be a Romish priest) peruse Dr. Bramhall 4 late Primate of Ireland, upon that wretched and put[r]id fiction, and be asham’d of his Impudence, if he have any shame in him: The falsenesse of that storie is so notorious, and upon Record, that even those of their owne Party, blush at the forgerie: In the meane time, it were happy for this delator, that he were as well able to prove himselfe a Priest, or so much as a Christian, which, I am sure, he has no certainty of by the principles of his Trent-Religion, without a Revelation: What he suggests of the Bishops Challenge, which he pretends so many of the Church of England desire so earnestly: He should do well to name who they were, and what it was they desir’d, and not impose upon us the Jesuite Sanders,5 whose acursed lying Booke (the worst, and the falsest that was ever written) he may find (if he please) as sufficiently refuted, and decried by all ingenuous, and candid men of the Romish Perswasion, as is that of the pretended Ordination: And if he have no better Authority to support his pompous Cause, than what he brings in the Paper that gos about; he dos wisely (as your Ladyship says) to decline Dispute before the Proselyte Ladys, ’til they have some better Champion: I am Madame Your London 27 December – 1686

Henry Howard, 7th duke Letter 558 (556) January 11, 1687 f 43v

Epistle DLVI To the Duke of Norfolck: Earle Martial of England: etc.

My Lord, If upon your preferment of Mr. Denny (your Graces Chaplaine) it may not be thought presumption in me,1 I would take hold of this Occasion to Recommend Dr. Vincent to

3 the so-called Nag’s Head ordination – the claim that the early bishops of the Church of England had been ordained in the tavern of that name – was a staple of early seventeenth-century Catholic controversialists. 4 John Bramhall (1594–1663), archbishop of Armagh, published a work defending the succession of the Church of England and refuting “the fable of the Nag’s-head Ordination.” See Bramhall, A just vindication of the Church of England, from the unjust aspersion of criminal schisme (London, 1654; in the 1687 library catalogue). 5 Nicholas Sanders. De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani (Cologne, 1585; 1676 French translation in 1687 library catalogue) 1 William Denny (d. 1706), rector of Overstone and Barnack, and domestic chaplain to the duke of Norfolk

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your Graces favour;2 And I lesse apprehend your Graces reproofe of my boldnesse herein; because I cannot give a Character of any person (that I know) more worthy in all Capacities to succeede him, as your Domestic Chaplaine: He is a Learn’d and modest person, and furnish’d with such other Abillities, as I am sure, your Lordship will cherish, and be an ornament to your Family: I add no more, but the Submissions of my Lord: your Graces etc. London 11 January – 1686/7

Thomas Povey Letter 559 (557) January 10, 1688*1 f 44

Epistle DLVII To Thomas Povey Esquire

Sir, I received not your Letter ’til it was almost noone yesterday, being myselfe then in bed and Indisposed, as I have ben of late with the dry-Gripes, and having left my poore Wife2 at my sons in Arundel Buildings, rather in a worse state of body, under the Care of Sir Edmund King:3 Sir, I am most sensibly griev’d at the Calamity which is befall’n Mr. Slingsby [RM: Master of the Mint] and the rather, that I forsee, I shall not be able to waite on you ’til tomorrow, if then; but if God give me Ease, I will endeavor to kisse your hands according to your desire, having in the meane time dispatch’d a Letter to my Lord Godolphin,4 the contents whereof, furnish’d out of your owne Description (for a more comprehensive Account of his Condition I could not have devis’d) I here inclose, and shall follow it, with all the Interest I can make with my Lord, so soone as I can speake with him: I doubt not but in the meane while you have advis’d Mr. Slingsby to Addresse

2 Nathaniel Vincent; see Letter 553. 1 This and the following letter to Sidney Godolphin (Letter 560) are misdated or misplaced, and were both actually written in January 1688. Henry Slingsby had been master of the Royal Mint, but had been suspended in 1680 and surrendered the office in 1686 (see Letter 471 and Diary IV.567). De Beer notes that he was required to account for £12,697. 2 Mary Evelyn’s health was bad in December 1687–January 1688. Evelyn notes on 12 January that he “went to Lond. To visite my Wife still under her course of Physick” (Diary IV.567). 3 Sir Edmund King (1630–1709; ODNB). A physician who became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1666, King’s research was published in Philosophical Transactions. An expert in kidney stones, he was incorporated MD at Cambridge in 1671 and became physician to Charles II in 1676 and attended him in his final illness. He was knighted in 1676 and became an FRCP in 1687. Elizabeth Packer refers to his saving her father’s life in Add 78436: f 28 (18.8.1686). 4 See Letter 560.

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his Petition both to his Majestie and their Lordships of the Treasury,5 who (you know) sit tomorrow to receive Petitions which is all I think can be don for the present: I am Sir, Your

Says Court 10 January. 1686/7

Sidney Godolphin Letter 560 (558) January 10, 16881 f 44

Epistle DLVIII To my Lord Godolphin etc.

My Deare Lord I once againe am bold to acquaint you with the Calamitie fall’n upon one2 (however unhappy through his owne fault, as most men are, yet) whose most vertuous Wife and Family are objects of extraordinary pitty: It is Mr. Slingsby [RM: Master of the Mint], who by reason of his late Indisposition of body, and former imprudent conduct, is distressed almost to the last degree: He, and all his being driven-out of house, all their goods and moveables seiz’d, and himselfe utterly incapacitated to subsist, or recover without some mercifull and extraordinary Influence from his Majesty and your Lordships of the Treasurys3 helpe, by forthwith ordering his Accompts to be balanc’d etc. whereby his Mortagag’d and incumberd Remainders may in some measure, be eased, and shelter’d from the ruinous Effects of the Processe against him; and that monye be rais’d by a sale of his Lands, for the clearing his Ingagements in the midst of these Extremities, to which is added his not being himselfe sufficiently compos:4 To carry-on this difficult work (which would become altogether desperate, should it rest longer in these Circumstances); some of his Friends have closely inspected his Papers, and are putting them in such a Method that if his Majestie be so gracious to him, his Estate may probably answer in some considerable proportion, and a pittance left for the subsistance of his sinking family: I give your Lordship this Melancholy historie, that it may more sensibly move your Lordships of the Tressury to commiserate his Condition, and superadd a greate charity to the number of those which you daily (I am perswaded) do; nor let suffer his unhappy miscarriages altogether frustrate these humble 5 Commissioners of the Treasury: John, Lord Belasyse; Sidney Godolphin; Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover; Sir John Ernley; Sir Stephen Fox 1 misplaced (see the date in the subscription). See also Letter 559 and note 1. 2 Henry Slingsby. On 12 January 1688, Evelyn reported that he “did my endeavor with the Lord of the Treasury, to be favorable to him” (Diary IV.567). 3 See Letter 559, note 5. 4 compos mentis: of sound mind

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Applications, and breake in pieces the bruised reede: I have for my owne part, no sort of Relation or Interest to serve, which makes me thus passionately Intercede, but a very long friendly Acquaintance with a generous and obliging Gentleman who has don so much honor to the Nation, by his hospital5 living, though to his owne ruine: Assist him then both with your Counsel and Authority, to aleviate the pressing wants they lie under, and that a whole family sinke not, by rendering their present hardships at least supportable: ’Twill be refunded into your owne boosome, and the prayers of the distress’d returne in Benedictions upon you and yours Says Court 10 January. 1687/8

Robert Berkeley Letter 561 (559) January 15, 1687 f 44v

Epistle DLIX To Robert Berkely Esquire

Sir, I Accknowledge my selfe in Arrere for your last Civility,1 and for many other, and am sorry I can give you so slender an Account of your Concerne, having never once heard of the Captaine2 you name, nor receiv’d any letter of that importance, from the time he brought me the *Affidavit: [LM: *of those of Margate of the violence (almost to Rape) offerd by the Lord3 to Mrs. Berkeley’s lady going into Holland] As to that unpleasant particular, I gave you notice what I had ben able to do, with my Advice, and Addresses to my Lord President4 himselfe, whom I found perfectly dispos’d to have concern’d himselfe in your behalfe: But when, through the Captains total remissnes he had suffrd so much time to be run out, and that an Affront of that nature requir’d an instant and vigorous prosecution, it seem’d very late to think of retriving it in the opinion of his Lordship for that it will be wonderd an insult of so criminous a Nature, should not have ben complain’d of within a yeare at least of the fact: You will therefore be pleas’d to Consult your owne prudence as to what you farther will Command me in this matter, which I assure you, I will most zealously prosecute as far as I have any Interest here: All I can say, is, that if the injur’d persons think fit to passe by the folly and madnesse of a young Man and his Complices, the Agressors are the more obliged to their Mercy, than they deserve.

5 hospitable

1 2 3 4

Berkeley’s letter of 6 December 1686, NS (Add 15857: f 48 [6.12.1686]) Captain Warburton Viscount Dunblane (Peregrine Osborne). See Letter 547. Robert Spencer

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You do (I am sure) before this, Condole with us here, the surprizing death of my worthy friend Mr. Packer:5 I have greate reason to be sorry for the losse, upon the long experience I have had of his particular friendship to me: I doubt not but the Brother6 will be kind to the young Ladys his Sisters,7 as they deserve he should upon many accounts: Mr[s]. Temperance8 would be (I assure you) a greate ornament to her Highnesses Court at the Hague,9 if you (who are often in that illustrious Circle) should think it an advantage by recommending a young Lady so extraordinarily qualified, to be an Maide of Honor: I know there are Circumstances to be considered: I therefore speake but what I wish, but which you are best able to judge of: London 15 January. 1686/7

Richard Holden Letter 562 (560) January 17, 1687 f 44v

Epistle DLX To Mr. Holden Viccar of Deptford:

Sir, I lately receiv’d a Letter Subscrib’d by your selfe and other Gentlemen of the Parish, relating to a Petition, that his Majestie would be pleas’d to put Mr. St. Michael1 into the Commission of the Peace: I do so much concurr with them herein, that I will not faile of promoting their request upon the first opportunity, which may be on friday next, as his Majestie goes to the Council-Chamber, when my Lord Chancellor2 will be present, to

5 Robert Berkeley was a nephew of the wife of Philip Packer. 6 Robert Packer was son of Philip Packer. 7 Philip Packer’s four daughters were Isabella, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Temperance. Visitations of Berkshire, 1532–1666, Harleian Society 56 (1907) I, 254. See Harris, “A Revolution Correspondence.” 8 “Mr.” is a slip for “Mrs.” Temperance (or Temys) Packer whom Evelyn records singing before Charles II on 28 January 1685 (Diary IV.404). She became an actress, and subsequently entered into a relationship with John Bemde (see Letter 645). 9 the future Mary II 1 Balthasar St Michel (c.1640–after 1710; Pepys Diary). Pepys’s brother-in-law, “Balty” served in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars as muster-master and was appointed, with Evelyn, to the Commission for Sick and Wounded Seamen. Like Pepys he was dismissed in 1688 and seems not to have had any significant post thereafter. 2 Sir George Jeffreys

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whom I will likewise speake, and accordingly send you an account of it: You may please to acquaint those Gentlemen with what I write, and that I shall on all Occasions be ready to serve them and the Parish in all that I am capable: etc. London 17 January. 1686/7

Samuel Pepys Letter 563 (561) January 19, 1687# ff 44v–5

Epistle DLXI To Samuel Pepys Esquire Secretary of the Admiralty: etc.1

Sir I had yesterday kiss’d your hands with the Historical and Political Mercuries,2 if you had din’d at home, and being now making a step downe the River for two or three daies, I thinke I should not detaine your books any longer from you: I had read the last (viz January) before the former two, my son having procur’d the whole set about a fortnight since; but I went not back to the two former moneths, ’til your letter injoyn’d me to returne my thoughts upon them: But, do you in earnest take me for such a Politician? or rather for one, that being lately dismiss’d of so greate an Office3 (as you know I have had the honor to serve the Crowne in) must needes have acquir’d an Universal state talent? I had rather Mr. Pepys should call me Planteur des Choux, Herbam Parietariam, Sir Roger – anything than Sir Politic:4 Neverthelesse, on condition you’l hereafter put me upon some more serious subject, such as Entertain’d us th’other day, (when we fail’d of hearing the Woodenhead speake)5 though I shall not undertake or adventure to hyper-criticize, I make this Reflexion on the Reflecter, that he is now and then egregiously mistaken in his Politics,

1 Particular Friends, C36, 173–5. The original is dated 15 March and was published in facsimile in Catalogue of Historical Documents and Autograph Letters ... addressed to Samuel Pepys (London, 1889; see Particular Friends, 173). There are differences between the two texts, particularly in the treatment of political events at the end of the letter. 2 Mercure historique et politique contenant l’état présent de l’Europe, edited by Pierre Bayle and others (Parma [sic] [The Hague], 1686–1703; in the 1687 library catalogue). 3 Evelyn was among the commissioners of the Privy Seal who were dismissed on 10 March 1687. 4 cabbage planter, wall creeper (as in a plant), dancing master (as in Sir Roger de Coverley, an English country dance), a foolish politician (as in Sir Politic Would-Be in Ben Jonson’s Volpone) 5 a reference to Robert Greene’s Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1594) in which a brazen head is made to speak; Evelyn may be alluding to a Lenten sermon preached at court by Thomas Ken (1637–1711; ODNB) on 13 March (Diary IV.541).

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though for the most part, I believe, more than a shrewd Guesser: pag. 101. December 2 On croit que la retraite de la Cour de plusieurs grande Seigneurs d’Angleterre6 etc. to the end of that Paragraph, is certainely a super-refin’d notion, upon those who have left their White-Staves,7 but are not yet gon into the Country, as you know: P: 187 Si le Roy Jacques etc. He meanes Charles the IId, for undoubtedly the Martyr his Father did never fluctuate betweene the two Religions, as he pretends, Sans pouvoir decider quelle etoit la meilleure:8 Since I take him to have ben (though very unfortunate) yet well, and abundantly assur’d, and firme as a Rock, in his perswasion, and that it was his stiffnesse (if so I may call his perseverence) which cost him his head, to which the Jesuites as well as the Cromellists contributed: Is not our states-man mistaken in p. 52. Line 1. November when he makes mention of the Duke of Ormond 9 etc.? as well in the next: p. 54. Le fils naturel du Roy10 etc., whose mother is not at Court, though you know the Lady he meanes; but neither is she there, nor the mother of that young Hero spoken of: What other lapses there may be in his Reflections on other states, I pretend not to give any account; but could by no meanes passe these without notice, and perhaps, ’twere not amisse, the Author were advertiz’d of them: For the rest, he seemes to be a person of no ordinary penetration in the Mysteries and Arcana of state, which he dos in good earnest communicate with greate liberality, and no smal Charity, if what he mentions in the following pag: 55, be the Plan projected, which I had rather you should reade, and reflect on, than I to descant-on:11 The whole Period is very bold: In all events I see Louis le Grand12 is to have the Glory of all our Valiant Prince has in designe: He alone has shewd the way to the Sublime: See 190 December. Jan 288 ad 290. nay that whole Reflection, to which add especialy 277: 278:13 for Ile no longer detaine you from this curious piece: Mithinks I have myselfe ben a greate while in the Cabinet, and am at once emerg’d a Privy Counselor, Secretary of State, Ambassador. What not! sans raillerie,14 I am extreamely pleas’d, and Edified, and for my own satisfaction cannot but encour[a]ge the prosecution of a work, that affords so universal an Entertainement to us, this buisy and inquisitive Age: We have doubtlesse here all that’s on the Carpet of most considerable and probable, and the publique will take their measures ’tis hop’d, accordingly, I say, ’tis hop’d, unlesse it be willfully blinded, or bound in golden fetters made of Louis’s,15 which have the force of mighty charmes: In 6 “it is believed that the withdrawal of several great English lords from the court” Mercure historique (December 1686), 101. 7 symbols of office 8 “without being able to decide which is the better” Mercure historique (December 1686), 187 9 Mercure historique (November 1686), 52; James Butler, 1st duke of Ormond did not die until 1688. The next sentence refers to a confusion between Barbara Villiers and Louise de Kéroualle. The “young Hero” is probably Henry Fitzroy, 1st duke of Grafton, who had had a distinguished military career at home and abroad. Mercure historique (1686) 10 Mercure historique (November 1686), 54; James Scott, 1st duke of Monmouth (1649-85; ODNB) 11 Mercure historique (November 1686), 55–8; speculation about a plan that James II be succeeded by the kings of Denmark. 12 Louis XIV 13 Mercure historique (December 1686; January 1687), 190, 277–8. 14 without joking 15 a gold coin first issued under Louis XIII and worth 17 shillings but alluding also to the payments from France to the king and English politicians

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that case, I deplore the condition of the poore Hugenots,16 which nothing is like to ease them of, but the uttmost operation of fistula in A-- by making way to a kinder successor: See: December: p: 112.17 The Summ is, that the Emperors progresse18 gives Jealosie to the Princes; that the Combination of Au[g]sberge is a trifle; that the Pole making peace at the Port, will with Denmark grind the poore Sweede betweene them: That Mantoa is selling to the French: the Swisse slaves to the French already: Holland to be destroyd in the Indies, Spaine (poore despicable Spaine) abandon’d by it-selfe, Car tel est notre Plaisire19 le Marquis de Louvois has determin’d it, and Louis le Grand is to be the Universal Monarch:20 But the Greate God is above all, and in my Conscience we shall see another Revolution that will shew it: Pardon the Rhapsody of Your etc. Si vis capere vocem Caponis ad Capiendum [word deleted] Vulgus Cantantis, Cape Itur ad Capellam Divi Jacobi: Est ibi Statio Sancti Francisci a Sales, quondam Genebensis Episcopi: Interim Cave ne sis in Babyloniâ Captus: Hæc si non Capias, Capiat qui capere potest iterum Vale.21 London 19 January 1686/722

16 At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) Huguenots were persecuted; many came to England. 17 Mercure historique (December 1686), 112; fistula in ano, a rectal ulcer from which Louis XIV was ­suffering (see also Diary IV.533) 18 The emperor is Leopold I and the campaigns referred to (partly dealt with in Diary IV.525) are part of the prelude to the War of the League of Augsburg. 19 as this is our pleasure 20 “Such is our pleasure”; François Michel Le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois, was Louis XIV’s Secretary of State for War. 21 “If you want to catch the voice of a capon singing to capture the affection of the crowd, betake yourself to the chapel of St. James’s. There is the station of St. Francis de Sales, formerly bishop of Geneva. In the meantime, beware lest you should be captured in Babylon. If you don’t understand these things, let him take it up who is able to understand. Again, farewell.” Evelyn had heard “the Musique of the Italians in the new Chapel, now first of all opened at White-hall publiquely for the Popish Service” on 5 January (Diary IV.534), and “the famous Cifeccio (Eunuch) sing, in the new popish chapell … which was indeede very rare, & with greate skill” (537) on 30 January. See also Particular Friends, 175. 22 At the foot of this page (45r) is a cancelled letter “To my Sister Evelyn at Woodcot,” misnumbered DCLXII. See Letter 579.

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Henry Arundell of Wardour1 Letter 564 (562) March 12, 1687 f 45v

Epistle DLXII To my Lord Arundel of Wardoer now made Lord Privy-Seale:

My Lord, I had not the opportunity when I was with your Lordship to give you in writing, what you were desirous I should informe you in, concerning the Method of Passing things under the Privy-Seale:2 The Lord Privy Seale being one of the Greate Offices of the Crowne, and in precedency next to the Lord President of the Council,3 has under him fower Clearks, who wai are all knights or Gentlemen4 and waite with their hatts off in the Office alternatively by Moneths: Their Office is to present your Lordship or to the Commissioners (when in Commission) the Doquets which come to their hands of such Grants as his Majestie is pleas’d to make, prepared and Inspectd by the Solicitor5 or Attourney General,6 signed either by the Lord Tressurer7 or Commissioners,8 and one of the Clearks waiting, if relating to his Majesties Revenue, or by the Lord President or Secretary of State, If relating to his Pardons, Dignities, Denization,9 Charters, Church Livings (in his Majesties gift), and matters of state (not to the Revenue) etc. sign’d and seald by a Cleark of the Signet:10

1 Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour (1608–94; ODNB). He was a Roman Catholic and a royalist who fought in the Civil War and was master of horse to Henrietta Maria. Sent by Charles II to negotiate the secret Treaty of Dover, he was accused by Titus Oates and arrested in 1678. He became a privy councillor in 1686 and was appointed Lord Privy Seal on 14 March 1687. 2 Evelyn and the other commissioners of the Privy Seal had been dismissed by James II on 10 March (Diary IV.540). In doing so, James announced his intention to “dispose of the Seale, into a single hand” (540). On 11 March, James appointed Arundell, “a zealous Rom: Catholique” (540), to the position of keeper of Lord Privy Seal, replacing Henry Hyde, the former keeper. 3 Robert Spencer 4 three at that time: Robert Spencer, Viscount Teviot; John Evelyn; and Robert Phelips 5 Sir William Williams (1633/4-1700; ODNB, H). He was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn (1658) and became recorder (1667-84) and MP (1675) for Chester. He was a staunch defender of the privileges of the House of Commons and advocate for some of the defendants in the “Tory Reaction,” but nonetheless served as solicitor general (1687-9) for James II. He was created baronet in 1688. 6 Thomas Powys 7 John Belasyse, who replaced Laurence Hyde in December 1686 8 The commissioners of the Treasury (as of 4 January 1687) were John Belasyse; Sidney Godolphin; Henry Jermyn, Lord Dover; Sir John Ernley; and Sir Stephen Fox. 9 the act of making an alien a citizen 10 There were four of these keepers of the smaller seal, which was used for some official documents.

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If the Doquets be approved by your Lordship for you are to see, that his Majestie be not surpriz’d and are a cheque even to the Lord Tressurer him selfe if he do amisse: They are then deliverd to your Cleark in Waiting, who is to seale the Graunt abstractd and mentiond in the Doq[u]et and Ingross’d in your Lordships presence, and then is the Seale redeliverd to your Custody, and ought never to be trusted to any others. Thus, is the Writing brought prepard to the Lord Chancellor,11 who dos not put the Greate Seale to any thing of this nature til it have passd the Privy-Seale: There are also many Graunts, which have their final Dispatch at the Privy-Seale without going at all to the Chancelor by Special Mandamus12 But what principaly requires your Lordships Inspection, are Graunts relating to the Revenue, Leases, Discharges of Fines, Pardons, and especially such things as have laienlong in the Office, which may happly require your Lordships re-acquainting his Majestie with, to know his pleasure; but of which the Clearkes (who are upon Oath) will for the most part, be able to informe your Lordships: You have likewise recourse to the Attourney Generall (who draws the Pattents)13 upon any doubt or difficulty: The Counterparts14 of whatever you seale, are also to be entred, and remaine in the Office. The Doquets are likewise all to be entred but your hand is requir’d to nothing save Cavëates,15 which are also entred Registred in the signet Office: ’Tis the Office of the Clearke of the Privy-Seale to prepare and worke the Wax, which being don by his under Clearke, is delivrd to the Waiting Cleark who applys the Seale to the Labell, directed to the Lord Chancellor, and is your his Voucher for what he passes under the Greate Seale: There is a Messenger, who allways attends your Lordship, and gives notice to the Cleark in Waiting upon any Extraordinary Seale: But regularly one day in six Morning, or Afternoone, there is a Seale, but that is as your Lordship shall appoint: The Salary is paid out of the Exchequer, and reckond by the day, every quarter: But the Fees of the Seale alone (not very Considerable) are at 3 moneths end Accompted to your Lordship by the Clearks, who have likewise their dividends: so as no fees at all to be paied by your Lordship to any person whatsoever: This is all I can call to mind at present, or which I found concerning that Office, whilst I had the honour to be one of the Commissioners. etc. London 12 March 1686/7

11 Sir George Jeffreys 12 literally, “we command”: a judicial writ to enforce the performance of a public duty 13 an open letter or document from a person in authority recording an agreement, or requiring something to be done, or conferring a privilege 14 copy, facsimile 15 a process in court to suspend proceedings

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Charles Mordaunt1 Letter 565 (563) March 21, 1687 f 45v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLXIII To the Earle of Peterborow:

My Lord, I received your Lordships noble present,2 with the sentiments of one doubly obliged, that you not onely make me part of your Hortulan Treasure, but dignify the Profession. ’Tis (I think) the first time that a Companion of the Garter has call’d him-selfe a Brother of the Spade,3 though it be a very antient Instrument, and ben in use from Adame, the first of men, and waites upon all men in the world to their grave King nor potentate excepted; even to their Sepulchres, where it levels Monarchs with their meanest Vassals: But, I did not intend to send your Lordship a Lecture, instead of a Letter: Your Lordship knows that even royal hands have not disdaind to please with these by their owne example, to honour the spade: But Solomon and Cyrus4 are now no more, your Lordship yet revives their dust and justifies the dignitie Calling, and the choice which they make of the most sweete and innocent of Pleasure: Your Lordship was speaki[n]g of the greate variety of Fir-Seede, and that you would send me some: If they were worth your Commutation,5 I would present your Lordship with some Akorns of the Ilix6 and Cork-tree7 lately sent me from Ligorne:8 But this is so dry a return for so many fresh favours, and so like the Oblation which the poore Gardner made to that Prince of Planters,9 whom I but now mentiond, that I am asham’d I have nothing of more value: The Reward was (your Lordship knows) no lesse than a whole Dominion, and your Lordships Acceptance of my meane present from your Lordships most humble Servant, shall be a Kingdome to my Lord: Your etc. Deptford 21 March 1686/7

1 Charles Mordaunt, 3rd earl of Peterborough and 1st earl of Monmouth (1658?–1735; ODNB, Diary, P). Created Viscount Mordaunt in 1675, duke of Monmouth in 1689, and 3rd earl of Peterborough in 1697, he was the son of Elizabeth Carey and John Mordaunt. Evelyn was a friend of his mother, and was trustee for Charles and his siblings. His garden at Parson’s Green was well known. 2 garden plants 3 Isaac Walton had used the phrase “brothers of the angle” for fishermen and Sir Roger L’Estrange used “brothers of the blade” for soldiers. No earlier instance of this phrase for gardeners is recorded, but by the eighteenth century it had become a commonplace. 4 both the King of Israel and the Emperor of Persia were famous for their gardens (see Letter 160) 5 being sent on to you 6 Holm oak (Quercus Ilex) 7 Quercus Suber 8 Livorno 9 Cyrus. In the dedicatory epistle to The English Vineyard Vindicated (London, 1666), to which Evelyn (as Philocepos) wrote the preface (and more perhaps, pace Keynes, Bibliography, 178), John Rose affirms, “Sir, I dedicate the Prince of Plants to the Prince of Planters, Your Majesty” (A4).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Sidney Godolphin Letter 566 (564) May 21, 1687 f 46

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Epistle DLXIV To my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, I accompany my Son1 with this Letter to your Lordship and take occasion to acquaint you with them or remember you of a Discovery, which has ben made by Mr. Coale,2 and some others (lately recomended also by me to your Lordship) who deserve to be gratified, if the thing succeede, and as they question not but it will, if through his Majesties favour, and your generous Assistance, they have that encouragement which may recompence the charge and paines they must be at in bringing to light so fraudulent a concealement: My Son was desirous of being deferent3 of their and my Request, and I was ambitious he should have the honour of being knowne to your Lordship whose favour and patronage he has so just a pretence to, from those (though unmerited) professions of Friendship, which I lay-hold of upon all Occasions: Neither would I for yet on that account, recommend him to your Lordship were he not furnish’d with Talents suitable to his Education, and such as may render him a serious and usefull man: My Lord Receive him for your old Friends sake, make him your Creature, and looke upon him with a kindnesse becoming your virtuous and worthy nature: He will answer it, with a respectful dilligence and fidelity, and has ben bred, though not in the greatest, yet in good Company: Books he loves, and has more than ordinary judgement in their Inside, and would soone know men too, had he the Countenance of your Lordship for any Employment at home or abroad, where he has spent some time to Improve and qualifie him: But I have don, and perhaps you’l think too much over-don, and that I am sufficiently fond: Let Time determine that, and the Experience of the best of men I think in the World after what I certainely know among a world of men: Deptford 21 May 1687

1 Evelyn’s petition to Godolphin in this letter seems to have been successful. On 10 December 1687 he notes, “My Son was now returned out of Devon Shire, where he had ben upon a Commission, from the Lords of the Tressury, about a Concealement of Land” (Diary IV.565). 2 This may be Andrew Cole in the Treasury. John Evelyn Jr is recorded as a chief clerk there from 1689 to 1691, but he may have been a clerk earlier, as the records are incomplete. 3 agent or messenger

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Samuel Pepys Letter 567 (565) June 20, 1687 f 46

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLXV To Samuel Pepys Esquire etc. Secretary of the Navy:1

Sir, It has often come into my mind, that observation of Velleius Paterculus2 (speaking of the greate Scipio)3 as often as you have come into my thoughts, (which is I assure very often) that never any body did more worthily Imploy the Intervals of Buisinesse: Nec quisquam elegantius Intervalla negotiorum otio dispunxit (The whole passage is this) Semperque aut Belli aut pacis serviit artibus: semper inter arma ac studia versatus aut Corpus periculis, aut animum disciplinis exercuit:4 Thus you, either to the affaires of the Navy, or to the Culture of the mind, by reading, and studying and encouraging all that is greate, and becoming a generous Soule: No person that I know of has more fortunatly pass’d the Adventures of an unquiet and tumultuary Age, in so buisy a station, if that may so be cald, which is so full of motion, as that which is upon the floods and waters: This is, and has ben your Province, and speakes a Universal Spirit, and extraordinary Ability: But that which adds to all this, and indeare you more than all this to me, is your Sincerity, and the experience I have had of your Vertue, and of your obliging nature, which must ever be acknowledged by Sir Your Deptford. 20 June 1687

1 Particular Friends, C38, 177. This is the only text for this letter. 2 Velleius Paterculus (c.20 BC–c.30 AD), author of Historia Romana, a copy of which was in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue (Paris, 1675). 3 Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC), renowned for his role in the Second Punic Wars and the defeat of Hannibal 4 “No one ever relieved the duties of active life by a more refined use of his intervals of leisure than Scipio, or was more constant in his devotion to the arts either of war or peace. Ever engaged in the pursuit of arms or his studies, he was either training his body by exposing it to dangers or his mind by learning.” Velleius Paterculus, Historia Romana 1.13.3 (Shipley, trans)

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Henry Hyde Letter 568 (566) June 23, 1687#1 f 46r-v

Epistle DLXVI To his Excellency Lord The Earle of Clarendon etc.

My Lord That my head has every day ben broken with what I mentiond in my last,2 your Lordship will easily believe, by what (’ere this) I suppose is come as far as Dublin: The Hero3 is going hence with inlarg’d powers, and doubtlesse mighty things are promis’d and expected, which time will discover; and God alone knows what the event may be, him I pray that after these fickle, and restlesse tossings at home and abroad, there may at last be a steady composure, with truth and peace in our days: I have not yet ben so happy to find my Lord Cornbery,4 though industriously sought him, that I might wellcome his Return, and receive the favours you are pleas’d to honor me with: I have formerly seene and perusd the Booke5 you sent me, and the Author will deserve your Patronage: It is a prodigious and wonderfull thing, your Lordship writes, concerning the child:6 I am yet more astonish’d, that in the midst of such distractions, and the Conju[n]cture of so crosse and perplex’d circumstances, in the midst of which you are now conflicting, you should so unconcern’dly entertaine these diversions without prejudice, and not altogether be taken up with those Affaires, which puzzle all our politicians here: All I can exchange from hence, for your Lordships Newes, is, that you are dayly expected at Court; which makes me abbreviate this letter and what, I am sorry to add, that there is an intention of making Colonel Talbot some mighty thing in Ireland, upon your demission: I pray God his Majestie and the Publique may not feele the unprosperous Effects of those who Counsel him at present; a Man of ordinary penetration may give a shrewd guesse at what they aime. God Almighty preserve your Lordship: etc. London 23 June 1687

1 This letter may be misdated, as Hyde was in London by 7 June, when Evelyn dined with him and his wife (Diary IV.552). A date of late 1686 seems more likely. 2 In Letter 544 (9 September 1686), Evelyn mooted the problem of Talbot. By December, Clarendon was aware of this but had yet to hear from the king. His letter of 26 December speaks (in terms worthy of Swift) of how Irish trade might be improved, and he encloses Gerald Boate, Irelands natural history (London, 1652) (Add 78678: f 95 [26.12.1686] and Hyde, Correspondence, II, 128–9). 3 Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel had been in Ireland as lieutenant-general of the army in 1686 (Diary IV.514, n. 4). On 1 January, 1687, notification was sent to Hyde that Talbot would succeed him as lord deputy of Ireland (536, n. 1). He left London on 11 January. 4 Edward Hyde 5 William Molyneux, Sciothericum Telescopicum; or, a new contrivance of adapting a telescope to an horizontal dial for observing the moment of time by day or night (Dublin, 1686) was dedicated to Hyde. 6 See Letter 542, note 6.

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 569 (567) August 3, 1687 f 46v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLXVII To My Lord Godolphin etc.

My Lord, This Bearer my Servant, comes to acquaint you, that my Lord Sunderland desires to pay me in the mony upon the Mortgage:1 Now the Deedes, being made absolutely in my Name, and long since consign’d to your Lordships Sister;2 it will be requisite, that a defeazance be made by me who have onely a trust, and no other clayme, though my Lord Sunderland thinks otherwise; and you will peremptorily have me still continue it: You know I may not refuse the money when offer’d to be payd-in, but what to do with it, I cannot tell on the suddaine; unlesse Sir Stephen Fox will do me the favour to take it on the account he has already £1000 of mine, which I doubt not but he will, upon your request, as for me: You will then have £3000 in stock all charges borne for the deare Child3 to this time etc. Do me the kindnesse to let me know by a few lines, what Answere I am to return to Mr. Robson,4 before your going to the Bathe: I would kisse your hands at Windsore,5 did I not believe you would be on your journey: I have no more to say, after I have given you thanks for your kind reception of my Son6 etc. London 3 August 1687

Jael Boscawen Letter 570 (568) August 6, 1687 f 46v

Epistle DLXVIII To Mrs. Boscawen etc.

Madame, According to your Sage prediction, and wiser thoughts, I suspend my sending John1 to London, ’til I go my-selfe, and therefore to avoyd all mistakes in a matter of this

1 2 3 4

See Letter 458 (5 April, 1683) and Evelyn’s account of this transaction on 27 August 1687 (Diary IV.559). Jael Boscawen Francis Godolphin Thomas Robson appears in the Blenheim Papers (Add 61490) negotiating loans for both Lord and Lady Sunderland. See Letter 610. 5 Godolphin’s house, Cranbourn Lodge, was near Windsor. See Diary IV.517. 6 See Letter 566. 1 John Evelyn Jr

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moment.2 I have written to Mr. Robson,3 that he should pay the mony into the Exchequer in my Name (as my Lord, your Brother4 is inclin’d it should be), and not to Sir Stephen Fox: Doubtlesse they will think me very rich, who have so greate a stock as to powr into the Ocean: Mallem Divitem esse quam sic haberi,5 to another Lady I should interpret what I meane, to you I neede onely say, the world is mightily mistaken: When I have receiv’d the Tally,6 I shall deliver it to you, in the meane time, and for ever am Madame, Your etc. Wotton 6 August: 1687

Dorothy Graham Letter 571 (569) August 8, 1687 f 46v

Epistle DLXIX To Mrs. Grahames etc.

Madame, The Courteous Lady of this place,1 says, she expects Venison to be sent her to entertaine us here: We have assur’d her it will be much more acceptable at Wotton, whither my Wife and I are returning on Wednesday next: Now, if in the meane none should come (for I find they kill none in this Parke2 so newly stor’d) unlesse you procure it from some other place with all imaginable easinesse, I forbid you absolutely to send any, with yet a thousand Thankes for you kind Intentions: my humble Service to the Master of the Buck-hounds, who is not Master of a Buck: etc. We deferr’d our visite to Swalow-field ’til this morning, yesterday being such blustring and uncertaine weather: Cranburne Lodge3 8 August. 1687



2 3 4 5 6

the discharge of Lord Sunderland’s mortgage and reinvestment of Francis Godolphin’s money (see Letter 569) Thomas Robson; see Letter 569. Sidney Godolphin “I would prefer to be rich than to be thought so.” receipt

1 Jael Boscawen 2 Windsor Great Park 3 the Windsor home of Sidney Godolphin

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Thomas Tenison Letter 572 (570) August 10, 1687 ff 46v–7

Epistle DLXX To Dr. Tennison at St. Martins:

Worthy Sir, This good Woman (bearer hereof, and sojourning very neere you in St. Martins Lane) has desir’d me to bespeake your charitable Assistance, in something that concernes her with a Brother of hers, who now lies sick, and in danger of being oppress’d by some ill men, who have prevail’d upon his Ignorance and Infirmity: I am not so perfectly inform’d (at this distance) in her Case, but she will soone acquaint you with all the Circumstances, and humbly begs your Advice, and dos in her behalfe Your etc. My most humble service to Sir William Godolphin when you see him:

Wotton 10 August – 1687

Elizabeth MacCarty, née Fitzgerald Letter 573 (571) September 16, 1687 f 47

Epistle DLXXI To the Countesse of Clancartie:

Madame, We have ben all the later part of this Summer wandring,1 and in perigrination among our Friends; so that until lately we heard nothing of the death of my Lord Chiefe-Justice [RM: Sir Thomas Davis]:2 I cannot say it altogether surpriz’d me considering his Lordships so long valetudinary, or rather Languishing Condition whilst he was in England:3 which makes me assur’d that your Ladyship, who has consider’d the frailty and uncertainety of the things of this world, is fortified and prepar’d to entertaine with all resignation, what-ever of this nature it pleases God to exercise you withall: It was (I heard your Ladyship say) a greate Providence, that gave you a Person, whose Prudence and Abillities extricated you out of many difficulties, and has to the last (as I have am told) accknowledged all the care and kindnesse becoming a greate and worthy Gentleman so that you 1 Between 19 July and 27 August Evelyn and his wife were in Surrey (Diary IV.557–9). 2 Sir William Davis, Elizabeth MacCarty’s second husband 3 Davis was in London in October 1686 (Diary IV.527).

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have much more cause to blesse God for having given him to you so long, and so seasonably, than at all, to complaine of his now taking him from you to a better world: The same good Providence which appointed you this Blessing ought to encourage your Relyance on God (as I am assurd it dos) who has given your Ladyship such effects and Experience of it: Madame I am sensible that none of this needes suggesting to your Ladyship who is furnish’d with all those Graces that are to be exercisd, and produc’d on these occasions: But as I am touch’d with a very real Concerne for your Ladyship, I condole a Universal, as well as a particular losse in this of my Lord Chief Justice: In the meane time, I am extreamely glad to heare, that to aleviate this sorrow, you are like to have the Comfort of my Young Lord,4 your Son, who cannot leave greater markes of the Deference he beares to so excellent a mother, nor more gratifie those greate persons here at Court [RM: Lord Sunderland whose daughter he married very young:] (who advise for his good)5 than by continuing with your Ladyship: The Examples of our Gallants here being of so little encouragement to young noblemen, to hazard their Virtue and honour among them: I am sorry the Extravagance of this Corrupt and abandon’d Age forces me to conclude with so Melancholy a period: But your Ladyship will Comprehend by it, how infinitely I desire his Lordships prosperity, and your Ladyships satisfaction, who am with all Obsequience Madame Your My wife most humbly kisses your Ladyships hands as we all do those of the faire Lady, your Daughters6 etc. Says-Court 16 September 1687

Jael Boscawen Letter 574 (572) September 19, 1687 f 47

Epistle DLXXII To Mrs. Boscawen etc.

Madame, Your noble Present and most kind Letter, came early to me this morning with an accumulation of new obligations for which I am indebted both to you, and to your Family; especially for the (at last) effectual one of my Lord,1 for which I must beg your Assistance, that my Acknowledgements to him may be the more acceptable: My Privy-Seale is now

4 Donough MacCarty 5 Robert Spencer; a veiled suggestion that MacCarty should not ally himself with Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel 6 Elizabeth MacCarty, née Spencer 1 Sidney Godolphin

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

passing the formes,2 and I hope to be at so much liberty, at some time ere this Season be worne away, to give you my personal thanks: In the meane while, I cannot well divine, what you meane by the Mortification you mention, but am heartily glad to find, in the next line, that Massie3 and all yours are in health, which I pray God continue. My Daughter4 was yesterday at Deptford, and brings reward that your pretty Angel5 is well: I am this moment returning thither my selfe, and he shall tomorrow be my Guest, though not eate of your Venison; for I have made a present of it to my Son, who on Moneday is to treate my Niepce6 of Wotton, and other Relations at his house here, and it is to be the Capital Dish, and pomp of the Feast: Thus is your kindnesse continualy influencing all that relate to me: That God may remunerate to you and yours, shall be the daily prayers of Your The most humble returne of my Service to your excellent Sister,7 to Mistress Dorothy:8 my Blessings to Massie and to Mr. Hugh9 aboundance of diversion of Wheelbarrows, Boates, and Kites etc: Mr. Charles10 can tell me of no newes of the Travellers,11 and that is good newes: London 19 September 1687

2 being resigned; see Diary IV.551 and n. 1. The warrant for the Privy Seal had been issued on 14 June. This was the basis of the resolution of Evelyn’s long-standing legal action against William Prettyman. 3 Francis Godolphin 4 Susanna Draper, née Evelyn, now Evelyn’s only surviving daughter 5 Anne Boscawen, who married Evelyn’s grandson John in 1706 6 Mary Wyche, neé Evelyn 7 Penelope Godolphin (d. 1697; Diary). Sister of Sidney Godolphin and Jael Boscawen, Penelope, also known as “Den,” lived with her sister and brother in London close to Trafalgar Square and died unmarried. 8 Dorothy Boscawen 9 Hugh Boscawen, 1st Viscount Falmouth (c.1680–1734; ODNB, H). Later the brother-in-law of Evelyn’s grandson, Sir John Evelyn, Boscawen had a career as MP for several Cornish constituencies (1702–20). In 1708 he was high steward of the Duchy of Cornwall and warden of the Stannaries. After becoming comptroller of the Household (1714–20) and joint Vice-Treasurer of Ireland (1717–34), he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Falmouth in 1720. 10 Charles Godolphin 11 possibly a reference to the progress of James II which began on 16 August and concluded 17 September (Diary IV.560 and n. 1)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 575 (573) September 30, 1687 f 47v

843

Epistle DLXXIII To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, Though your Ladyship be out of my Debt,1 never shall, or would I be out of your Ladyships: This therefore comes to discharge a few mites of it; not that until now I had forgotten your Commands,2 but that the uneasy Circumstances (you know) I then lay under,3 hindred me from paying this, and many other obligations I have to my Friends, and especially, to your Ladyship: You will be pleas’d to receive this Acknowledgement, and to indulge the ill character it is written in: If you judge it worth transcribing may be of use to your Ladyship, it may be transcrib’d in a much more legible hand: But ’till it passe your Ladyships Approbation, I did not thinke it needed any thing save your Pardon, and that the trifle, I has ben so long in coming to you from Madame, Your etc. Deptford 30 September 1687

Henry Hyde Letter 576 (574) November 11, 1687 f 47v

Epistle DLXXIV To the Earle of Clarendon:

My Lord, I had not ben above one intire day in London since I had the honour of waiting on you at Swallowfield,1 when I fully intended to kisse your Lordships hands and my Ladys2 (whom I met in the best roome of Whitehall): but Buisinesse calling me away the next morning, I reserve my selfe that hapinesse, for the following Weeke, when I shall not omitt of doing my Dutie to my best, and noblest Patron: In the meane time, my Son, going 1 See Letter 569. 2 possibly a request for a supplement to “The Protestant Ladys Library”; see Letter 543. 3 as one of the commissioners of the Privy Seal 1 Evelyn’s diary does not record a visit at this time. Evelyn had visited Swallowfield in mid-August (Diary IV.558–9). 2 Flower Hyde

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as far as Devonshire about a Concerne of his,3 has desir’d me to bespeake your Lordships favour in behalfe of a Friend of his, one Mr. Wolfe; that your Lordship will be pleas’d to countenance his Request, when there shall happen to be any Vacancy amongst the Collectors of the New-River Rents,4 in which your Lordship has so considerable an Interest and powerfull Vote: If to qualifie him for what he seekes, any security extraordinary be required, he is able to Answer it, without exception: This is all I will trouble your Lordship with at present, who am My Lord Your etc. Says Court 11 November 1687

Robert Berkeley Letter 577 (575) November 14, 1687 f 47v

Epistle DLXXV For Robert Berkeley Esquire etc. of Speechley in Worcestershire:

Sir, I am Indebted to you not onely for a most civil Letter but for an illustrious Volume, and the accurate Description of that pompous Garden at Enguine,1 for which I returne you my most humble Accknowledegements: I have turn’d it over with no lesse Satisfaction, than Admiration: If it answer the designe, it is indeede a Magnificence far surpassing any thing of that nature in Italy, or, I believe, any where else: All it had neede be the E[x]pense of so greate a Prince, to maintaine such a Paradise in the trim it appeares to be on Paper: For this is commonly the fate of all those grand, and enormous Plantations (designd for pleasure) that to preserve them in perfection, they require so much charge and continual culture, that we seldome find them survive ther first founders: Within halfe an Age, they

3 for his return; see Diary IV.565 and Letter 566. 4 The New River was created by Sir Hugh Myddelton between 1609 and 1613 to provide a fresh source of water for London from Ware and Amwell in Hertfordshire. 1 Berkeley sent Evelyn a book about the garden at Enghien (Belgium) on 5 September 1687 (Add 15857: f 50 [5.9.1687]). It is recorded in his 1687 library catalogue as Villa Angiana belonging to the Duke of Arscots set forth by Nic. Vischer: Designed and Engraved by Romanus de Hooghe. What was probably Evelyn’s copy is now in the library of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. Berkeley seems not to have got this letter from Evelyn as his letter of 30 August 1688 (Add 15857: f 52 [30.8.1688]) says that he has not heard from Evelyn for a year.

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frequently become Wildernesse, and perhaps the Observation has made the Pöet (who you know understood Gardens very well) give this prudent Caution Laudato ingentia Rura, exiguum colito:2

But Sir, whilst I am thus Diverted with your noble Present, I am infinitly more to heare you are contracting your farther Travells, and will shortly make your owne Country and Friends happy againe: For what is it you can be shew’d of new, or indeede worth your Observation, after the Circle you have made already, which should detaine you from Inriching your owne Country with your judicious and usefull Notices? In this Contemplation, I greatly value the Grace and favour you do me, in continuing me amongst the number of those who truely honour you, as dos Sir Your etc. Says Court 14 November 1687

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 578 (576) February 20, 1688* f 48

Epistle DLXXVI To my Sister Evelyn: at Woodcot:

The Affliction I have ben under for the losse of the dearest, and most valuable Friend, that ever man had in this world, and (as to my particular) the best, dearest, and most deserving Child1 (not to mention other traverses of my Life) renders me so very sensible of your present Affliction; that I beg of you to believe how deepely I am pierced, and truely sensible Sympathize in your irreparable Losse:2 Time, which obliterates, and weares-out the greatest Sorrows, has not yet wrought that Effect on me: The Wounds open and bleede afresh, as often as I reflect upon what has ben torne from me in this manner. And though I was never apt to discover my Resent’ments by teares and outward complaints; these afflicting strokes, so quickly succeeding one another, dissolve me, and hard, very hard, I find it, not to Murmure, and think that Condition singular, which thousands (deare to God) are everyday ore’whelm’d with, and lamenting under. It is true, I have yet (through the goodnesse of God) some (though still uncertaine) Comforts remaining, which you are now depriv’d of: But the feare of loosing them, and vicissitudes of all earthy Injoyments, still perishing in their using, makes us apprehensive, uneasy, and solicitous: And profitable it is it should be 2 “Praise thou large estates, farm a small one.” Virgil, Georgics 2.412–13 (Fairclough, trans) 1 Margaret Godolphin and Mary Evelyn Jr 2 Anne Montagu, née Evelyn. Evelyn records her death as occurring on 15 February (Diary IV.569).

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so; Especialy, where other Circumstances of Secular fruitions, and worldly Affluence may be apt to render us fond of outward things, and unwilling to part with them, and forgetfull of their our duty, when they are call’d for by him, who bestowes them on us. These are Common Topics, and there were indeede nothing more easy than to dilate upon a Text so fruitfull of Sentences, and precepts on these Occasions: But, though they Restore us not our Friends and Children againe, who are dead; they are the best, and onely remaining Charitable offices of the living, and such as the wisest Persons, and most resigned Christians have had recourse to, and received most Comforts from: I know your owne experience will suggest all that can be expected from Reason, and an extraordinary Prudence, how to compose your selfe in this severe Trial: I have oft’ my selfe consider’d, that our Children and Relations being in the Boosome of God, would not for ten-thousand Worlds, exchang their happy state; and that ’tis not for the losse our Friends do suffer, that we grieve and mourne, but meerely for that selfe-love and Indulgence which is so hard to mortifie: What else should be a more real and solid Consolation to us, than the assurance we have of their being more, infinitely more happy where they are, and that after a so short a period, we shall follow, and enjoy them againe forever? There are other Aleviations for those whose Circumstances are easy, as to the Conveniencies, and Superfluities of this life: The greate Opportunities they have of doing good, and exercising works of Charity; setting loose to the things of this wretched world; Aspiring after a better, and more permanent state; and therefore, it pleases God to Interrupt our Satisfactions here, as if to have every thing successefull in this life, were rather an ominous Signe, that there is nothing left to be Rewarded hereafter: You will then (Deare Sister) seeke to charme your Passion with these Considerations, as oft’ as they recurr; and whilst in the meane time, you pay your Resentiments in a natural and becoming Affection; poure-out your Complaints into that ocean of Compassion, who can, and will give interiour Cumforts and Supports, and be to you better than Children, and all earthly Injoyments whatsoever: Gods holy will is to be your Resort, and the Piety, and Vertue of those we part with, our best, and most solid Consolation: This, I doubt not will be yours, and but for that alone I confesse, I were (sometimes for my owne-part) not able to undergoe the Affliction I yet lie-under for one I lov’d intirely, and who was in all reguards so worthy of it: But thus is has pleas’d the divine disposer to exercise a necessary Grace, who best can tell what is best for us: And could we now with the same cherefullnesse Resigne, as we Receive these Blessings, it were very happy for us: But I accknowledge to you, I am not yet ariv’d to that height of Indolency. ’Tis still a lesson I am learning, and which renders me so Sensible of your greate losse, and will, I presume, Justifie this unfain’d Condolence of one, who, notwithstanding all mistakes interrupting the Satisfaction I once injoyed in your good opinion, for whatsoever (to me yet unknown) Offences, supplanted or diminish’d,3 has allways preserv’d a very greate, sincere, and un-design’d Reguard for you and yours, and is Deare Sister Your etc. Says-Court 20: February – 1687

3 See Letter 365 for the estrangement; the relationship between the two branches of the family would deteriorate further as a consequence of Anne Montagu’s death, in a dispute over the ownership of Baynards, a property which Evelyn believed ought to have reverted to his family instead of passing to her husband (see Letter 663 and note 1).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 579 (577) February 29, 1688#1 f 48v

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Epistle DLXXVII To my Sister Evelyn of Woodcot:

Dear Sister, You have paied me treble Interest, for the slender stock I adventur’d; and it would have ben plaine Extorsion in me to have expected so bountifull a Returne (in Kind) from any but from one, who is so richly furnished with all that Divine or Moral could suggest, to aleviate the most sensible of Afflictions; because you have found the true, and onely Sourse in which to poure-out forth all your Complaints and mournings: That Christian Resignation to the Will of God, who in all his Dispensations knows what is most expedient for us both to do and Suffer: In a word, you have quite exhausted this Topic, and there now remaines no more, than (as you already do) the continuing in the practise of those excellent notices, which you are so richly indow’d with, sufficiently for your selfe, and to Impart to others; amongst whome, I should be very much wanting to Justice and good nature, not to Acknowledge the Advantage I my selfe receive: Be assurd then, that I shall never forget your so obliging, and Indearing memory of my poore Family, which has allways honourd you, with greater sincerity, than pompous expressions, and if any-thing have ben Defective, as to more personal Correspondence; ’tis I who have received that (now too-long) Mortification, for a pardonable and unhappy Extravagance of a youth, if any such thing there was, and (wholy un-knowne to me) and which indeede (in the opinion of Impartial Judges) deserved not the Severe Animadversion, which was Inflicted:2 This is (Deare Sister) what I should not have repeated here, and at this time especialy to you, but to Answer a Period in the Close of yours: Designing nothing lesse than Breaking the bruised Reede, or Firing the smoking Flax.3 I intirely forget all those poore Resentiments, and beg of God that he will increase and perpetuate to you all the Consolations your Condition is capable of, which is very greate in the Assurance you have of the happy state which that

1 Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn’s reply to Letter 578 and this letter is Add 78302: f 85 (17.4.1688). George ­Evelyn’s letter of April 1688 condemning her for selling Baynards is Add 78434: f 62 (April 1688). Evelyn may have begun the present letter early in 1687 where the superscription and first line are entered and cancelled after Letter 563 (f 45), or realized that it belonged to 1688 rather than the earlier year; or he may be conflating letters from different dates. In any event, the appeal to put resentments behind them in the final lines of the main body of the letter would not be sustained. See also Letter 663. 2 Evelyn clearly refers to the quarrel which had broken into the open in 1674 (Letter 365), and had led to his sister-in-law to believe that her late husband’s brother and other members of the family were hostile to her. His allusions to the details of the dispute are cryptic. 3 Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20

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deare Creature my late Niepce (your daughter) dos now Injoy, and to which we all aspire: Be this your Comfort Sister: Yet a little-while, and we shall all reciprocate no more these Interruptions. I am most unfain’dly Deare Sister Your etc. Deare Sister I beg you will not be surpriz’d, that my Brother Evelyn has lately requierd my Concurrence to a Querie, in which he thinks himselfe Concern’d: It came to my hands yesterday, and was return’d to Wotton but this morning by one whom he sent expressly to me.

Says Court Last of February: 1687

Edmund Dummer Letter 580 (578) May 21, 1688 f 48v

Epistle DLXXVIII To Mr. Dummer

Mr. Dummer, You had heard sooner from me, with the Effects of what you mention had I ben at home when your Letter came to my house: The Writing you spake of is in the hands of my Son at London, to whom I have written, that he put it into those of your Friends for you: As to what you intimate of that other particular, and especialy the pa, let no Curiositie of mine, divert you from more usefull Speculations, and especially the Publique Concerne:1 I shall be heartily glad, upon all Occasions to shew how distinguishd’ly I value the Talents you daily cultivate and improve with so much dilligence and successe, who am, Your etc. Deptford: 21 May: 1688

1 This probably refers to Dummer’s illustrated account of his voyage to the Mediterranean and/or his manuscript of models of ships (BL Ms King’s 40). Dummer also sent Evelyn some rare birds at this time (Add 78318: f 39 [4.7.1688]).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 581 (579) June 15, 1688 ff 48v–9

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Epistle DLXXIX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame I have both in my owne, and my Wifes1 name ben to Accknowledge the honour you were pleas’d to do us; but finding your Ladyship was gon to Windsore, and leaving my Wife in bed, indispos’d with the new distemper (which obliges me to returne) I take the boldnesse to Recomend a Buisinesse of my Sons to your favour and Assistance: I would not prevent what he has to propose by saying any-thing to it my selfe; but beg of your Ladyship the favour of hearing him discourse it to you, and he is the more Incourag’d, because it is no new Project;2 but the Retriving of a former Right due to his Majestie, and at this instant in danger of being diverted to a publique prejudice. There is honorable Advantage to be propos’d upon the discovery (if my Son be rightly informed) without injurie to any: Now Madame if you once decline the mention of That, because it comes from one whom you have distinguish’d by so signal a Friendship (a Terme I confesse too presumptuous for me to arrogate, but necessary on this occasion) My Son shall not by me be encourag’d to proceede any farther: Suffer me then (Deare Madame) for this once, to complaine of greate and powerfull Friends, who fancy they have Obligations to Inferiors, and therefore will heare of no Advantages to themselves, be they never so decently and reasonable: This un-friendly Generositie has often depriv’d me of some Benefit, which I should not have made ill use of: So that the Method to succeede at Court, is to Apply ones-selfe to a powerfull Stranger (who is acquainted with the Resorts and Springs of Buisines) and when he is Master of the Buisnesse Seacret, he tells one that the Thing is already gon, or promisd: But Madame (since I have presum’d so far) If a thing be worth a Thousand pounds a yeare to the stranger who shall not Assist in obtaining a Benefit, why should not the Friend I love (and whose Interest I make use of ) refuse a share, when there is in the whole, enough for both? I know not whether this Proposal of my Sons, will amount to this: Your Ladyship will best Judge of that, when he has opned the Matter: But I speake my Reflections upon these Occasions of Recourse to greate and powerfull Friends, whose Generosity forbids the modest, (and perhaps the as generously natur’d too) to Aske favours of them, and give them trouble, because they think they cannot oblige, if they ­Receive any Recognition themselves: – Pardon me Madame this Freedome This Præliminary was necessary to Introduce an Industrious Young Man, whom I am bold to Recommend to your Ladyships favour, and that whatever Kindnesse you have had for Me, may of especial Grace, be deriv’d upon One, who may serve you when I 1 Mary Evelyn was ill for much of this summer. 2 possibly a reference to John Evelyn Jr’s “Commission, from the Lords of the Tressury, about a Concealement of Land,” referred to in Evelyn’s diary for 10 December 1687 (Diary IV.565)

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am gon, and supply for my greate Defects: Upon this Occasion Madame give me leave to say something of his Character as to his Capacity for a Usefull Man: He has apply’d himselfe to the Law; seene something Abroad, and has Languages, and a Pen and Style inferior I think, to few young men whatsoever; and this with greate sedulity and application, and (what your Ladyship I’me sure will value above all these) worthy Principles, and a solid Judgement: Shall I add, that he is more than superficially acquainted with the politer learning; Free, and Easy of Conversation, and nothing so Morose, and Formal as his unhappy Father: Singularly well natur’d, and allwayes in good humor – Now will your Ladyship Smile, and at the same time pitty the Fondnesse of one that dotes: Well, Be it so, Madame; However this Affaire succeede, Give him but leave sometimes to waite upon you: None alive is better able to discerne his foible; and I am sure your Kindnesse to me will Advise him to his Advantage, and his owne Duty and Discretion. Acknowledge it, as becomes him. Were there not something Considerable in the Youth to qualifie him, I should not have taken this paines to make my selfe Ridiculous: Receive then Madame, this young man from one who has long studied to present your Ladyship something which will not be unworthy your Countenance, and Protection, amongst those who are Ambitious to serve you: I do before-hand Assure you, it shall be no Burden to your Ladyship, but an eternal Obligation to Madame Your etc. Says-Court 15. June – 1688

Anne Spencer Letter 582 (580) July 23, 1688 f 49r–v

Epistle DLXXX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame I have put my selfe (as I promis’d) into your Ladyships place, that is (by a real Figure) made your Sorrows my owne, Deploring the sad occasion1 of them, seriously condoling with your Ladyship this too just cause of your griefe: For so the holy Apostle – Weepe 1 Anne Spencer was in need of consolation. Her husband, Robert Spencer, had just converted to Roman Catholicism. Spencer had announced this on 26 June (Diary IV.595, n. 1). In the same passage in the diary, Evelyn says of Lord Sunderland: “The Lord her Husband (whose parts & abilites are otherwise conspicuous) were as worthy of her, as by a fatal Apostacy, & Court ambition, he has made himselfe unworthy” (594–5). In addition, her son, Robert Spencer Jr, styled Lord Spencer (1666–88; Diary), who was heir to Sunderland’s title, had been leading a wastrel life in Paris. He would die of an excess of brandy on 15 September NS (in Evelyn’s dating on 5 September OS) (Diary IV.595, n. 1, 2). Evelyn notes that he, “rambling about the world, dishonors both his name & family … vice more & more predominating, gives slender hopes of his reformation” (595).

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with them that Weepe,2 be of the same mind one towards another: The Children of the Market-place would else reproch me (We have Mourned to you and ye have not Wept) should I not in so greate a concerne mourne the losse, for so I looke upon it in all those Circumstances for which Friends are wont to bemoane the Death of so neare Relations: But God, who can raise to Life againe, may likewise in his good time, shew the Almighty power of his Grace, through your Prayers by the Intercession of Jesus, who can quicken not onely our Mortal bodies, but breath new Life into our very soules: For God who is rich in Mercy, for his greate love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sinn, hath quickned us together with Christ and by Grace we are saved: St Ambros was wont to comfort the Mother of St. Augustine before his Conversion, with telling her it was impossible a son of so many Teares should miscarry:3 You Madame, will Apply this to one more then a Son, and I hope with the same Successe: None of our Esprits Forts, Carelesse and Abandon’d things, who laugh at all thats serious in Religion, had halfe the Wit, and nothing neere the polite Learning of that incomperable Person:4 In all Events, you will waite upon God (with that devout, and pious Matron) and the methods of his Providence; that He, who onely knows the Heart, and can turne it as he pleases, will, in his good time, grant your Petition, and restore Comforts to you: If what I send your Ladyship be the Echo of your owne thoughts, it is that onely which can recommend it to you; for I am sure you stand in neede of no Assistance of mine, to expresse, or improve your Addresses to God: But I was to obey you, and to pray that he will accompanie my poore and defective Endeavors with his gratious Supplys of and that he will deliver you from all your Apprehensions, and present sadnesses, that we may all serve him God in cherefullnesse againe, looking to the blessed End, which now cannot be far-off: Let us but hold-fast the sincere Profession of our most excellent Faith and Religion: The Time is short, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry, and then shall all Teares be wiped from our Eyes, all our deare Relations restor’d, our Wants supplied, our Labours of Love rewarded, above all that this inconsiderable World, and its new scenes of Pleasure (which vanish, and perish in their Using) can afford, to a serious and thinking Christian; freed from the weake, and foolish prejudices of the men of this World, however Crafty and Wise in their owne Conceites; But, who fataly Blinded with the Present, reguard not whats to come, nor looke to the End of things, however Warn’d and disciplin’d by the most Remarkable Revolutions and Dispensations, that any Age his [sic] produc’d: Beare then Madame the Reproches of Christ, the Lampoons of the scoffing Fopps, the Lyes, and Inventions of Malicious Spirits: You have a Rock to fly to; allways remembring that those who will live Godly, in Christ Jesus, must suffer Persecution, Crosses, Afflictions and Dissappointments, and they are profitable for us, to Recall us from adherences, and setting our hearts on the World, which (in good earnest) is not our Home and Country, but a Troublesome Passage to it, and a place of probation onely: The Comfort is, ’tis but short, and if we do not linger by the Way, and fall in love with Trifles, what an Eternal weight 2 Romans 12:15–16; Luke 7:32 3 a pretty figure: if Spencer is to his wife as the then-heretic Augustine was to his mother Monica, Evelyn takes on the role of St Ambrose. 4 her husband, Robert Spencer

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of Glory permanent and steady, will our Recompence be: Ô Immortality, o Fruitions of interminable durance, Jesus in his Glorified Person, with all his bright, and Illustrious Attendants, in the Court, of the King of Kings, whom he raised from the dead, to set him at his owne Right Hand in the Celestial places, far above all Principalities, and Power and Might, and Dominion, and every Name that is named, not onely in this World, but also in that which is to come!5 And hath put all things under his feete, and given him to be the Head over all things to the Church, which is his Body, the fullnesse of him that filleth all! These things Madame, as oft as we Contemplate, and of the Citty of the greate God, How sordidly Poore, and Despicable, and Nothing and Wor lesse than nothing are the White-Halls, the Windsors, the Versailles, the Noisy Den, and Crowds of Ambitious Men, Corrupted with Vice, and immers’d in sensuall pleasures, that consume their precious Moments, in pursuite of Vanity and the Shadow of a Dreame London 23 July 1688

Samuel Pepys Letter 583 (581) July 31, 1688 f 49v

Epistle DLXXXI To Samuell Pepys Secretary of the Admiralty1

Sir, In Antient times there was (you know) a Law, That the new Married Man, in time of Warr, should for the first yeare of his Espousale, be indulg’d, and stay at home and Enjoy the Wife of his Youth: and be Whether this be Moral, and still obliging (as I know no reason why it should not) I do not dispute: Sure I am it was Divine, and was very reasonable and obliging Reasonable; that when so many went abroad, and loose their Lives for their Country, some should be excus’d, stay at home, and get Children to repaire the common losse: Sir, You will naturaly gather from This, that poore Frederick Collier (who is our Constant Water-man here at Deptford) dos most humbly beg your Protection: It is my Wifes (whose health is I thank God much improv’d) as well as the Request of Sir Your I send you herewith the old smoky Pamphlet you desir’d,2 which had it taken Effect, might have sav’d the burning of a Greate Citty: I Acknowledge my Mistake of the Statute you were enquiring after: But certaine I yet was such a Law there was, as you will 5 Hebrews 2:8 1 Particular Friends, C41, 182. This is the only surviving text of this letter. 2 Fumifugium (London, 1661). De la Bédoyère suggests that the absence of a copy of Fumifugium in the Pepysian Library might be evidence that the letter was not sent (Particular Friends, 182, n. 4).

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find p. 183 and I am persuaded there is also something like it in Holingshed:4 But my Son has the History at London[.]

Deptford last July 1688

Anne Spencer Letter 584 (582) August 6, 1688 ff 49v–50

Epistle DLXXXII To my Lady Sunderland etc.

Madame, ’Tis neither Possible, nor Reasonable for me to Resist so many Circumstances of your Ladyship’s kind Invitation,1 though there were aboundance to be sayd, on the other Part, and the Trouble of receiving an old Morose Creature, who every day looses the Tast of this World etc., and your Ladyship would Recall it by proposing to me, the thing in the World, which I most value, the Company of one of my best Friends in it: I am, I confesse vanquish’d without Consideration, and therefore will (if God give me health) waite on your Ladyship after the Method you propose in the post-Script of your Letter which dos so much the better suite with the same Indispensable occasions of mine; than if it had ben otherwise, as I shall hereafter acquaint your Ladyship: In the meane time, I will Concert our Meeting with Mrs. Boscawen, that we may not disappoint your Ladyships Contrivance: My Son has laied his Buisiness2 (with a bountifull Fee) before Mr. Attourney General3 who after he has studied the point, will give his Opinion in writing: I have no more to add at present but etc. London 6 August–1688

3 Anno vii. Jacobi Regni An Act against the burning of Ling, and Heath, and other Moore-burning is given in Evelyn’s Fumifugium, p.18. This act did not apply to London. 4 Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles, comprising The description and historie of England (London, 1587; in the 1687 library catalogue). William Harrison notes the increase in the use of coal, that “beginneth now to grow from the forge into the kitchin and hall, as may appéere alreadie in most cities and townes that lie about the coast, where they haue but little other fewell, except it be turffe and hassock” (III.10.236). 1 Anne Spencer invited Evelyn to visit Althorp in a letter of 2 August (Add 78309: f 63 [2.8.1688]). See his account of his visit, from 15 to 23 August 1688 (Diary IV.592–5). 2 See Letter 581. 3 Sir Thomas Powys (1649–1719; ODNB). A bencher of Lincoln’s Inn and a judge and barrister, Powys became Solicitor-General and was knighted in 1686. Powys became Attorney General in 1687 and conducted the trial of the seven bishops in 1688.

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Jael Boscawen Letter 585 (583) August 11, 1688 f 50

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLXXXIII To Mrs. Boscawen etc. at Cranborne neere Windsore

Madame, We most heartily and exceedingly thank you for the very best, and fattest, and sweetest Venison, that ever was put into past: And that it was all this, it had the universal suffrage of a jolly company, who came unexpectedly to dinner, and drank the foundresses health; I meane, your owne: But I am for all this good-chere still under Affliction, that my Lady Sunderland1 (not withstanding the letter I sent) prevents my Objections, and will not (for all ought I find) be Answerd so: How therefore to defend my selfe any longer against so much kind flattery, and from a Lady too, who mingles it with Circumstances that draw Compassion,2 I am at a losse: To go without you, I can with no manner of Satisfaction, To go with you, give[s] me no prospect – Love bids stay, – Honor says goe:3 What shall I determine do?4 This is fit for onely my Lady Sylvius to determine: In the meane time, I expect the Returne of another letter from Althorp: If that Absolve me not, I must in good manners yeild: Though (I assure you) with Reluctancy: For I shall want Comfort there, more than my Lady; nor made I any question but I should have ben so happy, either to Accompany you thither, or find you there; and why should not you and my Lady Sylvius both Resolve yet to go? and then would there be one to Consolate my Lady Sunderland; another to talke Politics with the Countesse of Bristol5 and my selfe as Reserve upon Occasion. For how else do you Imagine I should undertake it all alone? I am just now going to London and shall visit Sir William,6 and from thence home, for I care not to stay in that dusty solitude White-hall: Let me heare from you and my Lady Sylvius, what you think of these weighty matters by Tuesday next: For my Lord Sunderland threatens that a Coach and Six shall come for me here on the morrow after, to tempt my Charity and good nature, which is very Vulnerable I am Deptford 11 August – 1688

1 Anne Spencer had written Evelyn on 2 August (Add 78309: f 63 [2.8.1688]), inviting him to Althorp and proposing the arrangements that he describes in Diary IV.592–3. 2 See Letter 582. 3 See Richard Fanshawe’s translation of Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza’s Querer por solo Querer: “Love and Honour pull two ways; / And I stand doubtful which to take: / To Arabia, Honour says, / Love says, no; thy stay here make” (To love only for love sake: a dramatick romance [London, 1670]). 4 Evelyn was eventually accompanied by John Jr. 5 Anne Digby, countess of Bristol, Lady Sunderland’s mother 6 Sir William Godolphin

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 586 (584) August 14, 1688 f 50

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Epistle DLXXXIV To my Lady Sunderland etc.

Madame, Your Ladyships Invitation is so kindly Generous, and my Obligations for your many Favours so greate; that I cannot suffer you should think, I Care not to waite upon you without Company: though I should have ben glad of Mrs. Boscawens, as well for your Ladyships, as my owne sake: I do therefore (without more Excuse) purpose to be at White-Hall on Wednesdaymorning early; though I know no reason why your Ladyship should order a Coach on purpose to bring me alone to Dunstable,1 there being common Hackneys suitable enough for my Equipage: But thus your Ladyship dos still accumulate Civilities on Madame Your etc. Says Court 14 August–1688

Anne Spencer Letter 587 (585) August 29, 1688 f 50r-v

Epistle DLXXXV To My Lady Sunderland:

Madame I had not thus long suspended the Renewing of my most gratefull Acknowledgements for my so noble and kind Reception at Althorp, and all the Circumstances of that delightfull Journey, to so charming a Place, had not the Relapse of my poore Wife,1 and the danger she was in surpriz’d me at my Returne: That being at present not onely aleviated, but in an hopefull way of being restor’d to better health, gives me as much Consolation as one is fit 1 Dunstable was a staging point in Bedfordshire for the coach to Althorp in Northamptonshire. Evelyn describes this trip in his diary (Diary IV.593). John Jr accompanied him. 1 Mary Evelyn suffered “a suddaine fit of fainting” on 29 July and was “ataqu’d with her late Indisposition” again on 24 August (Diary IV.592, 596). She had been afflicted with a severe cold or catarrh since December 1687. Anne Spencer replied with sympathies in a letter of 31 August 1688 (Add 78309: f 64 [31.8.1688]).

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for, who has had so much experience of the Vicissitude and uncertainty of the things of this world, and I should have ben too happy (and perhaps [forgetful of all?] this) to have received no Checque for the aboundant Satisfaction and pleasure I am apt to take in those sweete Recesses: Althorp, is without dispute the seate of England (and I think, I must say, of any Country else) the most consumately perfect, as well within, as without; so as none needes but looke on it to conclude how greate and excellent that Soule and Genius that must be, which Governs and disposes in it:2 Truly Madame, this is no Compliment, no poetique flight; but the reall Sense of my often Reflections on it, and your Ladyships prudent, and admirable Oeconomie: In a word, there’s nothing on this side Heaven, seemes wanting to render you yet more happy (and as you desire, and deserve to be) but that one Addition, which God can, and I hope will Restore to you in his good time,3 and ’til then, sanctifie this Interruption to you (as I see he dos) by your the wise and pious Resolution you have take to do your Duty and for all the rest, depend on his Providence: It is good that we are sometimes Afflicted, and a greate Person4 found it so, who was Deare to God, and it was in his neerest Relations that most he suffer’d, and the Animadversion was profitable, because he supported it as became him, and as your Ladyship dos, to your owne and (I assure you) to my particular Edification: I shall ever pray to God to continue to you the many greate Comforts which are yet left you, and that you will ever looke on me as one who truely honors you etc Says-Court 29: August 1688

Jael Boscawen Letter 588 (586) August 31, 1688#1 f 50v

Epistle DLXXXVI To Mrs. Boscawen etc.

Madame, I should not have ben thus long in giving you an Account of my Journey and Returne from Althorp, if the Condition I found my Wife in had not very much discompos’d 2 Evelyn also describes Althorp in his diary: “The Earle of Sunderlands House, or rather palace at Althorp, is a noble uniforme pile … built of brick & freestone, balustred, & a la moderne … It is situated in the midst of Gardens, exquisitely planted & kept, & all this in a parke wall’d with hewn stone … & what is above all this, Govern’d by a Lady, that without any shew of solicitude; keeps every thing in such admirable order both within & without, from the Garret, to the Cellar” (Diary IV.594). See also Jan Vosterman’s painting of Althorp, which Evelyn had seen in 1678 (Diary IV.128), and is still at Althorp. 3 a reference to her husband’s conversion to Catholicism; see Letter 582. 4 Sidney Godolphin 1 misdated. The original draft of this letter is on the reverse of Jael Boscawen’s letter of 16 September, a letter in which she informs Evelyn that the fear of an invasion (by William of Orange) has led the court

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me: I thanke God, there is now some relaxation, nor is she at all Convuls’d, as she was the last Winter (you know) at London: Indeede I have not known her looke better of some yeares: But that which Affrites us, are her fits of fainting away, which even now, that I am writing, returne upon her, and no longer is she in heart, and free of this distemper danger, than the Blisters are open, and Cordials applied, which being prescribd by the Physitians, become very troublesome, and uneasy to her. This is the History of our present condition, and which makes us very Melancholy here: I should also delight to recount to you, the greate Satisfaction my Son and I tooke in a journey, and a Place, which has all the Charmes and perfections a Noble seate is capable of. And if I have not ben able to expresse all those Acknowledgements which are due for my Reception there (and which was with all the most obliging Circumstances imaginable) I must and do beg you to Assist me in it when you see my Lady;2 for indeede they are greater than I can describe: I have not stirrd from home since I returnd; but have sent my servant almost every-day in search of Sir Stephen Fox who is not yet in Towne; so we must have patience a while: My Lady Sylvius is of too good a nature to resent my innocent Raillery: My wife, who continualy speakes of the greate Value she has in particular for you, desires your Prayers, and so dos the most infinitely obliged etc. Says-Court 31. August 1688

Charles Porter1 Letter 589 (587) September 4, 1688 ff 50v–1

Epistle DLXXXVII To Sir Charles Porter etc. [LM: since Lord Chancellor of Ireland] Sir, I am not a little Astonish’d at your Usage of me in this sort it being so very unlike what I expected from Sir Charles Porter, when I was contented to Inlarge the date a full yeare to desert Windsor (Add 78309: f 102r–v [16.9.1688]). In the draft the line “My Lady Sunderland I have condold the death of my Lord Spencer as decently as the unhappy Circumstance of it would beare” has been cancelled. 2 Anne Spencer 1 Sir Charles Porter (1631-96; ODNB, Diary). A barrister of the Middle Temple in 1663 and knighted in 1686, Porter became Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the same year, was dismissed in 1687, and reappointed (1690–6). Evelyn had to deal with him in relation to William Prettyman’s debts to the Crown.

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longer, than what at first was propounded to me (as Mr. Brackett2 well knows) for the payment of the summ agreed on, and to Accept you for my Security; believing you a Person of honor, that is, of your Word: I have since also ben content to leave £100 of the first Payment in the hands of Mr. Brackett, to whom I am indebted for the Charges you have put me to, and he was satisfied to stay for it some time, to render it easier to you: Yet not so much the Time you have made me waite for my Mony, as your un-handsome baffling of me from terme to terme, with such frivolous pretences (as are very little agreable to the Confidence I had in your Word and Promise) which must excuse the Complaints I make of your constantly disappointing me: If Mr. Prettyman and his Abbettors, conceive they have [illegible] bargaine,3 by my discharge [of ] £6000 of their Debt, who could [illegible] have gotten £500 (as I must needes remind your owne then ingenuous Confession) and my prevailing with some in power, not to seize upon his, and your Office, for many Yeares, whilst you both so eagerly pursued me; they may please to try their pretences againe: But plainly, if my Privy-seale be anything worth, I expect punctual dealing and payment of what is due to me, and as it becomes so: For if in fifteene Moneths I must waite, and send 15 times for £300, and remit £600 for one thousand in the clowds: The prospect of the rest (my Security consider’d) looks very Melancholy on me: Sir, you much inconveniency me by these put-offs, and therefore I desire you will not think so meanely of me, as if I had no sense of my being ill-us’d for my Civility, who am Sir etc. Says-Court 4 September–1688

Robert Berkeley Letter 590 (588) September 18, 1688 f 51

Epistle DLXXXVIII To Robert Berkeley of Speechly in Worcestershire:

Sir, The letter which brings me the assurance of yours and your Ladys1 health, (at which I much rejoice) would extreamely mortifie me againe, if through any Neglect of mine, I 2 No Mr Brackett is identifiable. After William Prettyman’s suspension from the office of remembrancer of the first fruits and tenths (Calendar of Treasury Books, 1681–5: 471), Sir Charles Porter was appointed to this office. The deputy remembrancer of first fruits in this period was Robert Butler, and he is recorded (on 22 December 1690) as “paying Mr Evelyn his debt out of the [First Fruits] office with such interest as Lord Godolphin shall appoint” (Calendar of Treasury Books, 1689–92: 434). 3 An ink blot renders several words illegible. 1 Elizabeth Burnet

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may but seeme to have so far forgotten my-selfe not to remember the Obligations I owe to you for so many greate Civilities: I cannot say I have return’d you Par pari2 for the least of them; but I have certainely continualy presented my most humble service to you, by your Vertuous Kindswoman3 (now here with us) upon all Occasions of their writing into Specchley, and in particular, charg’d Mrs. Vincent with a Letter expressly, to convey my gratefull Acknowledgements for your munificent Present, which I hope came to your hands: I much rejoice to heare you are returning homewards, that you may (after all your motions) reape the Fruite of your ingenious Observations, and inrich us Idle People here with what you can generously spare: I am Sir, most intirely Your etc. Says-Court 18: September–1688

Anne Spencer

Letter 591 (589) September 9, 1688 f 51

Epistle DLXXXIX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, I find by the Countesse of Clancartie,1 that she is not well satisfied, either of the Delivering, or Effect of the Letter, she (sometime since) desired me to Communicate to my Lord President,2 and your Ladyship, neither of you having as yet (she says) taken any notice to her of it, which a little reflects upon my Negligence, though your Ladyship knows I am not in fault: I will not however discharge my-selfe on your Ladyship farther, than to tell her how much of late you have ben distracted with buisinesse, and that I cannot believe it to proceede from any other Cause; whilst in the meane time, I would beg of your Ladyship to Correspond now and then, with that good and Excellent Woman, who cannot but be most worthy your more than ordinary kindnesse: Having sayd this, I have no more to aske, but that on this Solemn Anniversary,3 you will Remember in your Prayers to God, Madame, Your etc. Deptford 9: September–1688

2 equal for equal 3 Isabel Packer, Robert Berkeley’s aunt 1 Elizabeth MacCarty 2 Robert Spencer 3 of the death of Margaret Godolphin

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 592 (590) September 9, 1688 f 51r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DLXXXX etc. To my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, Whilst I am againe deliberating whether I should Continue to write to you on this Solemn Day,1 still the same Injunction you once were pleas’d to lay upon me2 (and which indeede I tooke to be the most Indearing and distinguishing Marke of all your Kindnesses and Friendship to me) soon Resolv’d me that ’twas a Sacred Duty, which I am bound to, upon my owne Account, as well as your Lordships: Too cruel then were it in me to Repeate those tender lines wherein (more than once) you oblige me to be your Remembrancer, and deplore the Apprehension onely, least Time (which weares-out all Impressions) should Impaire the Memorie of that deare Saint, who lov’d you above all the World besides. ’Tis now Ten-yeares since we made this losse, Ten Ages (were I to live so long) never would efface the sad memorial of: Not, that she’s gon to a better state, tho but that she has left us in so degenerate a one, and that there are no more like her to make the world worth living in: Many Comforts, and neere Relations I have in particular lost since that cruel Stroke, and the frequent faintings of my poore Wife (contracted from those Losses) perswade me, that my Dayes of Mourning are not far off:3 Gods holy Will be don, pray he but prepare us for that consummate happinesse, which I verily believe, that blessed Soule enjoyes whose Anniversary I never passe without Reflections becoming my signal Obligations to her Memory; and I perswade my selfe, your Lordship sympathizes with me my Thoughts, and present solitude: Let us then (my Deare Lord and Friend) never suffer any thing in this wretched World (which is every day presenting us with flattering Scenes of lasting Satisfactions in it) discompose our Duty, whilst there are other Objects, and nobler Expectations worthy of your Christian Fortitude and Perseverance: So GodAlmighty keepe you and yours etc. Says Court IX September 1688.

1 the anniversary of Margaret Godolphin’s death 2 in his often-cited letter of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]) 3 In fact, Mary Evelyn lived until 1709.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Sancroft Letter 593 (591) October 10, 1688 f 51v

861

Epistle DXCI To the Arch Bishop of Canterbury at Lambeth:1

[LM: Sancroft] My Lord, The honor and Reputation which your Graces Piety, prudence, and signal Courage2 have justly merited and obtain’d not onely from the Sons of the Church of England, but even universaly from those Protestants amongst us who are Dissenters from her Discipline:3 God-Almightys Providence, and Blessing upon your Graces Vigilancy, and Extraordinary Endeavors, will not suffer to be diminish’d in this Conjuncture: The Conversation I now and then have with some in Place, who have the opportunity of knowing what is doing in the most seacret Recesses and Caballs of our Churches Adversaries, obliges me to Acquaint you, that the calling of your Grace, and the rest of the Lords Bishops to Court, and what has there of late ben Requir’d of you, is onely to create a Jealosie and Suspicion amongst well-meaning People of such Compliances, as it is certaine, they have no cause to apprehend: The Plan of this, and of all that which is to follow of seeming favour thence, is wholy drawn by the Jesuites, who are at this time more than ever buisy, to make Divisions amongst us, all other Arts and Mechanismes having hithertoo fail’d them: They have with other things, contriv’d that your Lordships the Bishops should give his Majestie Advice separately, without either calling any of the rest of the Peeres, which, though maliciously suggested, spreads generaly about the Towne: I do not at all question, but your Grace will speedily prevent the operation of this Venome, and that you will

1 Public affairs, having been kept off stage to this point, emerge now, as the annus mirabilis unfolds. See Harris, Revolution, 258–69 for the trial of the bishops. The original version of this letter is Bodleian Ms Tanner 28/2: f 191(a). This text is signed “JE” and concludes: “My Servant, who delivers this to your Grace is a faithfull and trusty young man: I should however be glad to receive one line that your Grace dos pardon this presumption, an indispensable occasion detaining me from waiting on your Grace at this instant.” 2 For Evelyn’s account of this crisis see Diary IV.600 and n. 4. He notes (6–8 October) that “The late Imprisoned Bishops, were now called to reconcile matters, & the Jesuites hard at worke to foment confusions amongst the Protestants, by their usual tricks &c: [Leter sent the AB. of Cant informing from a good hand what was contriving by the Jesuits: &c]” (600). On 15 January 1689, he reports “My Lord of Cant: gave me greate thanks for the advertisement I sent his Grace in October, & assur’d me they tooke my counsel in that particular, & that it came very seasonable” (614). 3 Evelyn reported on 12 July that James II had appointed members “of the Presbyt: & Indep: party” to the Privy Council “hoping thereby to divert that party, from going-over to the Bishops & C: of England, which now they began to do” (Diary IV.590).

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thinke it highly necessary so to do: That your Grace is also Injoyn’d to Compose a Forme of Prayer, wherein the Prince of Orange4 is expressly to be named the Invader. Of this I presume not to say any thing: But for as much as in all the Declaration etc. that hitherto hav ben publish’d in pretended favour of the Church of England, there is not once the least mention of the Reformed, or Protestant Religion; but onely of the Church of England as by Law Establish’d, which Church the Papists ’tell us, is the Church of Rome, that is (say they) the Catholique Church of England, which onely is Establishd by Law; the Church of England, in the Reformed Sense so Establish’d but by an usurp’d Authority: The Ambiguity of that would be explained, and utterly defeate this false and subdolous Construction, and take-off all Exception whatsoever; If in all extraordinary Offices, upon these Occasions, the word Reformed and Protestant were added to that of the Church of England by Law Establish’d; And whosoever threatens to Invade or come against us, to the prejudice of that Church, in Gods-name, be they Dutch, or Irish; let us heartily pray and fight against them: My Lord, this is, I confesse a Bold, but honest Period, and though I am well Assur’d, that your Grace is perfectly Acquainted with all this before, and therefore may blame my Impertinence, as that does ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοπει ν̃ ,5 yet I am Confident, you will not Reprove the Zeale of one who most humbly beggs your Graces Pardon with your Blessing Etc. London 10: October 1688

Flower Hyde Letter 594 (592) October 12, 1688 f 51v

Epistle DXCII To the Countesse of Clarendon:

Madame I have sent my Gard’ner1 for the Rootes your Ladyship is pleasd to bestow upon me: ­Cicero2 (for you read his Worke and understand him too) Reproches you know, a Gentleman for being solicitous about his Fish-ponds, when the Common-wealth was in danger of

4 identified only as “a great Prince” in the original version (see note 1) 5 to be a busybody 1 Evelyn had been the recipient of bulbs from Lady Clarendon since at least 1680 when she sent him “some Jounquils and other Bu[l]bus rootes from Marseils, which came with a great parcel from the King” (Add 78678: f 86 [22.10.1680]). Evelyn’s gardener in 1688 was Jonathan Mosse (see Diary IV.521). 2 “Our leading men think they have transcended the summit of human ambition if the bearded mullet in their fish ponds feed out of their hands, and let all else go hang.” Cicero, Letters to Atticus 2.1 (Bailey, trans).

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Invasion:3 And yet (for my life) cannot I forbeare this innocent diversion: Your Ladyship will send me no Newes, and it is none, that I am Madame etc.

Says Court 12. October – 1688

Samuel Pepys Letter 595 (592) November 2, 1688 f 52

Epistle DCCXXII1 To Samuell Pepys Esquire Secretary of the Admiralty:2

Sir, Being lately to visite Dr. Godolphin,3 who is one of the Residentiarie Præbends of St. Paules, and gathering by discourse on the impendent Revolution (which cannot but produce greate Alterations and changes amongst us) it fell naturaly into my thoughts, whether, if his Majestie should think of promoting any of those Eminent Divines, Dr. Stillingfleete, Tillotson,4 etc. to be Bishops; it might not be a seasonable Instant, in which to Bespeake his Majesties Favour for one, whom I am sure, you have as greate a Value and just veneration, as you have daily, and yet happy Opportunities? You will Infallibly Conclude, I meane that Worthy, and Learned Person Dr. Gale,5 [RM: scholemaster 3 Thomas Tenison had informed Evelyn on 10 August that “there would suddainly be some greate thing discovered, which happened to be the P: of O: intended coming” (Diary IV.592). On 18 September, he went to London “where I found the Court in uttmost consternation upon report of the Pr: of Oranges landing, which put White-hall into so panic a feare, that I could hardly believe it possible to find such a change” (597). By 7 October, he claims “Hourely dreate on expectation of the Pr: of Oranges Invasion still heightned” (599). William III landed on 5 November; Evelyn heard the news on 8 November: “the Prince of Oranges being landed at Tor-bay, with a fleete of neere 700 saile, so dreadfull a sight passing through the Channell with so favorable a Wind, as our Navy could by no meanes intercept or molest them” (605). A letter from his son John Jr on 12 December records Edward Hyde having joined William (Add 78301: f 30 [12.12.1688]); another gives a more detailed account of William’s progress on 15 December (Add 78301: f 31 [13.12.1688]). See Letter 600.

1 2 3 4

the number is altered incorrectly. Particular Friends, C44, 185. This is the only text of this letter. Henry Godolphin Which “Majestie”? Both Edward Stillingfleet and John Tillotson were made bishops by William III. Tillotson succeeded William Sancroft as archbishop of Canterbury in 1691. 5 Thomas Gale (1635/6–1702; ODNB) was high-master of St Paul’s School and a prebendary of St Paul’s Cathedral, as well as a close friend of Pepys. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1677, and was its secretary from 1679 to 1681 and 1685 to 1693. He was appointed dean of York in 1697. Evelyn’s invitation to Pepys to “conspire with me herein” in the advancement of Gale plays with the highly charged political language of this moment of crisis.

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of St. Paules:] and that, without the least Intimation from one whose Modestie would, I feare, not give me leave to mention him on this Account: I yesterday attempted to have kiss’d your hands, but was not so happy as to find you within: Considering how Slippery Time and Occasion are, especially in this Crisis, I Adventure on my owne-head onely to suggest this to you, before it be too late: If you Conspire with me herein, I will Aske no Pardon of the Doctor for my presumption, nor of Mr. Pepys for shewing my profound Respects, and sincere good-wishes for one whom he also honors, and all that know him: Your London 2: November–1688

Ann Sylvius Letter 596 (593) November 4, 1688 f 52r–v

Epistle DXCIII To my Lady Sylvius1

Madame, The Particulars I deliver’d your Ladyship in those Papers, are but Transcripts and ­Copies of what I sent to my Lord,2 with many Additions at the Close of all; and you may Calculate (even from these) how many Excursions I made from home, having then very little Buisinesse of my owne (during all the yeares of his Ambassy)3 which would have required the hundreth part of the Time, and Paines I spent, and tooke to serve my Lord, for the Wayes of being at last pronounc’d Ingratefull by my Lady:4 This is a Grievous thing, and I cannot but Remember, what you said to me at Bagshot5 last Summer, nor forget what I promis’d, in order to my Vindication: Judge you by the Particulars, how many, many weary steps I made to find-out and waite on Merchants, to Deale with Brokers, and Usurers (even to Extorsion) for Advance-mony: To be bound in Bonds my-selfe, when I had (sometimes) no Effects in Cash; that they might not faile of due supplies, or their Bills protested, which were drawn on me; and above all, my so often Suffering the being

1 Ann Sylvius was abroad (probably in Denmark) with her husband Sir Gabriel Sylvius, who had been an ambassador to The Hague. 2 John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton. Berkeley’s letters to Evelyn are in Add 78308. 3 Berkeley had been an ambassador to France and Nijmegen in 1675–7. Evelyn had managed his affairs in his absence. 4 Christian Berkeley had asked Evelyn to take on this position (Diary IV.77), as had Margaret Godolphin, and thanked him on her return (110). Evelyn gives an account of his actions on Berkeley’s behalf in the Diary on 12 June 1677 (110). 5 Bagshot Park in Windsor forest was home to Ann Sylvius’s sister, Dorothy Graham and her husband Col. James Graham, who was Master of the Buckhounds there. Evelyn had visited Dorothy Graham and Ann Sylvius at Bagshot in August 1687 (Diary IV.558–9).

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Brow-beaten by the Earle of Danby6 (then Lord Tressurer) to that degree, as to be Asked in Reproch, whether I were my Lord Berkeleys Steward? All which, with a Servile Assiduity (and a long, and anxious Waiting at his threshold) I endur’d Weeke after Weeke, Winter and Summer, and am bold to Affirme, that never was Ambassadors Ordinaries and Extraordinaries better paged, and that at the cost of my perpetual Importunity, and the Credit I had with that difficult Minister, and his Officers: I might hereto add, my Journeys to his Tennants, Accompts with his Bailifs and Receivers; Clamors of Workemen and Mechanics for their Arreres and Bills; Reckoning with Servants, Inspection of his Houses, Gardens etc. to the very Scavengers of the Streetes: The Account of all which Particular, were as Religious Rigorously exacted of me by his Lordships Letters as if I had ben his Factor, nay his Bailyf at Twickenham:7 So as I do protest to your Ladyship that in my whole life, I never pass’d through greater toile: But, what would I not have don, and undertaken for that dear Saint,8 who begg’d of me, that I would serve his Lordship and I did it cherefully, and with Successe and Fidelity; nor put I one peny on his Lordships Accompt, for all my three-yeares motions and rollings about; but what my Servant of necessity laied out, which for some yeares Bills and Gratuities, amounted to little above £20 in all, as his particulars and Vouchers shew: I do not recount to your Ladyship the unaccomptable Talke of Dunning Greate persons, and others for Payments and Promises; as my Lord Chief Justice Vaughan,9 and after him Lord North10 (to whom I was sometimes very unwellcome) and in particular my Lord Ranlagh,11 Sir Denis Gauden and others, whom I was to threaten with putting Bonds in Suite: Madame I could enumerate other hardships, as the prying into Mr. Aldriches’s12 Actions, and Menagement, who looked on me as his Supplanter, and with Jealosie, which were Mortifications to us both: To him, who thought I suspected his Fidelity, and made Complaints: To me, who was to contest little things, not worth taking notice of: But, I have don, and your Ladyship who have perus’d Duplicates of those Papers, will find me justified to the very Sow and her poore little Pigies: For an Accompt of all was required at my hands, and for all this, I am Ungratefull: My Lord, who whilst he lived, was pleas’d to tell me, Such a Friend would once have sav’d him two-thousand Pounds (whilst he was Lord Lieutenant in Ireland) asked me indeed, if I would Accept a paire of Coach-horses, for wearing out my owne? and a Diamond of good Value; both which I refused utterly; and would have done so had he offerd me an house-full of Gold: I had Recompence to the full in her Acceptance of my Service, for whose sake, I would have died; and my Lady Berkeley owes me indeede no 6 Sir Thomas Osborne 7 Twickenham Park belonged to John Berkeley from 1668 to 1685. Evelyn records going there to see Lord Berkeley’s bailiffs on 13 March and 27 September, 1676 (Diary IV.86, 99). 8 Margaret Godolphin lived at Berkeley House prior to (and even after) her marriage. 9 Sir John Vaughan 10 Sir Francis North 11 Richard Jones, earl of Ranelagh (1641–1712; ODNB, H). He became Viscount Dungarvon in 1670, and succeeded as 3rd Viscount Ranelagh in 1669. He was chancellor of the Irish Exchequer (1668), paymaster-general of the armed forces (1685–1702), and a member of the Privy Council (1692). He was an MP from 1685 to 1703. 12 Henry Aldrich; the father (d. 1683) of Henry Aldrich (1648–1710; ODNB), dean Christ Church, who had been a retainer for John Berkeley (see ODNB entry for Henry Aldrich)

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thanks (though even for her I had ever a very greate Esteeme) but neither have I merited the Imputations of being Un-gratefull: I confesse my Son13 (going then to travell) was some few monethes in my Lord Ambassadors house at Paris: But after many Professions to him of Kindnesse; I find it so little distinguish’d him from the domestic servants; that a Deare friend14 of your Ladyships and mine there (who took care of him, and encourag’d me to send him along with her) Advis’d me to give him leave to Remove, and shortly after to come quite away: He eate indeed some times at his Lordships Table, and so did many English and strangers (I suppose) nor did I save one Farthing by that; for the mony it cost me to set him forth, that he might do honour to his Lordships traine, would have fed him much longer in Pension: Let my Lady then say no more of Ingratitude upon this account: There must certainely be something of very heynous which should draw upon me the most Infamous of Characters: Since for all other faileurs favours and Civilities to me or mine (if those little Services I have enumerated in this letter, seeme nothing worth) as I have often owned; so am I still ready to Acknowledge them, and shall ever pray for her Prosperity: For I have no un-Christian Resent’ments (I thank God) about me to any Creature in the World: But indeede I would not be thought Ungratefull; because that must needs Weaken and diminish your Esteeme of me, which above all things I would not loose, for many Lady Berkeleys – nor do I feare it upon that Account. That I have so seldome indeede waited on her Ladyship, or frequented Berkeley House, is, you tell me, taken unkindly, and the onely cause of her telling you, I was ungratefull I acknowledge to your Ladyship Ingenuously: I can never enter it but with Melancholy Reflections: Somethings, mithinks, I want there besides the cherefull lookes of my Lady, when I come, and two Melancholy people (you know) are no very good Conversation: Pardon this tedious Scribble, and make use of it, as you have occasion, for my Vindication I am Deare Lady your etc. London 4: November–1688

13 the time in Paris was difficult for both John Jr and his father (see Letter 381). 14 Margaret Godolphin; see Letter 381 to John Jr.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Incognitu1 Letter 597 (594) November, 1688 ff 52v–3v

867

Epistle DXCIV To – etc.

My Lord, The Character you give me of the Prince2 is very greate and I believe it: But as all Perfections here have some alloy (for never was Prince receiv’d with higher expectations, than was Charles the 2d, never a more advantagious Picture drawne, than that of his, which how it answred the Original, a little time did shew) so give me leave to Suspend my Thoughts ’til a while, ’til we see how he beares this beginning of Successe, and likely Revolution: You desire to heare, what is sayd of him amongst us: Ile tell you faithfully: They give-out that he is Morose, that he already keeps at too greate a distance, with those he has no cause to be jealous of; that Noble-men waite long for Accesse, when little fellows are with him admitted: That Gentlemen are neglected, who come to Court, and not receiv’d with that Cherefulnesse and open Countenance, they us’d to be: I doubt not but this Reserv’dnese is due onely to his serious Temper:3 But ’tis not (you know) the method of winning us English-men, who are sooner vanquish’d with kind words and good lookes, than with Armies, and at a cheaper rate: Queen Elizabeth got the hearts and purses of her People too by this Art, and was the wisest, and most fortunate Princes of her Age, or of any since her: By the contrary, Charles the First, and our present Un-happy King, lost their Affections: Charles the 2d, was naturaly Easy, and Accessible, and (had he well distinguishd Persons for their worth) it was the onely Virtue that made his Reigne Tollerable: But this good nature of his was Currupted, with the basest of men, pimps and knaves, who in time perverted his debonaire temper, with dissolute principles, and there was no Vertue at the bottome, it all resolv’d into Ease, and Luxury, and with no reguard to present or future, farther than to put-off impendent evils during his dayes, though at the certaine ruine of all that should come after: There is a meane by which a Wise, and generous Prince, may with little and honest Arts govern their People intirely: But it is not to be don by Tricks, no, nor by Armies and despotic designes; but, by a steady, open honest Virtue, and above all, a Religious Zeale; a Grave and Serious Councel; upright and 1 In Evelyn’s index to the letterbooks, the addressee of this letter is said to be “un-named (Incognitu)” (Add 78299: f 165). This letter is a programmatic document, and a text which may well never have been dispatched. It should also be read in relation to Evelyn’s other programmatic letters to Sidney Godolphin in 1679 (Letter 403) and 1696 (Letter 762); and who might also be imagined as the addressee of this letter. See Pincus, “John Evelyn: Revolutionary,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 185–219. 2 the Prince of Orange, i.e., William III 3 When he first visited the Prince of Orange’s court at St James, Evelyn describes William as “very stately, serious, & reserved” (Diary IV.612). On 28 January 1689, he refers to “the morose temper of the Pr: of Orange, who shewed so little Countenance to the Noblemen & others, expecting a more gracious and cherefull reception, when they made their Court” (620).

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uncorrupted Judges; a sober and Vertuous Court void of flaterers and favorites: A Prince so Reigning, neede not to feare Parliaments, the dread of our Late greate Monarchs, and the Peoples sovraine Remedy, and best of Constitutions: All which is Answer’d and Expected, from this new, and glorious Hero, when ever he shall come to take the Reignes of this Goverment by lawfull descent,4 and God-Almightys Providence: Nor can it otherwise be thought he should tarnish his Illustrious Character, with any designe of Deposing his Present Majestie, whatsoever people talke, and ill men wish: There are other ways to supply the Weaknesse of an abused Prince by those who have brought him to these difficulties: He, whoever may have the Regency5 and Power (nay, and I am perswaded, with his Majesties Consent, rebus sic stantibus)6 will be wiser than to disturb the World, and raise unimaginable Confusions, for a Name, when he has the Thing, and, for ought I know, both the Name and thing in time. I say for ought I know, because the life of Children is so uncertaine: For that the Prince of Wales7 is certainely their Majesties I have all the arguments to believe, that I can have of my owne Childrens being mine, for all that ever I have yet seene to the contrary:8 And I doubt not, but when his Royal Highness9 shall have rexamin’d that matter, he will believe it too, and cherish it as his owne, and become a brave, and glorious Prince, and by a carefull Education, leave it Heire of his Virtue, though not of his Body: Now to Render this Nation as happy,10 as Humane Endeavors, were with the Blessing of God, capable to make it; and that without removing of Foundations, so well and prudently established already (which is your Lordships next quærie) let our Episcopal Church remaine, as it ought, with all its antient Rites, as the stable and National Profession; with Indulgence to all sober Dissenters; Socinians,11 Independents, and Quakers (in my owne Judgement) to be excepted: I am sure the first are scurvy Christians, and the latter of publique danger, and unaccountable. That it were provided (by publique Sanction) that no Prince within prospect of the Crowne of England, should hereafter marry with a Papist; or any Subject of that Profession, ever be seene in Court, or the Citty of London, without Caution: And that such Priests (Itinerant onely and Secular) as should be judged a competent number, should be permitted to officiate, and abide in the Nation, and to be knowne by their Names, number, and habits, and no other whatsoever. 4 William III’s mother was the eldest daughter of Charles I. His wife was the daughter of James II and Anne Hyde. 5 William’s Declaration … of the Reasons Inducing him to Appear in Armes in … England (30 September) makes no claims to the throne. Until the adoption by the Convention of the Declaration of Rights in February 1689, the idea that William reign as regent in place of James II was popular among Tories and particularly with many of the bishops. See Harris, Revolution, 308–48. 6 things standing as they do 7 “James III,” the Old Pretender. 8 Evelyn is responding to the charge that a baby had been smuggled into the palace in a warming pan to give James II a male heir. 9 William III 10 See Pincus’s discussion of Evelyn’s “program” for renewal in “John Evelyn: Revolutionary.” 11 followers of Faustus Socinus who denied the divinity of Christ. This reference is inserted, and the rest of the sentence refers to Independents and Quakers.

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That Papists be neither trusted with Armes or Offices: That there be a Publique Register of Estates: and a New Census, or Domes-day Survey made for the more equal raising of Publique Taxes: And a reforme made in the Representatives sent to Parliaments, by fewer Burgesses12 and more Knights:13 That the Revenue alloted for the Royal-State, and pompous part of the Government, should be onely so greate, as not to maintaine its magnificence, without indangering inslaving of the Subject: The Rest religiously applied for to the Publique, Especialy the Navy etc. That all Officers of what condition so ever, whould be content with ample Sallaries, without taking any Fees, for themselves or Clearks and Under Officers whatsoever: That the Militia and Navy be put into the hands of such as the King shall recommend, if approved by the Parliament: and that it be duly exercis’d by experienc’d Officers: That Perjurie be made Capital, and Marriages of Children under Age, and without Consent of Parents, be made Voyde, and no Portion or Inheritance recoverable by the offender. That some better Expedient were found-out for the charging of Parishes to maintaine their Poore, and no truly Impotent14 people, sufferd to wander about: That Slaves be Instructed, and Baptiz’d through all our Plantations, and A Bishop made to Reside in our forraine dominions:15 That the Parochial Cleargie be better Provided for, where the livings are not sufficient for a decent Maintenance: That a Publique Library be Erected and furnish’d with such Bookes as the Convocation and Bishop of the province shall think fit, at the publique charge, one in Every County:16 That no more Criminals be transported, but condemn’d to publique Works at home: That the Stage and filthy Interludes be Reform’d, and under severe Censors, and Indulged but at certaine Times and seasons of the Yeare onely: That No Mountebanks, or Idle-Shewes, be suffrd, and all Banks of Play, game of Hazard, and Publique houses of Gaming be utterly supprest: That Bartholomu and St James’s Faire17 hitherto kept in London and Southwark and occasions of much dissolution and villany be abolish’d; There needing none in so greate a Citty, abounding with all things necessary for it selfe and Country: That no Laquay or Footeman weare any sword in the Citty: That there should a standing Committie be appointed, of fit persons to receive, and make Report of, all Projects, convertible to the publique benefit, without ridiculing or discouraging the Proposers: 12 a citizen freeman of a borough. Evelyn feared the overwhelming of the country interest by the commercial town vote. 13 i.e., knight of the shire 14 powerless, penniless 15 At this time Henry Compton, bishop of London, was also bishop of North America. 16 Although Thomas Tenison had established a library in St Martin-in-the-Fields parish in May of 1688 (Diary IV.367–8 and n. 1), Evelyn continued to press for an act of parliament for a public library, such as that proposed by Richard Bentley in 1697 (Diary V.280 and n. 5). 17 The former was on 23 August, the latter on 25 July.

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That the number of Lawyers Att Barr, and their Fees, be appointed, with Severe forfaiturs, where any shall take more than is allowd by a Law: and Especialy that there be a better Regulation of the Court of Chancery: That Daughters portions be proportion’d to Estates and qualities, and no man give, or require any more, save for want of Heirs male: That, if it were possible, Holland and England be were made one-people inseparably to be United; and what ever were more desireable: That the Supreme Magistrate of this Nation, should declare himselfe, the Head and Defender of all Protestants in Europe, and insert it in his Title: To Conclude: shall if his Highnesse pretend no more, than to the Letter of his generous Declaration, his Action Notice would out-do the Memorie and Splendor of all the Heros of Antiquitie, and Reigne in the hearts and Minds of Posterity, as long as ’tis Christian, that is, til Time shall be no more. London November –1688

Anne Spencer Letter 598 (595) December 7, 1688 ff 53v–4

Epistle DXCV To My Lady Sunderland

[LM: Se Letter 604: pages 114.116]1 Madame, Bold, if not highly Presumptuous, were it in me, to suggest onely, what were desirable my Lord2 should Resolve to do, or say under his present Circumstances, and the Conjuncture we are in: But your Ladyship has that Ascendant over me, that I have nothing in Reserve, which I can fairely keepe, when you require my most inward Thoughts. In my poore Opinion therefore, it were a Noble, and brave thing as well as a Wise and Seasonable, to dare Acknowledge an Error ones selfe, rather than to lie under censure of others, who for the most part, exaggerate Greate-mens Misfortunes, by Causes, and Surmises of their owne Creation: It is certainely an unhappiness and a Fault to Commit a

1 Letters 607 and 610. Spencer subsequently wrote an account of his life, exculpating himself, entitled “The Earl of Sunderland’s letter to a friend in London. Plainly discovering the designs of the Romish Party, and others for the subverting of the Protestant religion and the laws of the kingdom” (March 1689). It is referred to in Letter 607. The DNB refers to it as “an effusion in moral effrontery.” 2 Robert Spencer, who had been dismissed from office by James II on 26 October (Diary IV.602, n. 2). Evelyn noted on 9 December “Lord Sunderland meditating flight, I writ to my Lady, advised an ­Apologie” (Diary IV.610).

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Fault, but none at all to Acknowledge and Reforme it: And I would let his Majestie, and all the world understand, that his Confidence in the Security of those who have deceived him (by their Hypocrisie, and wicked Insinuations) has made him see the Mistake he was lead into, and to Detest as well their Religion, as their Pol[it]iques: – That nothing which has happn’d as to his Secular Concernes, is of so greate Affliction to him, as that to Comply with his Majesties continual Importunitie, and the Opinion he had of (at least) a tollerable Profession of that Church, reconcileable with Christian Truth (and indeede common humanity) he had from other human Frailties, resigned to their Persuasions, without that mature and just Consideration, which so weighty a Concerne requir’d, and for which he implores God-Almightys Pardon. – That this is a sincere, and from his Heart, he Gives the World leave to Judge, by the Favour and Advantages he has sacrific’d for the Advise he Gave his Majestie, to Un-do what their pernicious Counsell had extorted from him (naming the *particulars) [RM:*Ecclesiastical Commission Restoring the Fellows of Magdalen College Oxford. Bishops charge opposing the offer of French forces etc.]3 so soone as he discover’d the violent, and Illegal Courses they tooke, to Inslave the Nation, and Ruine both Church and State. And that, if it have bin a Crime to have gon along with these men, the free and Ingenuous Confession of it, and the stop which he put to the farther prosecution of their Designes (to the hazard of so many and greate Advantages, by the losse of his Majesties Favour) he hopes may qualify the Censure of all Generous Persons, obnoxious to Frailties, as well as others: And that the Experience his Majestie now has, that the Counsels which he gave him were the most salutarie, and onely best Expedient of Reconciling the publique Misunderstanding, and the Calamities they have brought upon him, will at least extenuate what is past, and obtaine his gratious Pardon. This is Madame, what I had in my Thoughts, presuming to take upon me to be his Lordship’s Apologist: For I have the Vanity sometimes to think, what I would say and do, if I were a greate-man: But at this your Ladyship smiles, and I am content so youl forgive me. London 7: December – 1688

3 On 15 July 1686, James II had established an illegal Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs (Diary IV.519–20). In 1687, he attempted to force the fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, to elect a cryptoCatholic as president of the college. When they refused, they were deprived of their fellowships. In October 1688, he reversed course and they were restored to their positions. Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnel, who had ousted Clarendon in Ireland, also sought support from French forces.

872

John Chapman1 Letter 599 (596) December 12, 1688 f 54

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXCVI To my Lord Mayor

[RM: Sir John Chapman] My Lord, We the Inhabitants of this Towne of Deptford, being not onely so neere the Citty, but the Place where his Majesties greatest Stores for the Navy are kept; and the hourely, and continual Al’armes given us, by greate numbers of Souldiers, already here, and from other parts out of the Country, marching towards us (for the most part, as we understand, without Officers, putting us into very greate apprehensions of danger, and knowing not to whom more properly to have recourse, and apply our selves in this time of universal distraction)2 do humbly, and earnestly desire your Lordship to take our present Condition into your Prudent and Speedy Consideration; and to give such Direction for the safty of this Place (and his Majesties and indeede whole Nations concerne therein) as may be most Effectual for the Suppressing of all Disorders, and the preserving of his Majesties Peace amongst us: We are My Lord your etc. Deptford 12: December 1688

1 Sir John Chapman (d. 1689; L). Lord Mayor of London in 1688–9, Chapman saw the charter returned to the City under his mayoralty. 2 By 13 December, William III had advanced only to Windsor, but James II was back in London on 16 December. At the naval dockyard there would have been confusion as to which troops were loyal to James and which to William. A letter to Evelyn on 18 August 1688 (Add 78318: f 42 [18.8.1688]) from the Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs may refer to the case of the strain on the parish.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

John Evelyn Jr Letter 600 (597) December 18, 1688 ff 54–5

873

Epistle DXCVII To My Son1

Son, I just now receiv’d the Narrative of the Princes March, and the Political Remarks you have made upon the Occurrences where you have ben:2 My Lord Clarendon would gladly have conferr’d with you on several points Seasonable at that juncture:3 But all have now it seemes Submitted, and the Bells, and the Bone-fires proclaime as much Joy and Satisfaction, as those are Capable of, who have beheld so many Changes and Revolutions, without being able to divine how all this will conclude at last, and remembring that precept of the Wisest of Kings [RM: 24: Proverbs;]4 which I neede not repeate to you. It will be no newes (I perceive) to you, to acquaint you with his Majesties late Recesse, nor of his being stop’t at Feversham etc.5 But of his coming-back to White-hall, and what has since interven’d, perhaps you may not yet have heard. On Friday last, there went thither my Lord Midleton, Earle of Alesbury, Lord Feversham, Sir Stephen Fox, and Mr. Grahame;6 where the Rabble had detaind the King (the Vessel wherein he was Embark’d, with Sir Edward Hales,7 and Ralph Sheldon,8 which were all his attendance coming in for want of Balast) til the newes of it being brought to the Lords of the Council, those Lords, and Gentleman I named, were sent, to perswade his Majestie to Returne, or if not prevailing, to conduct and waite upon him with two Troops of Horse, to what other port or place he should please to go: The King, at last, Induc’d to come back to London arived at White-Hall on Sonday Evening, went to Masse at his Chapel on Moneday, three priests officiating; Altogether the usual numbers of Roman Catholics and a world more filling the Bedchamber and all the Roomes, with extraordinary Acclamation: In this manner his 1 The original version of this letter is Add 78442: f 20 (18.12.1688; Anno Mirabili). It opens: “I just now receiv’d the narrative of your fine daies martial Exploits, of the favourable Accesse you had to the Hero, and the political Remarks you have made upon the Occurrences where you have ben.” 2 probably John Jr’s letter of 15 December (Add 78301: f 31 [13.12.1688]) 3 Henry Hyde. On 18 December Evelyn dined with Clarendon, who had left London for Windsor on 16 December and returned on the 17th (Diary IV.610 and n. 4). See also Clarendon’s account of the day in Hyde, Correspondence, II, 228–30. 4 note inserted in a later hand: “perhaps 21 verse” (“My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change”). 5 James II had left London on 11 December, and had been detained at Faversham on the 12th, returning to London on 16 December. He was permitted to leave again on 23 December. 6 Charles Middleton styled 2nd earl of Middleton and Jacobite 1st earl of Monmouth (1649/50–1719; ODNB, H); Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, earl of Elgin (1656–1741; ODNB, H); Louis Duras, 2nd earl of Feversham (1641–1709; ODNB); Sir Stephen Fox; James Grahme (1650–1730; ODNB, H) 7 Edward Hales, 3rd baronet and Jacobite 1st earl of Tenterden (1645–95; ODNB, H) 8 Ralph Sheldon (1633–1723), equerry to James II

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Majestie went thence to Dinner (a Jesuite saying Grace) and all things seemed to passe in such order,9 as the Eclipse the Court suffer’d, by his Majesties foure-dayes Absence, was hardly discernable, all the Clowds (as we thought) were vanishing, and a brighter day then any againe appearing: So soone as he was retir’d he sent my Lord Feversham,10 with a Letter under his owne hand to invite the Prince of Orange to St. James’s: The Message was accepted, but the Messenger Arested and made Prisoner at Windsor; upon which Polititians made Reflections: But ’tis pretended, that a General of an Enemye, ought not by the Law of Arms ought not come into the Quarters of his Antagonist without a Trumpet, and a Passeport: Others, that his Highnesse was much displeas’d at the Earles disbanding his Majesties Forces under his Command, without disarming them, and un-payed, as thereby leaving them in danger of taking some desperate Resolution, of disturbing the Measures he had taken; and there are who believe, upon some other account, which time will discover: Monday Tuesday Morning Came the Marquis of Halifax11 (who, with the Lord Godolphin had ben sent Commissioner to the Prince) from Windsor, to let his Majestie know, he would be the next day at St. James’s; but, with-all pretending fore-seeing it might be dangerous to have his Army quarterd about the Towne, so necessary to his Safty, whilst the Kings Guards were so neere, he desires his Majestie that he would make choice of Hampton-Court, or some other place about that distance, to repaire to, for the avoiding Jealosies, and Inconveniencys, which might happen betweene the Guards of different Interests: You will easily believe, this was not very kindly taken, after so generous an Invitation; and that it was the more surprizing for its coming to him at one a clock in the morning, when he was weary and fast a sleepe: The King upon this, Rises, and goes immediately to Council, where severall things being propos’d (but what I undertake not to say) and altogether rejected; and whilst by this time, White-Hall, and all its environs was Crowded with Dutch-Souldiers: His Majestie put himselfe into his Barge, accompanied with my Lord Alesbery12 (now in waiting) the Lords Dumbarton, Arran,13 and one or two more follow’d with three other Barges and small-boates, fill’d with a Dutch Guard, and a Troop of Horse by Land; steering their Course towards Rochester againe from whence he so lately had return’d: Thus have you the second Recesse, or something more dismaly boading: Which, whilst I my selfe, with Sir Charles Cotterell14 and Sir Stephen Fox beheld from one of the Windows of the new buildings – vix tempero 9 Evelyn notes that on 17 December James “Goes to masse & dines in publique, a Jesuite says grace: [I was present]” (Diary IV.610 and 611, n. 1). 10 Louis Duras, earl of Feversham 11 George Savile, 1st marquis of Halifax (1633–95; ODNB, H). He was created Baron Savile and Viscount Halifax (1668), earl of Halifax (1679), and marquis (1682). He was a privy counsellor (1672) and president of the Council (1685). He was sent by James II to negotiate with William, and was chairman of the peers who asked William to form a provisional government. He also requested the prince and princess to accept the crown. He was lord privy seal (1689–90). 12 Thomas Bruce, earl of Ailesbury 13 George Douglas, 1st earl of Dumbarton (1636–92; ODNB); James Douglas, 4th duke of Hamilton and duke of Brandon (1658–1712; Diary, P) 14 Sir Charles Cotterell (1615–1701; ODNB, H). He was knighted in 1645 and master of the ceremonies from 1641 to 1649 and at Antwerp from 1649 to 1652, and again from 1660 to 1686. He was also MP for Cardigan (1663–78) and master of requests (1667–86).

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a Lachrymis – 15 I should have told you that the Prince (being yesterday at Syon)16 sent Sir Robert Howard and Henry Powle17 with a letter to the Citty, acquainting them with his approch, with other complements of Course. This was read before the Lord Major and Common Council, and was answer’d with all submission and respect, and with an Invitation, that his highnesse would honour their Cittye by vouchsafing to Lodge in it, rather than at St. James’s: On this there stood up an Alderman, and moved, that an Addresse might first be made to congratulate his Majesties gracious Returne to White-Hall: But the proposal was not approv’d of; one of them saying, They had given a good paile of milke, and that this were to kick it downe againe. Thus Son, I have given you as minute an Account of the Proteus18 here as I am able for the present: The Hero is now at St. James’s where I have seene him, and severall of my old Acquaintance:19 I dined at the Earl of Clarendon20 whom I find not altogether so well satisfied as I expected, considering that his son (my Lord Cornbery),21 struck so considerable a stroke in this Turne: I wish he do not πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν22 – By what I collect, the Ambitious and the Covetous will be canvassing for places of honour, and rich Employments and that my Lord, will withstand the Mercat,23 and neglect, if not slight his Applications, upon Confidence of his neere Relation,24 and the merites of my Lord, his son, if not upon other Principles: If none of this happen, and that Successe do not quite alter the nature professions of men in Power, we are to expect Astreä25 upon Earth againe: But, as I have often told you, I looke for no mighty Improvement of Man-kind, in this Declining Age, and Catalysis:26 A Parliament (Legaly Cal’d ) of brave and worthy Patriots, not influenc’d by Faction, nor terrified by Power, or Corrupted by its selfe Interest, would produce a kind of New-Creation amongst us: But it will grow old, and dissolve to Chäos againe, unless the same stupendious Providence (which has put this Opportunitie into mens-hands, to make us happy) dispose them to do Just and righteous things, and to use their Empire with Moderation, Justice, Piety, and for the Publique good: Upon the whole matter, those who seeke Employments, before the Grandeès are served, may suspend their solicitation; the Queene27 having (’tis sayd) carried away with her, the Greate-Seale: Most of the Writs being burnt by his Majestie. It will cost time, and excogitation of expedients how legaly to supply them, if his Majestie should designe 15 “I could hardly restrain the tears.” 16 Syon House on the Thames near Kew 17 Henry Powle (1630–92; ODNB, H). Powle was an original fellow of the Royal Society. Although he was an MP in 1671 and active in Parliament, he withdrew from active politics until the advent of William III, when he became speaker of the Convention Parliament (1689–90). 18 momentous change 19 See Diary IV.611–12. 20 Henry Hyde; see Clarendon, Correspondence, II, 230, who referred to it as “the most melancholy day I had ever seen in my whole life.” 21 Edward Hyde, who had gone over to William on 12 November 22 to kick against the pricks 23 market 24 He was the brother-in-law of William III. 25 the return of the golden age 26 ruin 27 Mary of Modena; the queen and the infant James III had left England for France on 10 December

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to Travell againe, or the doore (which I feare most likely) be shut after him: These, and Sundry other Difficulties will render things both un-easy and un-certaine: Onely, I think Poperie to be universaly Declining, and you know I am one of those who Despise not Prophes[y]ing;28 nor whilst I behold what is daily wrought in the World, believe Miracles to be ceas’d. My most humble Service to Sir John, and my Lady:29 my best Blessing to that deare Creature your Wife: I am heartily concern’d for her disturbance:30 Your Mother is much as you left her: The Rest are in health: I have ben 3 or foure Nights (I cannot say one day) at your house here in towne: and to morrow think of returning home and looke after the Cole-worts31 againe. I can say little to that Melancholy Prospect you mention:32 But I have another Argument of Condolency to acquaint you with, and for which, I assure you, I am most sensibly touch’d and grievd: My poore Brother has lost his pretty Grandchild, who died the last Weeke at Wotton, and had almost lost my Nephew his Son33 too, the same time also, who accompanying Mr. Denzil Onslow34 to Reading, fell down of an Apoplectic fit, dead for the time in all appearance; but by the Assistance of Dr. Hungerford 35 (whom they sent for) he was after some houres Ἔκπληξις36 hardly brought to sense againe: My Brother (to whom I am now Sending) has so passionately express’s his Affliction upon these sad Accidents, and with so much Attention and Kindnesse to me and you, that (without all selfe Interest and Concerne) I cannot but deplore his Condition, especialy, when I reflect upon the Losses I loved, as I do my Life. Sir Edward Hales, and Obadiah37 (his old tutor) are both in Gaole at Maidstone; Chief Justice Herbert,38 Robert Brent,39 and Peters40 above all, are not yet heard of: Poore 28 1 Thessalonians 5:20 29 Sir John Stonehouse (c.1639–c.1700), Martha Stonehouse, née Brigges (c.1642–c.1705). The parents of Martha, wife of John Jr; see Diary. 30 Martha Evelyn, who had been injured in an accident with a coach in February (Diary IV.568–9), was also pregnant. 31 cabbages: Evelyn’s metonymy for his garden 32 Given what follows, this is probably an apprehension of his daughter-in-law miscarrying. 33 These are, respectively, George Evelyn, an unnamed grandchild, and George’s son George (1653–91; Diary). With the death of the latter, the estate of Wotton passed to John Evelyn’s line. 34 Denzil Onslow (c.1635–1721; H). The younger brother of Sir Arthur Onslow, Denzil was MP for various seats in Surrey for a number of years from 1679 until 1721. Evelyn knew him socially. 35 This was probably Francis Hungerford, MD of Reading or his brother, also an MD in Reading, whose eldest brother, Edward, was married to Susan Prettyman, Mrs Evelyn’s aunt. “Hungerford of Cadenham” in Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Hungerfordiana: or Memoirs of the Family of Hungerford (Stourhead, 1823), 19–24. 36 of terror 37 Obadiah Walker; on 11 December Walker was arrested at Sittingbourne, and imprisoned in Maidstone gaol before being committed to the Tower (see ODNB) 38 Sir Edward Herbert, Jacobite earl of Portland (1645–98; ODNB). The son of Charles II’s lord keeper in exile, Herbert became chief justice of Chester (1683) and was knighted (1684) before becoming chief justice of King’s Bench (1685) and of common pleas (1687). He went into exile with James II in 1688 and was created earl of Portland by him in 1689. 39 Robert Brent. Narcissus Luttrell, A Brief Relation of State Affairs, gives an account (1687–9) of “Mr Brent and Mr Allibone, are both made justices of peace of Middlesex, tho’ they are papists” (I, 388). Later he notes that “Mr. Brent, the popish solicitor, is lately taken ... and committed to the Compter,” [and] was bailed by Sir James Smith who in turn was “committed to the custody of the Serjeant at Arms by the House of Commons, for bayling Mr. Brent” (I, 498–500). He also appears “transacting buisinesse ... about my Arrere due from his Majestie” on 7 December 1682 (Diary IV.297). 40 possibly Sir Edward Petre (1631–99; ODNB), Jesuit priest and James II’s confessor

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Roger41 – (for want of better Observation) is carried to New-Gate and every houre pregnant of Wonders. Anno mirabilis London 18: December – 1688

George Evelyn Letter 601 (598) December 19, 1688 f 55

Epistle DXCVIII To my Brother Evelyn:

My deare Brother I do most deepely condole with you the losse of that sweete Child,1 which my Brother Glanvil, and now Mr. Lucas,2 acquaint me with: I perceive by yours, and easily believe, it is one of the most affecting strokes that ever happned to you: Nor can you think me unconcernd to see our (once so numerous and prosperous) Family, not so much through Age, as Accident (to which we are all equaly Obnoxious here) drop away and prevent us, whose Eyes we hoped, by the common Course of Nature, they should have clos’d: But as it is Almighty God, who soly disposes of all his Creatures, as he pleases, there is nothing more to be don, but our intire Resignation: We are both no strangers to this sad discipline: nor ought you to despaire of having your present losse repair’d when God sees good:3 Though I Acknowledge, the Comfort of it is uncertaine to us at least, both advancd in yeares, and towards our approching End; the serious Meditation of which, and Submission to the Will of him (who best knows what is best for us) can onely fortifie us against this, and all other Calamities incident to this our fraile Constitution: We hold our dearest Children, and all we enjoy from him alone, and to him we must resigne them, and that with the lesse regrett, whilst innocent and untainted, than either after Vice has Corrupted them, or their Virtues, and maturer perfections render their Separation from us, the more bitter and Insupportable: These Considerations, and whatever can signifie to your Consolation on this Occasion, are already so familiar to you, that I repeate them onely to assure you, that not all ever you have sufferd in this kind, dos equaly Affect, and Afflict Deare Brother etc. Your Deptford 19 December – 1688

41 Roger L’Estrange, who was imprisoned in Newgate on 16 December (ODNB) 1 Evelyn had congratulated George on the birth of the boy in Letter 534 (8 June 1686). 2 Anthony Lucas (c.1661–after 1695; Diary). A native of Cornwall, Lucas is recorded preaching at Wotton in 1687 by Evelyn (Diary IV.557), when he thought him “though very young, likely to make a good preacher.” Evelyn wrote on his behalf to Archbishop Tenison (Add 78318: f 62 [31.5.1692]) in support of his being given a living in Cornwall. 3 George Evelyn’s son George had no further children and died in 1691.

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William Strengfellow1 Letter 602 (599) December 20, 1688 f 55

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DXCIX To Mr. Stringfellow etc.

Sir, I was not in the least un-mindfull of you the last Weeke, but much concern’d I could not give you Answer from the (as yet you’l imagine) Doctor,2 so inviron’d with publique buisnesse, ’til things be in Course, and run again in their wonted Channel: And that is not likely to be (to our purpose at least) ’til it be determind, who shall have the Seate: If Mr. Thinn3 continue Secretary to the Lord Chancellor for Ecclesiastical Affaires (and who is my Friend) I doubt not of giving you a good account of your Concerne.4 He is Nephew to the Marquis of Halifax,5 and in the way of doing pleasure: Be assurd I invigilate all Occasions all to do this little Service, til I am better able to gratifie your merits, and my owne Inclynations to serve you better etc. Deptford: 20 December – 1688

Anne Spencer Letter 603 (600) December 23, 1688 ff 55v–6

Epistle DC. To the Countesse of Sunderland1

Madame, The buisy, and wond’rous Age I have lived in; the not altogether Confinement of my selfe to Morose Conversations in the World: The Tincture I early received from a generous and 1 William Strengfellow (c.1658–1731; Diary). A graduate of Oxford (MA 1684), Strengfellow was curate and lecturer at St Dunstan in the East in London during the incumbency of Evelyn’s former rector at Deptford, Richard Holden (1686–98). He then became minister at Trinity Chapel, Bond St (1691-9) before becoming rector of St Dunstan in the East (1698–1731). Evelyn greatly admired his preaching. He was a witness to Evelyn’s will. 2 Thomas Tenison 3 Henry Frederick Thynne, who had been secretary to his uncle Henry Coventry (1617/18–86) when he had been secretary of state, and was later a clerk of the Privy Council 4 Throughout this period Strengfellow was looking for a living. See Add 78318: f 50 (7.9.1689). 5 George Savile 1 an attempt to give narrative closure to an extraordinary year, and in face of the “approaching Revolution,” an argument for maintaining distance from “the Favour of Princes, the diversions of Courts, and splendor of exteriour things.” Its addressee had lost a son this year, and her husband had fled the country. She and her son Charles would follow in the next year (see Letter 605).

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worthy Parents, and the Education they gave me, disposing me (at least inciting) me to the love of Letters, and a greate Reguard to Religion, as the End, and Scope of all Accomplishments, wisely, and prudently Consider’d (not that I have pursued this Glorious, and onely happy Course, to my sorrow and Reproch, be it confess’d, but what I ought to have don) dos now, and has long-since taken up my thoughts, about that Sovraine-Good, which all the Thinking part of Man-kind has in all Ages, and times ben searching after, to Acquiesce and Rest in: And in pursuance of this greatest Concerne, I have preferr’d the Recesse of neere Thirty-Yeares, during which, by meane Complyances, and in a Vicious Age, one might probably have ariv’d, to something which they call (though not very properly) a Figure (but I, an empty Cipher, in the World) to all other Advantages whatsoever; and upon the foote, and summ of all (for I do often cast it up) I have found nothing Solid, nothing stable and worth all this hurry, disquiet, and expense of Time; but the pursuite of Moderate things for this Life, with due, and modest Reguard to Qualitie, and the decent Circumstances of that, maintain’d, and procurable, by worthy, open, and honorable Wayes, in a Vertuous ,Age (but to be neglected, and despisd as Base and Ignoble in a False and Vicious) Age: For, besides that Acquisitions so obtained, are ever procur’d by Low and Servile Arts; they are of no longer durance than the Favorite prostitutes his Conscience, and sacrifices all sentiments of Induring genuine and real Greatnesse, which will Recurr upon him some time or other upon Generous Minds, Seduc’d, if once they ever come to Recollect themselves: It were a most happy thing, if young persons (and next to Miracle ’tis, they should not) did believe the Experience of their almost-7000-Yeares Fore-Fathers (who once were young) have told their Children; and the Wisest Books, Recorded, and the perpetual Events of things declar’d it: That Piety, Sincerity, Justice, Temperance, and all that [word deleted] Series and Chaine of the Moral-Vertues (recommended to us, as well by the wiser Heathen, as by God himselfe, and the very dictates of Nature) are the onely meanes of obtaining that Tranquill and happy state, a wise prudent man would choose even in this life onely: A Religious and truely-wise, in that to come; And he was both Greate, and Wise, and well experienc’d, who pronounc’d it. I have seene an End of all perfection, but thy Commandments are exceeding broade.2 Ample in all dimensions, in a word, Immortal. Madame this Topic is as large as the World, the Bookes I say, of all the Philosophers, the Precepts of all the Divines, the Histories and Records of all Ages; the Experience of all Man-kind; every-days Vicissitude proclaimes it alowd, and never was it more Articulate and Conspicuous, than in this Conjuncture present, and approaching Revolution: And it is an Eternal Truth, and can never be otherwise: that True Honor and Happinesse, and the Thing which we seeke and phansy (would consummate our Felicity, and bound our farther Pursuite) is not to be found in the Favour of Princes, the Diversions of Courts, and splendor of exteriour Things, which passe-away like a dreame when one awakes; But in a brave, and Generous Soule, that having those Advantages by Birth, or Laudable Acquisition, can Cultivate them to the production of things Beneficial to Man-kind, the Government and Eminent Station in which God has plac’d him. This is Greate indeed,

2 Psalm 119:96

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and truly Noble: The Fruit of it is a present Good, the Memorie and Contemplation of it, a lasting pleasure, and glorious Recompence. – But what’s all this to your Ladyship? who know all I can say on this, or any other Subject? It is then nothing to Informe and Teach your Ladyship: But an account of my most Retired thoughts, and an Ideä of the Passion I have, that you may, from the yet Remaining Hopes of your Illustrious Family (in whom there already appeares such faire Impressions and noble Characters of Virtue) find allwayes something to Aleviate your past Sufferings, and un-expected Traverses in your present Sufferings Circumstances: Do not therefore, with much Anxiety Afflict your selfe at what is past, farther than to Improve your Experience and exercise your Virtue by its Documents: But looke all forewards at present, and allways up-wards for the time to come, and to things Possible and permanent, which will bring peace at the last, and Those will God keepe in perfect peace, whose minds are staied on him:3 – Suffer nothing then to abate of your Courage, and Christian Fortitude: You know who is a present Help in Trouble, and you will do nothing without Consulting him, and you’l neede no other in this World, to bring you safe out of them all. – Remember, that One (who yet sufferd much greater) found by experience (as so will your Ladyship I am perswaded with joy) how good it was that he had ben Afflicted: And verily, this is the blessd Use we should make of all Gods Methods and dispensations of this sort; And it is by the Suffrage and Observation of all holy Persons, a greater Indication of Gods paternal Care and Favour, than a continual Current and Succession of temporal Prosperity: This your Ladyship will find to be the Tenor of those divine Oracles you so assiduously Reade and Meditate on, and which will fill your head with more real joy, and Inward Consolation, than you could ever have derived from all other Helps and Friends, Princes and Greate-men, in this wretched, perishing World. The tiresome Mortifications I have gon through for above 15 yeares past,4 being Intangled in a Trust: Besides that of the late Vicountesse of Mordaunt,5 of which I am but newly deliverd, my owne tedious Suite in Chancery, with the Burden of no few yeares upon me and Domestic Cares, requiring some Indulgence, considerd your Ladyship is pleased to Accept of my Son, who is dispos’d to serve you,6 if you command it, and that my Lord Godolphin be one in the Trust. Because though his Lordship should not be so Active in the Industrious part, he will be of greate Advantage to the Safe, and Prudential; which is, I assure your Ladyship of greate Moment, in Confidences of this Nature: I am Madame your etc. Says-Court 23: December 1688

3 A conflation of texts from Isaiah 26:3, and Psalms 46:1 and 119:1. 4 the long-standing suit with William Prettyman, finally resolved in 1687 5 Elizabeth Mordaunt, née Carey, for whose children Evelyn had been a trustee in 1679 (Diary IV.173, 188–9, 202, 259, 273, 275) 6 See Letter 581.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Gilbert Burnet Letter 604 (601) January 23, 1689 f 56

881

Epistle DCI To Dr. Burnet

[RM: since Bishop of Salisbury] Sir, This is Mr. Rylie1 our Apelles,2 and first of English Painters, who desires the honour of making your Picture, and cutting it in Coper, to prevent the abuse of unskillfull pretenders and other mercenary bunglers:3 I have acquainted him with your readinesse to gratifie him, and all that have heard of Dr. Burnet: Let our Lysippus4 then obtaine this favour: He comes not now to Importune you, for I have told him, and Mr. Kneller,5 another greate Artist, (who has ben with me to bespeake the same favour) how precious your Moments are at present; but to give you thanks, for the Privilege you have granted him, and to ­attend your owne time and leasure, when he may waite on you whith his Crayone: I am etc. London 23 January 1688/89

1 John Riley (1646–91; ODNB). Riley became “Painter & Picture drawer in Ordinary” to the king in 1681 and acquired the freedom of the Painter-Stainers’ Company in 1682. See British Museum 1889,0603.298 for Riley’s mezzotint portrait. 2 the most famous painter of ancient Greece; see Pliny, Historia Naturalis 35.79–97, and Junius, The Literature of Classical Art, II, 32–45. 3 At least since the publication of his Sculptura (1662), Evelyn had been concerned to preserve the art of engraving from bad imitators. This is part of a more general concern about debasement that recurs in his work on the history of trades and in “Elysium Britannicum.” 4 from painter to sculptor; see Pliny, Historia Naturalis, 34.61–5, and Junius, The Literature of Classical Art, II, 228–36. Horace says of Alexander the Great: “idem rex ille, poema / qui tam ridiculum tam care prodigus emit, / edicto vetuit ne quis se praeter Apellen / pingeret, aut alius Lysippo duceret aera / fortis Alexandri voltum simulantia.” Horace, Epistulae 2.1.237–41. “That same king who lavishly paid so dearly for a poem so foolish, by an edict forbade anyone save Apelles to paint him, or any other than Lysippus to model bronze in copying the features of brave Alexander” (Fairclough, trans). Evelyn cites this passage in Sculptura (1662), 25. 5 Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723; ODNB). Evelyn notes on 11 June “Visited Dr. Burnet Now B. of Salisbery, got him to let Mr. Kneller draw his picture” (Diary IV.642). Kneller had come to England in 1675 and painted Charles II’s portrait in 1679. He was the principal painter to William III, and was knighted in 1691 and created baronet in 1715. Evelyn records having his picture drawn by Kneller (Diary IV.479 and IV.644, 646; Letter 619). See Whittingham, “Some Portraits of Bishop Burnet around 1690,” and Stewart, Sir Godfrey Kneller and the English Baroque Portrait.

882

Anne Spencer Letter 605 (602) February 22, 1689 f 56r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCII To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame I most thankfully receive your Ladyships kind Reproches, which I find indors’d on my Lord Spencers1 Letter: Though I cannot yet but hope that your Ladyship has by this time, Absolv’d me from the Imputation of Forgeting you; because it is Impossible I should fall into so greate a Crime as Ingratitude: Neverthelesse, I Supplicate your Ladyships Pardon for not writing oftner, though the reason why I do not, be out of greate respect, having so little of Importance to furnish my Letters with, besides your Ladyships Encomiums, and the continual cause I have to repeate my Obligations, which indeed were subjects inepuisable:2 Now Madame whether I have ben as remisse in Acting for your Service3 to the utmost of my abillitie, as slow in giving you an Account of the Progresse, I had rather you should receive from my Lady Bristol4 than from my selfe: And indeede that I have rarely omitted so much as one day (during the late Session) from an assiduous attendance at Westminster, for no other Buisinesse of my owne whatsoever (and totaly contrary to my usual Course and Inclination of frequenting the noisy-crowd of that Place for the newes of the Towne) than that the little Interest I have in some worthy Relations, and other Members of that Assembly, might be Improved to Your Ladyships Service, and in which, I have reason to believe I have not ben altogether unsuccessfull, if this Recesse had not interrupted their procedings: I have (I dare assure your Ladyship) made some considerable Converts amongst the Infidels; establish’d some that were wavering, and obtaine’d Promises of others to declare in my Lords behalfe, when it shall be seasonable. This I may modestly affirme; and that I have not neglected to Converse with, and receive the Advise of other his Lordships friends etc.: So that though your Ladyship may justly reproove me for not writing sooner; yet I cannot reproch my selfe of not endeavouring to serve you with greate Application, and no lesse Affection. The Parliament was Yesterday Prorogued to the beginning of Aprill next, which has infinitely surpriz’d the (seeming) præponderating Party of the House: I dare not enter into the Cause of this Effect, and suddaine Resolution, farther than what his Majestie has himselfe declar’d: But that it has put a stop to all proceedings for the present, and given Occasion of mens severall Conjectures (which I leave to the Politics) your Ladyship will receive from all hands: It is in the meane 1 Charles Spencer. Lady Sunderland also wrote on 11 March NS from Amsterdam complaining that she had not heard anything from Evelyn (Add 15889: f 94 [11.3.1689 NS]). 2 inexhaustible 3 Evelyn was attempting to resuscitate Robert Spencer’s cause in the House of Commons where his Roman Catholicism suggested his continuing allegiance to James II. A letter of 3 March 1689 suggests that Lady Sunderland was also occupied with lawyers on this business (Add 15889: f 48 [3.3.1689]). 4 Anne Digby

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time, much the Opinion of Friends here, that your Ladyship should take the first Opportunity of Coming-over,5 upon many accounts, before the new King6 begin his Northern Journey: For ’tis sayd, he resolves to take Scotland in his way towards Ireland; that the Queene by easy Journeys, setts-forth 20 dayes before, and is to stay for him at Barwick, thence to Edenborow, in order to their Coronation, before her returne: But these Madame are yet Reports onely, and as such onely I relate them; suspending the making-up of this paper (though written on the day of its present date) that if anything of more certaine intervene worth the Communicating, I may add to this of Madam etc. yours London 22 February. 1688/89

Charles Spencer Letter 606 (603) February 22, 1689 f 56v

Epistle DCIII To my Lord Spencer: at Utrecht.

My Lord I cannot receive this redoubld favour, and the honour you have don me, without some Apprehension, that my so slow returne to your former Letter,1 may have made you resolve to do as Archers are wont, who having lost an Arrow, send another after it, to find them out both: Be Assur’d my Lord that I esteeme the offer you make me of your Friendship, and Communication of your Studies,2 amongst the greatest and most obliging favours I am capable of, since having nothing of my owne to exchange worthy of you; you seeme to me to make it one of your Charitable Designes to derive favours upon me, and with that Generosity, that I cannot think it has any other Cause extrinsique to your owne excellent goodnesse and nature, since you have offer’d that my Lord to me, which I should never have had the Confidence to aske, and I must study a greate while how to merite, who am My Lord Your etc. London 22 February 1688/89

5 Letter 607 suggests that she was already in Utrecht with her husband, though she had returned to England by early June (Diary IV.642), and would leave again in August (Letter 619). 6 Parliament passed the Declaration of Right on 13 February, declaring the throne vacant, and William and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey on 11 April. They were proclaimed in Scotland on the same day and crowned on May 11. 1 probably Add 78679: f 130 (3.2.1690), written in Latin, in which Spencer describes his studies 2 Charles Spencer (now Lord Spencer after the death of his brother Robert in Paris the previous year) was thirteen at this time.

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Anne Spencer Letter 607 (604) February 28, 1689 f 56v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCIV To the Countesse of Sunderland at Utrecht

Madame Your Ladyships of the 11th1 has exceedingly reviv’d me, not onely as the Returne of my Constant Prayers, that God (in whom you trust) would direct you in all your pious Endeavors and Purposes; [LM: Se Letter 595. p. 108, 115.]2 but that he has given me argument of Praise on your behalfe for his Conduct of you hitherto: I have ben with that excellent man, [LM: Dr. Tenison]3 and perus’d (with him) those Papers you mention; every Instance of which, carrys in it a faire Apologie, and all of them United, that which will not onely disabuse the World, and its prejudices; but which will (I doubt not) produce the Effects you desire: As to the so immediate publication, his Lordship perhaps may judge it more convenient to suspend it for a while, ’til the Angry-men begin to talke:4 All the World are now so buisy upon other matters, that whatsoever appeares abroad, is after the Reading, lost in the Crowds, and no more remember’d minded: May it not therefore be as advisable, to deferr the publishing, ’til first they begin to moove? This Question begs your Ladyships direction, for as yet, I do not thinke there is any Opportunity lost: – As to any of those many particulars mention’d in the papers, there is an Introductory Line or two, which might happly be left out; for that so little Improvement and so greate Losse has ben made of all the Advantages his Lordship at has had during his prime Ministrie, lies open to the Censure of People, whome one needes not gratifie: As to the Rest, It is certainely full, material, and so Ingenuous (especially the last Paragraph) that instead of Afflicting your selfe, you are to blesse Almighty-God, for this method of his Providence, who dos, by meanes averse (as we are apt to mis-reckon) to our Secular Interests and Satisfactions, bring about things of the greatest moment and most happy Concerne: Namely, that which your Ladyship, has Wish’d, and Prayd, and Wept-for, and, which I trust, he will perfect to your intire Contentment, in his owne good time: I am Madame etc. London 28 February 1688/89

1 Her proposals to Evelyn about Sunderland’s rehabilitation are in Add 78309: f 65 (2.2.1689); Add 15889: f 96 (29.6.1689) and Add 78309: f 66 (12.10.1689). 2 Letter 598 (f 53v); Letter 610 (f 57) 3 Thomas Tenison 4 Robert Spencer’s self-justification, “The Earl of Sunderland’s letter to a friend in London,” entered and licensed on 23 March 1689.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Strengfellow Letter 608 (605) March 26, 1689 f 57

885

Epistle DCV To Mr. Stringfellow

Sir, I should have Acknowledg’d yours of the 16th, in which you pay me with so much ­Civilitie, and take so kindly my Endeavors to have serv’d you (notwithstanding the Disappointments you lately met with)1 but that I was still in hope of some luckyer opportunity, wherein I might do it with better Successe: And, if that which I shall now propose to you, upon some (no contemptible) Inducements, may be agreable to you; I very little question of being able to Recommend an Employment to you, which some Reverend Bishops (yet living) and many eminent Divines have embraced with very much Satisfaction: Sir Paul Rycot2 (my worthy and Learned Friend) and I presume not un-known to you (for his publique abillities) has promis’d to make use of his Interest (which is very greate) in procuring you to be Chaplaine to the Turky Company residing in Smyrna; which he assures me, will be worth you £300 per annum besides other emoluments: He has himselfe ben Consul both there, and at Aleppo (I think) divers Yeares, and given me such an advantagious Description of the agreablenes, and good usage you will find among that honorable, and opulent Society (the Turky Merchants) that I could not let-slip this Opportunity, without reproch to my greate Desires of doing you service: I am assur’d there are many will greedily Embrace this Occasion: But I know not whether you would be willing to be at so greate a distance from your Native soile: But remembring that you were us’d to tell me, you cared not how far you went (with a moderate appointment) so you might enjoy your health etc. I was Incourag’d to harken to this generous Offer of Sir Paules, upon my mentioning of you: The thing requires a very Speedy Resolution; and I have promis’d he shall heare from you me before two a clock this afternoone: Sir whether you think fit to Accept of it, or no, I intreate you to endeavor the finding him out, which, he tells me, you may do about noone, at one Elfords Cofèe-house in Lumbard Streete,3 and that you will present my Service to him, with this Inclos’d, and let him know your

1 It is not clear what this disappointment was. Strengfellow corresponded with Evelyn about getting a living in Surrey at this time. See Add 78318: f 48r–v (9.5.1689) which contains Strengfellow’s letter (48r) and two letters of Evelyn’s on his behalf (48v). Evelyn was also unsuccessful in recommending Strengfellow to Archbishop Sancroft for the living of Coulsdon in Surrey (Diary IV.641). See also Letter 614. 2 Sir Paul Rycaut (1629–1700; ODNB); see Letter 609. He was the principal secretary to the embassy in Constantinople (1661–5), and had contributed an account of the Jewish pseudo-messiah Sabbatai Zevi, to Evelyn’s History of the three late famous impostors (London, 1669; Eve.a.25). He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1666. 3 Also known as “the great house by the Exchange”; the proprietor, Walter Elford, is credited with inventing the jack for roasting coffee (Pepys Diary X.71). See also Lillywhite, London Coffee Houses.

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Resolution; that, in case youl you do not think it convenient for you, they may be free to nominate some other Person: I am Sir: Yours etc. London 26. March 1689

Paul Rycaut1 Letter 609 (606) March 26, 1689 f 57

Epistle DCVI To Sir Paule Rycot:

Sir, The Bearer hereoff, Mr. Stringfellow, is that worthy person whom I Recommended to you Yesterday: He is both a pious, modest, and a Learned man; and, I assure you, amongst the First rank of excellent Preachers; so as I am in no paine for Suffrages, when he shall be heard; nor for the Account I here give of his Character, and very greate Worth, and the the Satisfaction that honourable Society will find, in having him amongst them: As to other Particulars, I doubt not, but (if necessary) he will be able to produce such Testimonials, as shall aboundantly satisfie: It is the Aer and Smoke of the Citty (in the very sink of which he is plung’d) which being so obnoxious to his Constitution, makes it Impossible for him to continue in his station here, though otherwise satisfied with his Appointment: And the greate desire I have to preserve so worthy, and modest a Person, makes me Recommend him to your Favour, and ever generous Inclynation of doing kindnesses for which, in his behalfe, and for many more in my Owne, I remaine Sir, Yours etc. London 26 March. 1689

1 See Letter 608.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 610 (607) March 29, 1689 f 57r–v

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Epistle DCVII To the Countesse of Sunderland: at Utrecht in Holland:

Madame, I hope you have long e’re this, acquitted me of that un-mindfullnesse your Ladyships (of the last moneth) seemes to charge me with, by what I sent in Mr. Robsons Pacquet,1 and therefore I shall forebeare the Repetition, And because I find it did not arive time enough to have Suspended the Printing of what I there suggested,2 a little while longer, for reasons mention’d; but perhaps such as you, and my Lord have far better to the Contrary: Nor do I question it: I am now therefore making that use of the Copys you sent me, among such my Friends of both Houses, as I hope shall do you no disservice: There are some Escapes3 in the Printing, chargeable on, and Obnoxious to forraine Composers and Correcters of the Presse; but such as are easily reform’d with the Pen: Our good Friend (the Doctor)4 had something which he told me he thought fit to Intimate of a particular to have ben Inserted; but as it would now come too late; so it may happly be as well justified by it selfe, if the Malice, it is to encounter, be worth taking notice of. The World Madame, is top-full of that acursed Venome, Perjury, the product of Atheisme and dissolution: And whilst men are prone to entertaine, what every Indigent wreck brings them, who is safe any where! I rejoice that your Ladyship is gotten into so sweete a Retirement, and where you are like to be at more quiet, than in your owne Country (for the present) which, in my Conscience, is yet far from the Composure, and Settlement men fancied so strongly upon these Revolutions: But more I Rejoice, that God Improoves the Afflictions you have so strenuously pass’d-through, to the Advantages you mention: My Wife (much in the condition you left her) humbly kisses your Ladyships hands, and so dos a thousand times Madame Your Ladyships etc. London – 29 March. 1689

1 Thomas Robson appears in the Blenheim Papers (Add 61490) negotiating loans for Lord and Lady ­Sunderland. See Letter 569. 2 the Amsterdam edition of Spencer’s pamphlet, “Earle of Sunderland’s letter to a freind [sic],” dated 29 January 1688/9. Evelyn suggested delaying and amending the text in Letter 607. 3 mistakes 4 Thomas Tenison

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William Glanville Letter 611 (608) April 3, 1689 f 57v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCVIII To my Brother Glanvill

Deare Brother I am very unfortunate that so many Crosse-Circumstances make it not possible for me at present, to waite upon you, and to do you (in person) what service I am able: But so it is, that having taken (as I thought) some preventing Physick, namely Suggar of Steele,1 which was wont to agree very well with me (but whether rightly prepar’d, or not I cannot tell) I am become so Indispos’d, that I can hardly stirr: I hope it will prove to be nothing save wind gotten under my ribs; what ever it be, ’tis so painefull, that I am in no sort fit to be abroad: In a word, I am much out of order, which, I may also impute to my taking this Remedy in a season so tirrible, as you know, has ben the enterance into this Aprill: To this add, another unhappy Disaster: The new Coach-horse (which I bought about a moneth since) has ben so violently purg’d by my ignorant Coach-man, and Towne Farrier (wantonly and without cause) that the grease being fall’n into his leggs, he’s become as little able to stir as his Master: These are no fain’d excuses, but very real, and I am sure you believe me: Be assur’d Brother, that I will not omit the first relaxation I have from my present Indisposition, to Bespeake my Lord Godolphin, as you desire:2 If you think that may be uncertaine, and too long, and that you (in the meane time) conceive my Letter to him may do you service; I shall on the least intimation dispatch one to you; which you know may be immediately by the peny-post:3 Now to shew you that I am not unmindfull of your Nephew Mr. Cowes;4 I have lately Recommended him to Sir John Jardine5 who you know is so generaly acquainted with Merchants, and men of Affaire, and upon the Character I have given of him, he desires to see him, not without greate Inclination, and resolution of doing him service for my sake: I was now therefore sending on purpose, to advertise him of it, and direct him: I was also in hope to have seene him here, with your Niepce,6 who sent for our Chariot to bring them hither in the storme, but we could not

1 an oxide or chloride of iron used to treat scurvy 2 probably for a position for Glanville’s nephew (see Letter 612) 3 The Penny Post, established by William Dochwra in 1680 was made part of the general post after the Revolution of 1688. 4 the son of Glanville’s sister, Ann, who had married James Cowse 5 Sir John Chardin (1643–1712; ODNB). A French Huguenot, he had arrived in London after extensive travels in Persia in 1680. At that time Evelyn had been sent by the Royal Society to interview him (Diary IV.212–14). He emigrated to England in 1681, and was knighted and elected fellow of the Royal Society (1682). He subsequently published extensively about his travels, including Journal du Voyage … en Perse (London, 1686; in the 1687 library catalogue and Eve.c.11). Evelyn was godfather to his son. 6 probably Ann Fowler, née Cowse

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be so happy, our horse (as I told you) utterly dissabl’d: This Deare Brother being a true Account of our posture here at present: I am etc.

Says Court 3 Aprill 1689

Sidney Godolphin Letter 612 (609) April 4, 1689 f 57v

Epistle DCIX To my Lord Godolphin one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury

My Lord, The inclos’d is an humble Petition of (my Brother in Laws) Mr. Glanvill,1 which I should not so earnestly bespeake your Lordships favour in, were not both his owne Merites, Integrity, and Extraordinary Abillities so well knowne to all who do know him: ’Tis pitty so very Usefull, and dextrous a Person in Buisinesse, should not meete some fit Employment upon this Occasion: Nor is he to despond, with your Lordships Suffrage, who, I am sure will (of your owne accord and readinesse to oblige) endeavor to promote the most qualified, and such as your Petitioner is: Pray, my Lord be give him your kind Assistance; nor let my not being otherwise able, at present to accompany his Request, render his Accesse lesse easy, or un-successefull to him: I have ben, and am yet very much Indispos’d in my health, and therefore confin’d, since I so lately waited on your Lordship which makes me use this Method of Recommending this Gent’s Affaire to your Favour, who am etc. yours Says-Court 4 April. 1689

1 See Letter 611.

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Richard Holden Letter 613 (610) April 25, 1689 f 58

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCX To Mr. Holden, Viccar of Deptford

Sir, Foreseeing that my Buisnesse1 here is likely to detaine me from being present at the Vestrie appointed tomorrow, for settling the Rates for the Poore, this Ensuing Yeare, upon which foundation, the publique Taxes is grounded (which are likely to be both burdensome, and very frequent) is grounded: I must intreate your favour, and Assistance in Communicating what I write to the Gentlemen my Neighbours, meeting upon this Occasion: I have (you well know) for a long-time, rather Suffer’d, than Complain’d of the Oppression I lay under, by being unreasonably charged upon the Poores-Book; and do at this day, pay above as much more, than by the utmost Rigour of Law and Justice they can impose, with respect either to the ground which I keepe in my hands2 (which is not above 16 Akers at most) or other Estate proportionably: I aledge not this as at all regretting what I am willing still to contribute; provided, that according to the promise made me (upon their being already Sensible of a former just complaint) they Assesse me as the Law directs, and as they deale with themselves and others: But if they take what I freely give (so much above what of right they can impose) for a Concession, that I pay it as due, and continue to charge it on the Booke at the Rate of Ten-pounds; they will not onely breake their word with me; but compell me to seeke Redresse: Besides this Ten-pounds, they know, I yearely send the over-seers three pounds more to be distributed at their discretion; what other Reliefe we send the poore becomes not mee to mention; but I hope we never have ben wanting in Assisting their Necessities; nor is it my Intention by this to diminish of what I contribute freely above proportion: But what I give, I give; and for the Rest, I doubt not but (upon the Reasons I have aledg’d) my Neighbours (the Gentlemen of the Vesterie) will do me Justice, by charging me no more upon the new-Booke they are now preparing, than beares Proportion to the Demeasne, and as others are Assessed: I shall this yeare be diminish’d of my small Concerne in the Parish, neere fifty-pounds, by which I loose by Sir Dennis Gaudens Tennants, and others, and particularly Gamons Mill:3 where besides the excessive, and perpetuall charges of Repaires, I shall loose above £20 for ever: And the Poores Tax upon that Farme is still so chargeable heavy, as discourages (otherwise)

1 Evelyn had left for London on 24 April (Diary IV.636) and returned on 27 April. In March “The Hearth Tax was remitted for ever: but what intended to supply it, besids present greate Taxes on land: is not named” (628). 2 the ground around Sayes Court itself as distinct from Evelyn’s other possessions in Deptford. A list of Evelyn’s properties in Deptford is in Houghton Ms 992.2 (Harvard University). 3 one of the several mills on the Ravensbourne in Deptford and owned by Evelyn (Diary III.508 and n. 4)

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very substantial men to continue in the Parish: Many houses likewise of mine remaine Empty, and are put into my hands: All which I desire they will take into Consideration, and treate Me, and Mine, as the would willingly be dealt with themselves, and I aske no more but your Pardon Sir, for the Trouble I make bold to give you, and that you (whom I have often acquainted with these particulars) will favour me with your Assistance: I am Sir Yours London April. 1689

William Sancroft Letter 614 (611) May 10, 1689 f 58r–v

Epistle DCXI To The Archbishop of Canterbury1

[RM: Sancroft] My Lord, I should my selfe have accompanied the Bearer2 hereoff to your Grace, had I ben in Condition to adventure abroad, which indeede I have hardly ben, since I did my duty to your Grace at Lambeth with my Lord of St. Asaph,3 through an Indisposition fall’n on me, upon taking Cold after Physick, the ill effects of which, dos now and then still shew themselves: In the meane time, the nature of the Request I humbly make in behalfe of this Gentleman requiring my immediate Application to your Grace, will Apologize for this manner of Addresse: The Living of Colesdon4 in Surry is either already fall’n, or falling into your Graces disposure; and being my Native-Country, I am the more solicitous to wish it supplied by some worthy, pious, learned, modest, and Industrious Person; All which Qualifications ( joyned with his excellent Talent of producing them both in Pulpet, and Conversation) makes me, with the greater Assurance, Reccommend him to your Graces favour; for as one whom I neede not name to you by any other Character: Were he a Person in whom I were not able to Justifie all I have formerly Spoken of his Merits, and the good I have sayd of him to your Grace, upon my particular Knowledge; (or that I had the least Inducement to beg your Graces favour upon any collateral Relation or Accounts) I should feare to receive your Grace’s just Reproofe: But secure of that, I humbly Recommend him to your Graces Charity in this (if it may be) if otherwise, for Something which



1 2 3 4

The original version of this letter is Bodleian Ms Tanner 27: f 37. William Strengfellow, named in the original version William Lloyd; see Diary IV.636 (26 April). This application was unsuccessful (see also Letter 608). Evelyn notes on 7 June that he “visited my L. A Bish: of Canterbery, to recommend Mr. Stringfellow to him” (Diary IV.641).

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may preserve encourage the Labours and Abilities of one who deserves to be cherish’d for the publique good: I shall neede add no more, but to beg your Graces Prayers and Blessing on etc. Your Graces

Says-Court 10 May: 1689

Anne Digby Letter 615 (612) June 21, 1689 f 58v

Epistle DCXII To the Countesse of Bristol:

Madame Fore-seeing I should not be able to comply with your Ladyships kind Invitation,1 and the greate desire I have to do my Lord 2 some little Service on this Critical conjuncture: I send this expresse to intreate your Ladyship and the Company, not to stay for me: I have spoken this Morning with many Considerable Parliament Members: Some very Civil and Reasonable; others not so tractable (especially Sir Henry Goodrich)3 as I could wish: But all Agreeing in this; that if his Lordship can make appeare any of those Articles, I lately mention to your Ladyship, it would not onely be the most prevailing Argument in his behalfe; but Meritorious. My desire to see with whom they will begin, and how far likely to proceede this morning before they rise, inclined me to stay the longer: But when I perceiv’d they resolv’d first to purge the House (as they call it) and that in order to it, they had expelld Sir Robert Sawyer,4 had fall’n on Williams,5 and marked out other Lawyers as obnoxious; I concluded it would take up as much time as could be wish’d for us to consider what was farther to be don: In the meane while I resolved to attend here, ’til this rub be over, and then shall waite on your Ladyship to acquaint you with the Progresse who am Madame Yours etc. Westminster 21 June 1689

1 Evelyn had dined on 20 June with Anne Digby and her daughter Anne Spencer (Diary IV.643). 2 Robert Spencer’s case before parliament to clear his name is dealt with in Letters 598, 605, 607, and 610. 3 Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd baronet (1642–1705; ODNB, H). He was very active in support of William in Yorkshire, and played an important role in the Convention Parliament as MP for Boroughbridge. He was appointed lieutenant general of the ordnance in 1689 and a privy councillor (1690). 4 Sir Robert Sawyer (1633–92; ODNB, H) had a long career as an MP and a lawyer, and had acted as ­counsel for the seven bishops in 1688, and was elected MP for Cambridge to the Convention Parliament. 5 Sir William Williams

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Justices of the Peace at Maidstone Assizes Letter 616 (613) July 16, 1689 f 58v

Epistle DCXIII To the Justices of the Peace at Madstone Assizes etc.1

Honorable Gentlemen A necessary, and indispensible Affaire at Present requiring my attendance in Towne,2 will (I hope) excuse me from waiting upon you in Person (as otherwise I should do) and the Boldnesse I take in Representing to you the Oppressions, and greate Inconveniences, which the Land-holders of our poore Parish of Deptford lie under, by reason of the (hitherto) unequal Apportioning the Assessments for Reliefe of the Poore, according to which all other publique Taxes Charges and Incidents are estimated: I do not in favour of my-selfe (who yet upon that sole account, sustaine the Losse, and diminution of above £100 yearly, out of a small Estate there) make this Complaint: But upon the just, and reasonable Importunities of very many of my Neighbours (Land-holders) aggriev’d with the Burden; joyne with their Addresse, for the aleviating the charge, as shall appeare most equitable, upon your serious, and prudent Consideration of the true State and Condition of the Parish; which being but of very small extent of land (in comparison to the Houses, without Land ) occasions this disproportion, in burd’ning the Land-holders, beyond all Sufferance, Many very Substantial men, not onely throwing-up their Farmes; but others refusing to succeede them, or come into the Parish, by reason of the Charge of the Poore, which every-day Increases, from the numerous flocking of Mariners (Strangers and Worke-men from all Quarters of the Kingdome) leaving their poore Families destitute, to the Parish, upon all hazardous accidents (attending those who go to sea, die, or returning no more) without any Assistance, or Consideration from the adjacent Parishes (of far larger extent) who are not obnoxious to a Supernumerary Poore, from such accidents, and consequently, at ease: It is therefore our humble Request, that upon due Consideration of this Complaint; your Justice and Wisedomes will take some order for the speedily Easing us of this intollerable and growing Charge, by a more equal Proportion betweene the House-keepers (which appeares to be upwards of two-thousand ) and the Land-holders, who are (in Comparison) but very few; but upon whom lies all the Stress and Burden, which they sinke under: We desire but the favour, and Regulation in this matter of the Circumjacent Parishes, far exceeding this miserably poore Towne; though I might my-selfe exaggerate this Complaint by what I suffer in my owne Concerne, and mingle it with my Neighbours: But I referr it all to my Neighbours the Justice and favour of the honorable Bench and am London 16 July 1689

1 These assizes set the assessment of poor relief. See Letter 613. 2 Evelyn was attending a meeting at Hampton Court (Diary IV.644–5).

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Charles Mordaunt Letter 617 (614) July 17, 1689 f 59

Epistle DCXIV To the Earle of Monmoth one of the Lords Commissioners of the Tresury:

My Lord, I have often attempted to waite on your Lordship, and do my duty upon my owne Account, and with this worthy person; but have not ben so fortunate as to find you: The Presenter of this is Sir Christopher Wren (Superintendent of his Majesties Workes); whom I shall neede onely to name (without Adjunct) to intitle him to your Lordships Patronage: I have long received the Advantage of his Conversation, and all the Learned World, that of his extraordinary Talents, and therefore with all Assurance, I recommend him to your Especial Reguard as most worthy of your Lordships especial Esteeme; who am My Lord etc. London 17 July 1689

John Harwood1 Letter 618 (615) August 1, 1689 f 59

Epistle DCXV To Dr. Harwood, Doctor of Canon Laws.

Sir, I should be extreamely Asham’d, to deprive you of a Book2 which were worthy your Esteeme; but as it is a Trifle (and has nothing in it that can recommend it to you) I receive it, and what you are pleas’d to say of it as a greate Civility; and should be very ready to

1 John Harwood (1661–1731; V). A graduate of Oxford (1679) and in law from Cambridge (LLD 1688), Harwood became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1686 and was a lawyer of Doctors Commons as well as a commissary of St Paul’s. He wrote to Evelyn about Waller’s posthumous poems in 1689 (Add 78318: f 51 [25.11.1689]). 2 Sculptura (1662) was not republished in Evelyn’s lifetime, though he did include some of his later thoughts about prints in chapter 8 of his Numismata (1697) and his marginal notes and corrections were included in the second edition of 1755. His manuscript account of printing with engraved plates was first printed in Bell’s edition of Sculptura (1906).

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gratifie Mr. Bruce3 (and those other Gentlemen who you tell me desire another Impression) had I anything to add, which might Improve, and render it worthy their Expectation and Curiosity: ’Tis now more than Twenty-yeares, since I began indeede to make some Collections towards it, but other things intervening, I laied it by, and hardly can tell, what’s become of them: And now to Adorne a new Edition, would have requir’d a dilligent search amongst those many Collections of Prints, which of late yeares have ben expos’d sub hasta; a Negligence un-pardonable in one who has never yet at one Auction of them:4 What I attempted in this poore Essay, was, when our English Virtuosi were not altogether so skillfull as now they universaly are; and can therefore derive little Instruction from my Imperfections – I shall notwithstanding, Sir, (since you will have it so) see what I can Recover, which may render it lesse defective, if my Health and Circumstances give me leave to passe the approching Winter in Towne (as I intend to do) where your Assistance will be necessary, and to give it Reputation: But I shall before that, endeavor to pay my greate Respects, and due Acknowledgements, for the honour you have done me here, and that Noble Person who accompanied you: The Truth is, I did not so readily recall your Name, as rememberd your Countenance, ’til you were gon, for which I must aske your Pardon, as well as for my not waiting on you to your Boate, could I with any decency have left those Gentlemen and Ladys, who came to my house,5 but immediately before you, to give us a Visite, and had so little time to stay with Sir Your etc. Says Court 29 1 August. 1689

Samuel Pepys Letter 619 (616) August 12, 1689# ff 59–63

Epistle DCXVI To Mr. Pepys etc.1

Sir, I was on Wednesday last (After-noone) to kisse your hands; but finding you gon abroad, and my-selfe obliged to Returne that Evening (that I might receive the Countesse of 3 possibly Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury (1656–1741; ODNB), whom Evelyn knew socially and in relation to affairs of state (Diary IV.613–15), or one of his several brothers. 4 Evelyn had stopped adding to his collection in 1655 (see Letter 724 and Griffiths, “John Evelyn and the Print,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 105–6). 5 Evelyn records Anne Spencer, Sir William Godolphin, and Thomas Tenison coming to dine on 29 July (Diary IV.646), though he has changed the date of this letter to Harwood from 29 July to 1 August. 1 Particular Friends, C47, 188–204. The original version is Pforzheimer Ms 351 (dated 26 August). There is also a scribal copy (Ms Rawl. A171, f 316 ff ) marked “Recd. Aug.30.1689” (Particular Friends, 188, n. 1). The dating of the letter is difficult. See note 91. This is the most extensive of Evelyn’s encyclopedic

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Sunderland,2 who sent word she would call at my house the next-morning early before her Embarkement for Holland ) I do now write, what I should have said to you, if time had permitted: And that is, to let you know, that upon your late Communicating to me your Designe of Adorning your Choice Library with the Pictures of men Illustrious for their parts, and Erudition, I did not in the least suspect your Intention of placing my Shallow-Head amongst those Heros, who knowing my unworthynesse of that honour, will (in spight of your good Opinion of Mr. Kneller3 for his skill in drawing to the life) either Condemne his Colouring, that he made me not Blush; or me for Impudent, that I did not: But this is not all: For Men will question your Judgement, or suspect you of Flattery, if you take it not downe; For in good Earnest, when I seriously Consider, how un-fit I am to appeare in the Classe of those Learned Gentlemen: I am perfectly Asham’d, and should say with much more reason, than Marullus (after a Recension of the famous Pöets) Nos, si quis inter cæteros locat Vates, Onerat, quam honorat verius.4

’Tis pitty, and a Diminution, so elegant a place and precious Collection, should have anything in it of Vulgar; but such as Paulus Jovius5 has celebrated; and such, as you told

2 3

4 5

letters, and an exuberant performance demonstrating his knowledge of the visual arts (both painting and print-making), numismatics, and libraries, all topics on which he published. What follows are several lists of famous men and women, and of collectors and libraries. Evelyn compiled similar lists (largely of ancient authors and their works) in his essay “Of Manuscripts” (which now only exists in print in Bray’s edition of Evelyn’s Diary [1819] II.321–36). Lists of famous men of France, Germany, and Italy can also be found in the opening folios of Add 15950. In Evelyn’s published work, the most extensive elaboration of such lists is chapter VIII of Numismata (London, 1697), “Of Heads and Effigies in Prints and Tailledouce,” 256–92. It ends with “my Worthy Friend Samuel Pepys Esquire, (late Secretary to the Admiralty) as he is a diligent, and laudable Collector of this” (291). Evelyn notes that on 21 August, “I went to Lond: to take leave of the Countesse of Sunderland going next day to Holland” (Diary IV.647). Godfrey Kneller began to paint Evelyn’s portrait (“holding my Sylva in my right hand”) for Pepys on 9 July and continued on 24 July (Diary IV.644, 646). See Frontispiece vol. 2. Kneller and two other painters visited him at Sayes Court on 25 July (646). De la Bédoyère states that Mary Evelyn sent a copy of this portrait to the Royal Society in 1707, and that Sir John Evelyn bought the original from the widow of Pepys’s nephew John Jackson in 1724 (Particular Friends, 188). Kneller had painted a portrait for Evelyn himself in 1685 (Diary IV.479). Evelyn’s incorporation of his book in the portrait fixes his name to the image, and potentially arrests the decay he describes below. “If anyone places us amongst the other poets, he burdens us rather than honours us more truly.” Michael Marullus, Poetæ tres elegantissimi, emendati, & aucti, Michaël Marullus. Hieronymus Angerianus. Ioannes Secundus (Paris, 1582), a7. Evelyn cites the “Pictures to the life of the famous Persons & Illustrious men … taken out of the Musæum of Paulus Jovius” in his description of the Repository of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (Diary II.189). His copy of Paolo Giovio, Elogia virorum bellica virtute illustrium (Basle, 1571) is Evelyn Library, no 632. See Müntz, “Le Musée de portraits de Paul Jove,” and Aleci, “Images of Identity: Italian Portrait Collections of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.” Evelyn had seen several examples of such galleries during his time on the continent. As well as the pictures from Jovius’s Musæum in the Uffizi in Florence, he refers to the “Effigies of the most Illustrious men of Letters & Fathers of the Church” in the Vatican Library (Diary, II.300–1), and the “paintings there of the most illustrious Persons of both Sexes” in the Palais-Cardinal (Palais-Royal) in Paris (Diary II.134).

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me, you were procuring: The Boiles, the Gales and the Newtons6 of our Nation: What in Gods-name, should a Planter of Coleworts7 do amongst such Worthies? Setting him aside, I confesse to you, I was not displeas’d with the Fancy of the Late Lord Chancellor Hide;8 when to adorne his stately Palace (since demolish’d) he Collected the Pictures of as many of our famous Countrymen, as he could purchase or procure, instead of the Heads and Busts of Forriners; whose names, through the un-pardonable Mistake, or (shall I call it) Pride of Painters, they Scorne to put to their pieces, imagining it would dishonor their Art, should they transmit any thing valuable to posterity, besides Faces, which signifie nothing to the Possessor (unlesse their Relations were to live forever, and allways in Being) which signifie nothing so as one cannot tell, whether they were drawn from any of their Friends or Ancestors, or the Picture of some Porter, or squalid ChimnySweeper, whose prolix beard, and wrinkled forehead might passe him for a Philosopher:9 I am in perfect Indignation at this Folly, as oft as I consider, what Extravagant Summs are given for a dry Scalp of some (for sooth) Italian painting; be it of Raphael or Titian himselfe; which would be infinitely more estimable, were one assured it was the Picture of the Learned Count of Mirandula, Politian, Quicciardine, Machiavel, Petrarch, Ariosto, or Tasso; some famous Pope, Prince, poët or other Hero of those times: Give me Carolus Magnus, a Tamberlaine, a Scanderbeg, Solyman the Magnificent: Matthias Corvinus, Lorenzo, Cosimo Medicis; Andrea D’Oria, Ferdinando Cortez, Columbus, Americus Vespucianus, Castruccio Castracano; a Sforza, Galiacia; the Effigies of Cardan and both the Scaligers, Ticho Bache, or Copernicus, Galileo: I say Give me the Portaits of an Isabella Aragonia or Castile, and her fowre Daughters; Lucretia d’Este (to whom our Queene’s related) Vittoria Colonna, Hippolita Strozzi, Petrarchs Laura, a Schurrman, the present Tanaquil Febure, and above all, Hellen Cornaro,10 daughter of a Procurator of Saint

6 Robert Boyle, Thomas Gale, Isaac Newton 7 Evelyn commonly described himself as a planter of cabbages, a phrase taken from Montaigne: “Je veux qu’on agisse, et qu’on allonge les offices de la vie tant qu’on peut, et que la mort me treuve plantant mes chous, mais nonchallant d’elle, et encore plus de mon jardin imparfait” (Montaigne, “Que philosopher c’est apprendre a mourir,” I, 89). 8 See Letter 290 (18 March 1667). Evelyn alludes to his participation in Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon’s efforts to create a gallery of famous Englishmen in Clarendon House, demolished in 1683. The most celebrated English gallery of such images of famous men had been created for Charles I in St James’s Palace. It contained Titian’s series of portraits of Roman emperors, acquired by Charles from Mantua, and culminated in Van Dyck’s great equestrian portrait of Charles and M. de St Antoine. See Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 5–7, and the discussion of the idea of the gallery, and its role in English architecture and collecting, 31–40; Coope, “The ‘Long Gallery’: Its Origins, Development, Use and Decoration”; “The Jacobean Long Gallery,” in Jackson-Stops, The Treasure Houses of Britain, 124–43; and Peck, Consuming Splendor, 162–79, on the emergence of the art market in England. 9 A reversal of the common topos of art as a guarantor of fame. Here, the painter suppresses the identity of his subject in order to remove a potential challenge to his own fama. 10 Accounts of virtuous women are found in antiquity (e.g., Plutarch, De Mulierum Virtutibus) and in Boccaccio (De Mulieribus Claris) and Chaucer (The Legend of Good Women), and in Castiglione (Il Libro del Cortegiano III.21–40) and Ariosto (Orlando Furioso, Cantos 13 and 42). See Lucretia Marinella, Le Nobilità et Eccellenze delle Donne, et i Diffetti, e Mancamenti de gli huomini (Venice, 1600), and McLeod, Virtue and Venom. See also Letter 368.

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Marco (one of the most Illustrious Families of Venice) who Receivd the Degree of Doctoresse at the academy of Padoä for her universal knowledge and Erudition, upon the importunity of that famous University, prevaling on her Modesty: She had ben often sought in honorable Marriage by many greate Persons; but preferring the Muses before all other Considerations, she preserv’d herselfe a Virgin, and being not long-since deceased, had her Obsequies celebrated at Rome, by a solemn Procession, and Elogie of all the Witts of that renoun’d Citty: Nor may I forget the Illustrious of our owne Nation of both Sexes the Westons, Moors, Seymours, Cheekes, *Ann Countesse of Oxford [LM: *Se her Monument in Westminster Abby] the late Mrs. Philips and Princesse Elizabeth11 (eldest Daughter to the late unfortunate Queene of Bohemia) to whom the greate DesCartes, dedicates his Bookes; (with a world more of renowned Memorie, famous for Armes and Arts) rather than the most beautifull Courtezana or Prostitute of them all, who has nothing to Commend her, but her Impudence, and that she was a painted Strumpet:12 Did it ever prejudice the Glory of Inimitable Holben, for putting the Names of our greate Duke of Norfolck, Henry Eight when lesse corpulent, Edward Sixt, Chancellor Cromwell, Jane Semor, Ann Bulleyn, Charles Brandon, Altheä Talbot (Countesse of Arundel) Sir Thomas More and learnd Daughters; Sir Brian Tuke, Doctor Nowel, Erasmus, Melanchton, and even honest Froben, among innumerable other Illustrious of that age for learning, and other Vertues? I ask if this were the least diminution to the Fame of one who realy painted to the Life13 beyond any Man this day living? But in truth they seeme from the beginning, Jealous of Hippolita Strozzi is probably Hippolita Sforza (1445–88), daughter of the duke of Milan and wife of Alfonso II, duke of Calabria and king of Naples, who composed Greek and Latin orations and addressed Pius II at a Congress in Mantua in 1459. See Kristeller, “Learned Women of Early Modern Italy,” in Labalme, ed., Beyond Their Sex. Anna Maria Schurman (1607–78) was a Dutch poet and orientalist whose works Evelyn had in his 1687 library catalogue. Tannequil Le Fèvre (1615–72) was in fact a male classicist. Evelyn may have confused him with his daughter Anna (1654-1720) who became Mme Dacier and was an accomplished editor of classical texts. Hellen Cornaro is Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia (1646–84), who received her doctorate from Padua in 1678 and whose works were published in 1688 (see also note 93). 11 English cultural notables, emphasizing women writers, and including Elizabeth Jane Weston (1581– 1612), a neo-Latin poet who is listed in Farnaby’s Index Poeticus (Amsterdam, 1634) and who published two volumes: Poemata (Frankfurt, 1602) and Parthenica (Prague, 1608?). The three Seymour sisters, Anne, Jane, and Margaret Seymour (Jane later Henry VIII’s third queen), wrote a poem of over 300 distichs, In mortem Divæ Margaritae Valesiae, Navarrorum Reginæ Hecatodistichon (Paris, 1550) commemorating Marguerite de Navarre. Anne Cecil, countess of Oxford (1556–88), and daughter of Lord Burghley, was reputed for her learning and thought to be an author by her contemporaries. Katherine Philips (1632–64), “The Matchless Orinda,” celebrated poet (Poems [London, 1664 et seq.]) and organizer of a literary coterie, the Society of Friendship. Elizabeth, Princess Palatine (1618–80), the learned daughter of the queen of Bohemia, was known as “la Grecque.” 12 Evelyn contrasts the princess to one of the more notorious figures of the recent English court such as the “impudent Comedian” (Diary III.573), Nell Gwyn. 13 With the exception of Aletheia Talbot, countess of Arundel (d. 1654), who figures as one of their owners, this is largely a catalogue of drawings and paintings by Hans Holbein, many previously in Lord Lumley’s collection, either in his gallery or in the “greate booke” of Holbein portraits he owned. When his collection was dispersed, Thomas Howard acquired many of the portraits and eventually also the book of drawings, which had passed from Philip Herbert, 4th earl of Pembroke to Charles I. See Hervey, “A Lumley Inventory,” 39, and Evans, Art Collecting and Lineage in the Elizabethan Age.

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their owne honor, and afraid of being forgotten; hence we find ΓΛΥΚΩΗ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΕΙ Insculpt on the Farnesian Hercules: And Michael Angelo fecit: P. P. Rubens pinxit, Marco Antonio Coluuit etc.14 There is not that Wretched Print, but weares the Name of the no-Artist, whilst our Painters take no care to transmitt to Posterity, the Names of the persons whom they represent; through which negligence so many excellent Pieces come after a while, to be disperst amongst Brokers, and Up-holsters [words deleted] who expose them in their shops to the Streetes in every durty, and Infamous Corner of the Streetes: ’Tis amongst their dusty Lumber we frequently meete with Queene Elizabeth, Mary Queene of Scotts, The Countesse of Pembrook, Earles of Lycester, Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Philip Sidny, Cecil, Buckhurst, Walsingham, Sir Francis Bacon; King James and his favourite Buckingham, and others, (who made the greate figure in this Nation) of John Husse, Zisca, Luther, Calvine, Beza, Socinus; William and Maurice Princes of Orange; Charles the Fift, Philip the Second, Francis the First: The Duke of Alba; Parma, Don John of Austria, Count Egmont,15 Authors of Sects, Greate Captaines and Polititians (famous in our Historie in other Countries) flung among many times behind the hangings, covered with Dust and Cobwebs – Upon this account it is, Men (curious of Books and Antiquities) have ever esteemed had Medals in such estimation, and rend’red them a most necessary Furniture to their Libraries: Because by them we are not onely inform’d whose real Image, and Superscription they beare, but have discover’d to us (in their Reverses) what heroical Exploits they perform’d:16 The famous Temples, Bazilicas, Thermae, Amphiteaters, Aquæducts, Circus’s, Naumachias,17 Bridges, Triumphal-Arches, Columns historical, and other pompous Structures and Erections by them and which have ben greately Assistant to the Recovery of the Antient and Magnificent Architecture; whose real Monuments had ben so barbarously defac’d, by the Goths, and other truculent Invaders; that without this light (and some few Ruines yet extant, that justifie those Types) that so usefull Order and Ornament of Columns, and their concomitant Members, were hardly to be knowne by the Text of Vitruvius, and all his learned Commentators; And ’til Daniel Barbaro,18 Leon Alberti, Raphael, Michael Angelo and others, rais’d it out of the Dust, and Restord that noble Art by their owne, and other learned mens Consulting, and comparing the Reverses of Medals and Medalions; besides what they farther Contribute 14 Glykos the Athenian made this; Michelangelo made this [carved on the Vatican Pietà]; Peter Paul Rubens painted this; Marco Antonio Raimondi [c.1480–c.1534] engraved this. 15 The severing of the links between portrait and name and between name and deed points to the limitation of portraiture, by contrast to the medal. 16 “The very sight of their Effegies call’d to their minds the glorious Actions they had perform’d, and even inflam’d them with an Emulation of their Virtues; nor did it rest there till they themselves also had done something worthy their Example.” Numismata. A discourse of medals, antient and modern, etc. (London, 1697), 66. 17 water-contests or battles 18 Daniello Barbaro (1513–70), one of the translators and commentators on Vitruvius, architect, and author of La Pratica della Perspettiva (Venice, 1569). Evelyn’s editions of Vitruvius included De Architectura (Amsterdam, 1649; Eve.b.43), and Les Dix Livres d’Architecture (Paris, 1684; Eve.c.23). Evelyn placed himself in this company with his translation of Fréart de Cambray, A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (London, 1664; 1707; Eve.c.20), reissued as The Whole Body of Antient and Modern Architecture (London, 1680).

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to your Elucidation of many passages in Historie, Chronologie and Geography: So as I do not see, how Mr. Pepys’s Library can be long without this necessary Adjunct: It is amongst the Medals19 we meete the Antient Legislators, Lycurgus, Solon, Numa etc.: There we find Orpheus, Linus, and the Old Bards and ther’s mention of Numus Homericus by Strabo, and (if I well remember) by Aristotle himselfe too: as there is stil extant those of the brave Hector and Achiles; so as among them we may see what kind of Persons Aristides, Themistocles, Epaminondas, Miltiades, Alexander, and Cyrus, Darius etc. were: The Grave Philosophers Socrates, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Zeno, Demosthenes etc. shew their Faces, to this day Revered in our Medals: Those of the Hebrew represent to us the Rod of Aaron and pot of Manna, and shew how Juda was lead Captive: We come by Medals to understand, the antient weights and measures, the value of Monies:20 You will see there, when it was that Princes assum’d the radiant Crownes and what the Diademe was: I might proceede to the Punique Hanibal Juba etc. To the Consulars and Imperial of the Romans from Romulus, the Scipios, Catos down to this Age of ours, if after Pertinax, and decline of that Empire, Sculpture and all good Arts, had not fall’n with it: You will therefore be curious of having the first Cæsars, the greate ­Julius (after his Parsalian Victorie) being the first honour’d with having his Effigies (old, leane and bald as he was) in Medal, or rather in Monie which are rare to procure in Gold, or small Coper: There are of these and the other Emperors with Greeke Inscriptions also: Who is not delighted to behold the true Effigies of the famous Augustus, Cruel Nero and his Master Seneca? Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, Trajan, Antoninus, Severus: The greate Constantine and his devout Mother Helena? For we have in Medals the Beautifull the beautiful Cleopatra and her Paramour, Livia, Julia, Agrippina, Drusilla, Antonia, Valeria, Massalina, Octavia, Sabina, Poppæa, all of them Augustas, and sundry more of the faire Sex, who rul’d the World, or those who did: I have seene a Series of the Popes from Saint Peter, and amongst the reputed Heresiarcs, that Medalion of John Huss and Hierome of Pragues Martyrdome, with the memorable Inscription Post centum Annos vos Cito,21 which fell out at the appearing of Martin Luther, exactly at that period. – But Sir, I am sensible to have quite Tir’d you by this time with Medals, and therefore I will say nothing concerning those Observations in the filing, sharpnes and due Extansic Vernish and other Markes, criticaly necessary to be criticaly skill’d-in, to prevent the being cheated and impos’d upon by Copies and Counterfeits, for Antique and Original; though yet all Copies (if well dissemble’d, stamp’d or Cast) are not to be rejected: Because you will both for this, and all the Rest, consult Fulvius Ursinus, Goltzius, Monsieur Saint Amant; Otto, Dr. Spon, Mr. Vaillant, Scadin[,] Doctor Paltin, and (instar omnium) the most Learned Spanhemius in that Treatise De usu et præstantia Numismatum etc.:22 You will likewise make

19 What follows rehearses chapter III (“Of Reverses Antient and Modern”) of Numismata and returns to some of the material touched on in Sculptura (London, 1662). 20 For the emergence of Renaissance numismatics, see Weiss, The Renaissance Rediscovery of Classical Antiquity, 167–79, and Cunnally, Images of the Illustrious; for the Renaissance portrait medal, see Scher, The Currency of Fame. 21 After one hundred years I [shall] rouse. 22 some of the standard scholarly tools for numismatics, a list later expanded in Numismata, 241–4: Fulvius Ursinus (Fulvio Orsini; 1529–1601), Familiæ Romanæ in Antiquis Numismatibus (Paris, 1663), revised by

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use of Friends, Dr. Gale, Mr. Henshaw, Hill, Monsieur Justel upon whose skill and Judgement you may relie:23 Though even the most skillfull may now and then be mistaken; but you shall be sure not to be paied with trash; such as I do not (as I sayd) call the Antiquo Moderno, if well imitated: These Person (your friends) whom I mention’d will (I’m sure) be ready to Assist you in this laudable Curiositie: And, if they can be purchas’d at once, (as accidentaly, they sometimes may) it will save you a great deale of paines, and inrich you at once: But otherwise, they are likelieest met with-all amongst the Goldsmiths, and casualy as one walkes the streetes on foot, and passes by the stalles etc: Mr. Ashmole (our common friend) had collected all the Antient, and Modern Coines of this Kingdome, which was very rare,24 together with Several Medals of our British, Saxon and other Kings upon Occasion of Births, Coronations, Mariages, and other Solemnities: I know not whether they escaped the burning of his study at the Middle-Temple.25 But for the Charles Patin (see below); Hubertus Goltzius (1526–83), Le vive imagini di tutti quasi gli imperatori da C.J. Caesare a Carlo V e Ferdinando suo fratello dalle vecchie medaglie (Anvers, 1557, also in Latin and French; in the 1687 library catalogue) and other works; Tristan à Saint Amant (1595–1656), cited in Numismata (241) as “one of the first who treated of the Greek Imperials Learnedly,” Commentaires Historiques, con­tenants en abregé les vies, éloges et censures des Empereurs, Imperatrices, Cæsars et Tyrans de l’Empire Romain jusques à Pertinax ... Le tout illustré de l’exacte explication des revers enigmatiques de plusieurs cen­ taines de medailles (Paris, 1635, 1644); Johannes Otho (c.1520–81), Introductio in Historiam Romanam ... Post primam editionem innumeris locis ex fide marmorum, numismatum, et veterum historiarum restitute (Bruges, 1565); Jacob Spon (1647–85), Miscellanea eruditæ antiquitatis: in quibus marmora, statuae, musiva, toreumata, gemmae, numismata, Grutero, Ursino, Boissardo (Lyon, 1679–85), and Dissertatio de utilitate numismatum in physiognomia and Recherches curieuses d’antiquité, contenues en plusieurs dissertations sur des médailles, bas-reliefs, statues, mosaiques, et inscriptions antiques (Lyon, 1683; Evelyn Library, no 1403), who is cited in Numismata (241) as accompanying Evelyn’s friend, Sir George Wheler, on a journey to the Levant (Diary IV.358, n. 1); Jean Foy-Vaillant (1632–1706), Numismata Imperatorum Romanorum præstantiora a Julio Cæsare ad Postumum et Tyrannos (Paris, 1674, 1682), and Seleucidarum Imperium, sive historia regum Syriæ, ad fidem numismatum accommodate (Paris, 1681); Petrus Seguinus (Pierre Séguin; 1599–1672), Selecta Numismata antiqua ex museo Petri Seguini ... ejusdem observationibus illustrate (Paris, 1665, 1684), which included in its second edition Ezechiel Spanheim, De Nummo Smyrnæorum and notes by Foy-Vaillant; Charles Patin (1633–93), Histoire des medailles ou Introduction a la connoissance de cette science (Paris, 1665), Imperatorum Romanorum Numismata ex ære, mediæ et minimæ formæ descripta et enarrata (Strasburg, 1671), and Thesaurus Numismatum, e Musæo Caroli Patini (Amsterdam, 1672); Ezechiel Spanheim (1629–1710), Dissertatio de Praestantia et Usu Numismatum Antiquorum (1664; 1671 edition is Eve.a.121), “absolute and incomparable” (Numismata, 242) is frequently cited by Evelyn who met him in 1675 and refers to his “excellent Treatise concerning Medails &c” in Diary IV.78. See also the bibliographical guide in Cunnally, Images of the Illustrious, 185–220, the extensive directories of collectors in Hubertus Goltzius, C. Julius Cæsar; sive Historiæ Imperatorum Cæsarumque Romanorum, ex antiquis numismatibus restitutæ, liber primus (Bruges, 1563), and Charles Patin, Introductio ad historiam numismato (Paris, 1683), and Patin’s bibliography. 23 Local virtuosi: Thomas Gale; Thomas Henshaw; Abraham Hill (1635–1722; ODNB); and Henri Justel (1620–93; see note 55). 24 Ashmole had been commissioned to catalogue the Roman coins in the Bodleian by Thomas Barlow in 1658, and the royal collection of coins, medals, and gems in 1660. See Hunter, “Elias Ashmole 1617– 1692” in Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 37–8, and Bodleian Mss 2881–3, Familiarum Illustrium Imperatorumque Romanorum Numismata, Oxoniæ in Bodlianæ Bibliothecæ Archivis. 25 26 January 1679. Ashmole is estimated to have lost 9000 coins and medals in the fire (ODNB) and ­Hunter, “Elias Ashmole,” 38–40. The loss may have had special resonance for Evelyn, as he had ­previously occupied Ashmole’s rooms in the Middle Temple, which had passed from him to Thomas Henshaw, and then to Ashmole.

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most accurate Ordering, and disposal of Medals (so as one may more commodiously take them out of their Repositaries) Mr. Charleton of that Society, has a peculiar Method, as he is the most elegant, and rarely furnish’d, in all his other Collections.26 In the meane time, the Curious of this sort of Erudition (I meane of Medalls) were formerly, and I believe at present, very few in England; For, besides Sir Robert Cotton, Mr. Selden, Sir ­Simon D’Ewes, Sir Thomas Hanmer of Hanmer, Sir William Paston, the late Mr. Hervey, I find hardly any:27 Thomas (that greate lover of Antiquity) Earle of Arundel, had a very rich Collection, as well of Medals, as other Intaglios, belonging to the Cabinet he purchased of Daniel Nice, at the cost of Ten-thousand pounds, which, with innumerable other Rarities, have ben scatter’d, and squander’d away by his Countesse, when she got that Treasure to Amsterdam, whilst my Lord was in Italy where he died:28 Aboundance of them she bestowed also, on the late unhappy Vicount Stafford, her beloved Son, and such 26 William Courten, aka Charleton (1642–1702; ODNB). Evelyn records two visits to Charleton’s collection. On 16 December 1686 he notes that he “carried the Countesse of Sunderland to see the rarities of one Mr. Charleton at the Middle Temple … I had never in all my Travells abroad seene any either of private Gent: or Princes exceede it” (Diary IV. 531), and again on 11 March 1690, when he describes it as “doubtlesse one of the most perfect assemblys of rarities that can be any where seene” (Diary V.13). He writes to him with a query about a medal in 1695 (Letter 738). His collections passed to Hans Sloane. See GibsonWood, “Classification and Value in a Seventeenth-Century Museum: William Courten’s Collection.” 27 English collectors and connoisseurs of medals: Sir Robert Cotton’s (1571–1631; ODNB) celebrated library contained an important collection of Roman and Anglo-Saxon coins, (see Sharpe, “Introduction: Rewriting Sir Robert Cotton,” 6–7, and Van Der Meer, “An Early Seventeenth-Century Inventory of Cotton’s Anglo-Saxon Coins,” in Wright, Sir Robert Cotton as Collector); Sir Simonds D’Ewes (1602–50; ODNB), see Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D’Ewes, 13–15. D’Ewes’s library was acquired from his descendents by Robert Harley in 1705–6, but some of his coins may have gone to Sir John Hervey (1616–79; ODNB). BL Harley Mss 254 and 255 contain materials on the coin collections of Cotton and D’Ewes: Harley 254 ff 157–67 catalogues Cotton’s collection as of 1617, while the rest of that manuscript contains several catalogues of D’Ewes’s collection; Harley 255 begins with notes for D’Ewes’s unfinished “Prolegomena ad Thesaurum Numarium Britano-Anglicum,” and correspondence pertaining to his collection. See Pagan, “The First Century of the Study of Coins in Britain.” Sir Thomas Hanmer (1612–78; ODNB, H) was a visitor to Sayes Court and a correspondent of Evelyn’s (see Letter 335). Sir William Paston (c.1610–63) is cited by Sir Thomas Browne as an antiquarian in Hydriotaphia, Works, I, 142. Roberts, “Extending the Frontiers,” 320, expresses scepticism about Selden as a coin collector. Evelyn expands on this material on English collectors in Numismata, 245–7. See also the treatment of coin collecting in Arnold, Cabinets for the Curious, 65–80, which locates it at the intersection of cultures of knowledge and luxury consumption. 28 Thomas Howard, 14th earl of Arundel, “the Collector Earl” (1585–1646): Thomas Howard was earl of Arundel from 1604 and was married to Aletheia Talbot (d. 1654). He was succeeded by his son Henry Frederick Howard (1608–52), whose younger brother, William Howard, Viscount Stafford (1612–80), was implicated in the Popish Plot and executed, and whose second son, Henry Howard (1628–84), became 6th duke of Norfolk. Evelyn discusses the dispersal of the Howard collections in Letter 472 and Diary IV.312. See also the account of the dispersal of Howard’s collections in Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs, 60–6. Daniel Nys (Nice) was a French merchant who had settled in Venice c.1598, acted as Swedish consul, and become an art-dealer for at least ten years before he negotiated the sale of the Gonzaga collections to Charles I in 1628. See Howarth “Charles I, Sculpture and Sculptors,” in MacGregor, The Late King’s Goods, 75–8, and Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs, 230–1. He also sold a collection of 263 cameos and intaglios, including the “Felix Gem,” to Thomas Howard. See Vickers, The Arundel and Pomfret Marbles, 26, and Peck, Consuming Splendor, 177.

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as remain’d, Lely, Wright,29 and the rest of the Painters, Foxes, Panders, and Misses have cheated the late Duke of Norfolck of: The same Fate befell a noble Collection of Medals belonging to the then curious Sir Simon Fanshaw of Ware-park: They were after his Desease, thrown about the house (as that worthy gentleman his son Sir Richard, Lord Ambassador in Portugal to whom I had Relation has told me) for children to play with at Counter with;30 as were those elegant Types of Sir Henry Savels at Eaton, which that learned knight procurd for, with greate Cost, for his Edition of Saint Chrysostome, and as it commonly fares with such Curiosities, where the next Heire is not a Virtuoso:31 So vaine a thing it is, to set ones heart upon any-thing of this nature, with that Passion and Mania, that unsatiable Earle (whom I mention’d) did, to the detriment of his Estate and Family: Mediocria Firma.32 The Medals in our Universitie Libraries are not yet at all Considerable; though Obadiah Walker were an industrious promoter of it, and not unskillfull in them: Mr. Ralph Sheldon of Weston in Warwickshire left a very handsome Collection both of Gold, Silver and Coper; Antient and Moderne (part of which were bequeathed to a *Sister of my Lady Tukes) [LM: *Mrs. Cenlivre Maid of Honor to the Queene Katherine] who not long since offer’d to have sold them: I brought Monsieur Justel to see them; but they were much over-valu’d, and whether she have since dispos’d of them, I never inquir’d:33 At present I know of none who can shew a better chosen Set of Medals, than the Earle of Clarendon,34 to whose late Father (after all this tedious parenthesis) I Returne, and have a mind to Entertaine you a while longer, with what I had begun, where I spake of his purpose to furnish all the Roomes of State, and other Apart’ments, with the Pictures of the most Illustrious of our Nation, especialy, of his Lordships time, and ­Acquaintance, and of divers before it.35 There was at full-length (and as I doubt not, but you well remember to have ben seene) the Greate Duke of Buckingham, the brave Sir Horace 29 Sir Peter Lely (1618–80; ODNB) and John Michael Wright (1625?–1700), a portrait painter who was in Italy from at least 1648 to 1651. For Lely’s collection see Dethloff, “Sir Peter Lely’s Collection of Prints and Drawings.” 30 Sir Simon Fanshawe (1604–80) was the elder brother of Sir Richard Fanshawe (1608–66), Evelyn’s friend and distant relative (see Diary III.19, n. 5). Simon is identified as an “eminent Collector of Medals” in a list of gentlemen of the Privy Chamber for 1677 (Carlisle, An Inquiry into the Place and Quality of the Gentlemen of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Chamber, 193). 31 “The Learned Sir Henry Savell”: Sir Henry Savile (1549–1622; ODNB) was a Greek scholar at Oxford and became provost of Eton in 1596. His edition of St John Chrysostom (8 vols; Eton, 1610–13), for which the type to which Evelyn refers had been cast, was reputed to have cost £8000. 32 the middle course is most secure 33 See Obadiah Walker, The Greek and Roman history illustrated by coins & medals (London, 1692), and Elias Ashmole, ed. Josten, 123-4 and 1060-1, and note 24 for Ashmole’s work on the catalogue of Roman coins in the Bodleian. Evelyn describes taking Henri Justel to see the Ralph Sheldon’s “collection of Medaills” that contained the medal of Hus as well as Greek and Roman coins, including “a Medalion of Otho” (Diary IV.397 and n. 4). The sister of Mary Tuke, née Sheldon, was Frances Sheldon, Ralph’s cousin, who was a maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza. See Barnard, The Sheldons, 66–7. 34 See Bodleian Ms 15630: ff 1–6, a list of Roman coins owned by Clarendon. 35 Evelyn returns to his point of departure. He shared with Lord Clarendon the love of collecting portraits, and lists his collection of “Effegies of famous persons” in the 1687 library catalogue, ff 124–5. See Numismata, ch. VIII, “Of Heads and Effigies,” 256–92. Evelyn last saw Clarendon in 1667 at the time of Hyde’s flight to the continent (Diary III.502), and witnessed the demolition of the house in 1683 (Diary

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and Francis Veres, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidny: the greate Earl of Licester: Treasurer Buckhurst, Burleigh, Walsingham, Cecil, Lord Chancellor Bacon, Elsimere, and I think all the late Chancelors and grave Judges, in the Reignes of Queen Elizabeth and her successors James and Charles the first: For there was Tressurer Weston, Cottington, Duke Hamilton, the magnificent Earle of Caerlisle; Earle of Carnarvon, Bristol, Holland, Lindsey, Northumberland, Kingston, Southampton, Lord Falkland, Digby (I name them ­promiscuously as they come into my memorie) and of Charles the Second (besides the Royal Family) the Dukes of Albemarle, New-Castle, Earles of Darby, Shrewsbery, St Albans, the brave Montrosse, Sandwich, Manchester, etc. and of the Coife, Sir Edward Cooke, Judge Berkeley, Bramston, Sir Orlando Bridgeman, Joefry Palmer, Mr. Selden, Vaughan, Dugdale: Sir Robert Cotton, Savil, Dugdale, Mr. Cambden, Mr. Hales of Eaton; the ArchBishops Abbot, and Lawd, Juxon, Sheldon, Morley, Jewel Duppa, Dr. Sanderson, Bromrig, Mr Herbert, Dr. Donn, Chilingworth and several of the Cleargie and others of the former and present Age: For there were the Pictures of Fisher, Fox, Sir Thomas More, Cromwell, Dr. Nowell, etc.36 And what was most agreable to his Lord­ships genial humor, Old Chaucer, Shakespere: Beaumont and Fletcher (who were both in one piece) Spencer, Mr. Waller, Cowley, Hudibras, which last, he placed in the roome where he us’d to Eate and Dine in publique.37 Most of which (if not all) are at the present at Cornebery in Oxford-shire, together with the Library, which the present Earle has considerably improvd, besides what Bookes he has at Swalowfield (not contemptible) and the Manuscript Copies of what concernes the Parliament Rolls Records, Jurnals and Transactions, which I have heard both him and the late (unfortunate) Earle of Essex (who had also the same curiosity)38 affirme cost them £500 transcribing and Binding, and IV.321). What he recalls in the following passage is a collection that he may not have seen since 1668, when he dined with Hyde’s son, Henry, and noted “the Pictures of most of our Antient and Modern Witts, Poets, Philosophers famous & learned English-men” (Diary III.520). Some of the portraits in Clarendon’s collection are reproduced in Ollard, Clarendon and His Friends; Lewis, “Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Portraits at The Grove,” in Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries, III, 239–435; and Hearn, ed., Van Dyck & Britain. 36 Some of the portraits are identifiable: George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham (1592–1628) (by Cornelius Jansen); Thomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset and Baron Buckhurst (1536–1608) (by Mark Gerrard); Richard Weston, 1st earl of Portland (1577–1635) (by Van Dyck); James Hay, 1st earl of Carlisle (d. 1636) (by Van Dyck); Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland (1610?–43) (by Van Dyck); Algernon Percy, “Northumberland” (1602–68) (by Van Dyck). 37 the portraits of English writers effect the transition from images to books 38 Robert Cotton’s library contained extensive holdings of parliamentary records (see Tite, “The Cotton Library in the Seventeenth Century and Its Manuscript Records of the English Parliament”), as did Simonds D’Ewes’s collection. Clarendon’s parliamentary records and other historical documents are catalogued as “Libri Historici” in Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (Oxford, 1697; Evelyn Library, no 1621), II, ii, 3–14, and many eventually went to the Bodleian. Evelyn had sought Henry Hyde’s permission to use the records pertaining to the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1672 (Letter 354). See Lewis, “The Clarendon Manuscripts,” in Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries, I, 67–88. The manuscripts of Arthur Capel, earl of Essex (1631–83) remained in the possession of the family until 1808, when they entered the manuscript library at Stowe, from which they passed into the British Library (BL Stowe Mss 200–17). As both William Camden and Robert Cotton realized, collecting parliamentary documents was potentially a risky endeavor.

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indeede, furnishe a prety large roome. – To Compleate and Encourage this noble and singular Collection; I sent his Lordship a list of the Names following: Cardinal Poole, Woolsey, Gardner Bishop of Winchester, Cranmer, Ridly, old Latimer, Bishop Usher, Mr. Hooker, Occham, Riply, Johannes Duns, Roger Bacon, Swisset, Tunstal of Duresme (correspondent with Erasmus) Tompson; Venerable Bede (if at least to be met with, as in some antient Office or Masse booke where I have seene some of those old famous persons, accurately painted, either from the life, or from Copies) Sir John Cheeke, Sir Thomas Bodly, Smith, Joseph Berkeley, Mr. Ascham, Sir Fulk Grevil, Buchanan, Dr. Hevey, Gilbert, Mr. Oughtred, Dr. Havey, Sir Henry Wotton (I still recite them promiscuously and not like an Herauld ) Sir Francis Drake, Sir Richard Hawkins, Mr. Cavendish, Martine Frobisher: etc. some of which his Lordship procur’d;39 but was you know, Interupted, and after all this Apparatus and Grandeure, Died an Exile, and in the displeasure of his Majestie and others who envied his Rise and Fortune tam breves Populi Romani amores:40 But I shall say no more of his Ministrie, and what was the pretence of his Fall, than that we have lived to see greater Revolutions; The Bouffoons, Parasites, Pimps and Concubines who supplanted him at Court, came to nothing, not long after, and were as little pittied: ’Tis something yet too early to publish the Names of his delators, for feare of ones Teeth;41 But Time will speake Truth, and sure I am, the Event has made it good: Things were infinitely worse Menag’d, since his disgrace; and both their late Majesties fell into as pernicious Counsels, as ever Princes did; whilst whatever my Lord Chancelors Skill were in Law, and Politics, the Offices of State and Justice, were filled with person men of old English honor, and probitie; less open Bribery and ostentation: There was at least, something of more Gravity and Forme (things however Railled, necessary in Courts) kept up Magnificence and antient Hospitalitie, in his Majesties Houses, more agreable to the Genius of this Nation, than the open and avowed Luxurie and prophanes which succeeded a la Mode de France, to which this Favorite was a declard Enemy upon my certaine knowledge: There were indeede heinous Matters laied to his Charge, which I could never see proov’d; and you, and I can tell of many that have fall’n, and yet suffer under that Calamitie: But, what’s all this (you’l say) to our Subject: Yes, He was a greate Lover (at least) of Books, and furnish’d a very ample Library; writ himselfe an Elegant Style; favour’d, and promoted the Designe of the Royal Society: And it was for this, and in particular, for his being very kind to me both Abroad and at Home that I sent Naudæus to him in a Dedicatory Epistle Addresse,42 of which I am not so much Asham’d, as of the Translation: There be some, who (not displeas’d with the Toure43 and Style of that Epistle) are angrie at the Application: But, they do not consider, that Greate Persons, and such as are 39 See Letter 290 for the list Evelyn provided Hyde in 1667. 40 “so short-lived are the affections of the Roman people” Tacitus, Annales 2.41. 41 Compare this to Evelyn’s account of Clarendon’s fall in his diary: “The Parliament had accused him, & he had enemies at Court, especially the boufoones & Ladys of Plasure, because he thwarted some of them & stood in their way, I could name some of the chiefe” (Diary III.493). 42 Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library (London, 1661), translated by Evelyn from the French of Gabriel Naudé. The dedication to Clarendon contains the first mention of the Royal Society. For the larger context of Evelyn’s translation, see Nelles, “Libraries, Books and Learning, from Bacon to the Enlightenment.” 43 probably “tourne”: a rhetorical flourish

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in Place to do Greate and Noble things (whatever their other defects may be) are to be panegyris’d into the Culture of those Vertues, without which, ’tis to be suppos’d, they had never ariv’d to a power of being able to encourage them Qui monet ut facias44– You remember the Sequel: And ’tis a Justifiable Figure, nor is it properly Adulation, but a Civilitie due to their Characters: As for the Translation, it has ben so un-sufferably abused at the Presse, that the Shame any un-corrected Copy should come abroad, has made me Suppresse as many as I could light on,45 not without purpose of publishing a new Edition, and which now perhaps, might be the more seasonable; since the humor of Exposing Books (sub hasta)46 is become so Epidemical, that it may possibly afford some Direction to Gentlemen, who are making their Collection out of them: Besides, the First Impression is, I heare, pretty well worne-out, and I should be very sorry unfortunate it should miscarry twice, or meete with such another Accident, as happn’d (it seemes) to the blotted Manuscript at Oxford, the Circumstances where-of I will not now trouble you withal:47 – And so I have don with my Lord Chancellor; But not so soone with my worthy Friend, Mr. Pepys, to whose learned, and laudable Curiosity of still improving his Choice Collection, I should not Advise a Solicitous Expense of having the Pictures of so many greate Persons painted in Oyle, which were a vast, and un-necessary Charge, though not so extraordinary a one to my Lord Chancellor as one may imagine, because, when his Designe was once made known, every body, who either had them of their owne, or could purchase them at any price, strove to make their Court by these Presents, by which meanes he got many excellent pieces of Vandyke, and other Originals of Lely and other the best of our modern Masters hands: But, if instead of these, you think fit to Add to your Title-pages (in a distinct Volume) the Heads and Effigies of such as I have enumerated; and of as many other, as either in this, or in any other Age, have ben famous for Armes or Arts etc. In Taille Douce, and (with very Tollerable Expense) to be procur’d amongst the Print-Sellers, I should not reprove it: I am sure, you would be infinitely delighted with the Assembly, and some are so very well don to the Life, that they may stand in competition 44 “He who reminds thee to do” Ovid, Tristia 5.14.45 (Wheeler, trans). In these concluding lines to the collection, Ovid continues: “quod iam facis, ipse monendo / laudat, et hortatu, comprobat actu suo” “what thou art already doing, by so reminding praises thy acts and by his very exhortation approves them.” The version of the letter sent to Pepys cites the entire passage. 45 Evelyn refers to the state of the first edition in a letter c.1689 to Henry Godolphin, noting the “common calamitie incident to writers and translators of bookes, which is (unless they attend on the press like slaves) to be at the mercy of sotts and drunkards, that can neither print sense nor English; nor, indeed, any other language, tho’ it lie never so plainely before them …” Cited from Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn, xii (Beal, Index, EvJ 12). 46 at auction. “Between 1676 and 1695, at least 200 private libraries were sold at auction alone, ranging in size from the vast collections of the Earl of Anglesey or the Duke of Lauderdale, or of the commoner Richard Smith, to groups of just a few hundred books” Leedham-Green and McKitterick, “Ownership,” 328. See Munby and Coral, British Book Sale Catalogues, 1676–1800; and Hermann, “The Emergence of the Book-auctioneer” in Myers and Harris, Property of a Gentleman; and Myers, Harris and Mandelbrote, Under the Hammer. 47 See Evelyn’s letter to Thomas Barlow printed at the end of Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library, 95–6. For this episode see Hunter, Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy, 93. The original manuscript of Evelyn’s translation of Naudé, sent to Barlow, is now with his papers (Queen’s College, Oxford, Ms 231).

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with the best Paintings: This were a cheape, and so much a more useful Addition and Curiosity, as they seldome are without their Names, Ages, Elogies of the Persons whose portraicts they represent: I say, you will be exceedingly pleas’d to Contemplate the Effigies of those who have made such a Noise and bussle in the World, either by their Madness and Folly, as well as more conspicuous Figure by their Wit and Learning:48 Nor would I yet Confine you to stop here, but to be continualy Gathering, as you happen to meete with other Instructive Types; For in under this Classe may come in Batails, Sieges, Triumphs, Justs and Tournaments, Huntings, Coronations, Cavalcads and Enteries of Ambassadors, Processions, Funebral, and other Pomps, Tombs, Tryals and Executions; Stately-Edifices, Machines, antique Vasas, Spoiles, Basse-Relievos, Intaglios and Chameos taken from Achates, Onyxes, Cornelians, and other precious stones: Ruines, Landskaps (if from real Subjects not Fancies, which are innumerable, and not necessary) but such as Relate to Historie, and for Reasons Specified more at large in my Treatise of Chalcographie:49 – Your Library by this Accession, suitable to your Generous mind, and steady Vertue; I know no man living, master of more happinnesse; since, besides the Possession of so many Curiosities, you understand to Use and Improve them likewise, and have declared, that you will endeavor to Secure (what with so much Cost, and Industrie you have Collected ) from the sad dispersions many noble Libraries and Cabinets have suffer’d in these late times:50 One Auction (I may call it diminution) of a day or two, having scatterd what has ben gathering many Yeares: Hence it is, that we are in England so defective of good Libraries among the Gentlemen, and in our greatest Townes; Paris alone, I am perswaded, being able to shew more, than all the three Nations of Greate Brittain: That of Memmius, Puteane, Thuanus, Cordesius, Seguire, Colbert, Condie, Soveau and others innumerable; of Bishops, Abbots, Advocates, Antiquaries, and a world of learned persons of the Long-Robe: Besides the publique at St. Victoire, the Sorbonne and above all, that of Mazarini (now with Richlieus and sundry others swallow’d up in the present Kings)51 far exceeding any thing we can shew at home, though we have as much, 48 Evelyn owned a large number of “Effigies of famous persons” which he lists in the 1687 library catalogue (ff 124–5). See Griffiths, “John Evelyn and the Print,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu. Griffiths (109–12) transcribes Evelyn’s catalogue of his collection in the 1687 library catalogue (ff 121–5). The subjects he proposes for Pepys’s collection correspond to many of the “parts” in this catalogue. 49 Sculptura: or the History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper (London, 1662; Eve.a.19). The following terms are no longer common: achates – agates; taille douce – engraving on a metal plate; Basse relievos – bas reliefs, low-relief sculptures; intaglios – sunk reliefs or engravings in stone. 50 Pepys’s library was bequeathed to Magdalen College, Cambridge, where it remains. See Latham, Catalogue of the Pepys Library. 51 Parisian libraries: Evelyn also describes Parisian libraries in his letter to Pepys of 21 August 1669 (Particular Friends, A28, 73), laying out an itinerary for his Paris visit. See Pierre Le Gallois, Traitté des plus belles bibliothèques de l’Europe (Paris, 1685), 146–76. Memmius: Claude de Mesmes, Comte d’Avoux (1595–1660), the dedicatee of Naude’s Advis, whose collection passed from the family into the Bibliothèque du Roi in 1731, see Catalogue des manuscrits de Monseigneur le Président de Mesmes, Anno 1650 ... Nunc in Bibliotheca Phillippica. 1827 (Middle Hill, 1828); Puteane: Jacques Dupuy (1591–1656) bequeathed his collection to the Bibliothèque du Roi; Thuanus: Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553–1617), see Jacques and Pierre Dupuy, Catalogus bibliothecæ Thuanæ (Paris, 1679), and Coron, “JacquesAuguste de Thou et sa bibliothèque” in Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 101–25; Cordesius: Jean

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if not greater plenty, and Variety of the best Books, as any Country in the learned World: But, as I said, they are in private Cabinets, and seldome well chosen, and unlesse in the Universities, where (if one may judge by the productions of so many Learned-men at Leasure) they signifie so very little to the learned-World: This Greate, and August Citty, abounding with so many Witts and Letterd persons, has Scarse one Library furnish’d and indowed for the Publique. Sir John Cottons (collected by his noble Unkle) is without dispute, the most valuable in Manuscripts especially of Brittish and Saxon Antiquities: But he refuses to impart us the Catalogue of this Treasure; for feare (he tells me) of being disturb’d:52 That of Westminster,53 is not much considerable, lesse that of Syon-Colledge:54 But there is hope, his Majesties at St. James’s may emerge, and be in some measure de Cordes (1570–1642), whose collection was catalogued by Naudé in Bibliothecæ Cordesianæ catalogus (Paris, 1643; Eve.a.103); Seguire: Pierre Séguier (1588–1672), the protecteur of the Académie française, whose grandson left the books to the library of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, see Catalogue des manuscrits de la bibliothèque de défunt monseigneur le chancellier Séguier (Paris, 1686), Bernard de Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliniana olim Segueriana (Paris, 1715), and Nexon, “La Bibliothèque du chancelier Séguier,” in Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 147–55; Colbert: Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–83), Louis XIV’s minister, whose manuscripts were sold by his grandson to the Bibliothèque du Roi in 1732, see Bibliotheca Colbertina: seu Catalogus librorum bibliothecæ (Paris, 1728), and Bloch, “La Bibliothèque de Colbert,” in Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 157–79; Condie: Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–86), see Antoine Le Roux de Lincy, Recherches sur la bibliothèque du grand Condé, suivies du catalogue des manuscrits qui se trouvoient dans cette bibliothèque (Paris, 1860); Soveau (omitted from Pforzheimer Ms 351 text): possibly Gilles de Souvré, bishop of Auxerre (1596–1631), whose library was acquired by Jacques Amelot de Beaulieu, president of the Cour des aides (1602–68), in 1632, see Mandelbrote, “La Nouvelle Édition de Graham Pollard et Albert Ehrman,” 71; St Victoire: l’Abbaye Saint-Victor, founded in 1108, whose library Pantagruel had visited, had been absorbed by the Congrégation de France in 1633, but the library was still housed in the buildings given by François I, see Ouy “Saint-Victor de Paris,” in Histoire des bibliothèques françaises I, 86–9 and Ouy and Gerz-von Buren, Le Catalogue de la bibliothèque de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor; Sorbonne: Collège de Sorbonne, founded in 1257 and housed in Jacques Le Mercier’s building, begun in 1635; Mazarin: Cardinal Mazarin (1602–61), whose library, overseen by Naudé, had been accessible to scholars since 1643 and after his death willed to the Collège des Quatre-Nations, was transferred to Le Vau’s building on the Seine in 1688, see Gasnault, “De la bibliothèque de Mazarin à la bibliothèque Mazarine,” Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 135–45; Richelieu: Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642), whose library had been transferred to the Collège de Sorbonne in 1660, see Artier, “La bibliothèque du cardinal de Richelieu,” Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 127–33. For the Bibliothèque du Roi, see Balayé, “La naissance de la Bibliothèque du Roi,” in Histoire des bibliothèques françaises II, 77–83. 52 the Cotton library: Sir John Cotton (1621–1701), whom Evelyn knew (Diary III.443), inherited the manuscript collections of his grandfather, Sir Robert. They were bequeathed to the nation at his death. See Tite, The Manuscript Library of Sir Robert Cotton. The library did not have a printed catalogue until Thomas Smith, Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Cottonianæ (Oxford, 1696), although a number of manuscript catalogues and finding aids had been compiled. See Tite, The Early Records of Sir Robert Cotton’s Library. Cotton’s resistance to publicize more widely the contents of the library was also based on concerns other than a reluctance to accommodate additional users. He noted, in a letter to Smith, who functioned as the collection’s librarian, that “it may be more for my private concerns, and the public too, that the library should not be too much known. There are many things in it, that are very cross to the Romish interest, and you know what kinds of persons the Jesuits are” (quoted in Joy, “Thomas Smith, Humfrey Wanley, and the ‘Little-Known Country’ of the Cotton Library,” 9, n. 45). 53 Westminster: Robinson and James, The Manuscripts of Westminster Abbey. 54 Sion College: Pearce, Sion College and Library. Sion College, founded in 1623 by the will of Dr T. White on London Wall was an institution for city clergy that comprised almshouses and a library. The library

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Restor’d againe, now that it comes under the Inspection of the learned Monsieur Justel (who you know was owner of a very considerable one at Paris):55 There are in it a greate many noble Manuscripts yet remaining, besides the Tecla,56 and more would be, did some royal or generous hand cause those to be brought back to it, which still [word deleted] are lying in mercenary hands for want of two, or three-hundred pounds, to pay for their Binding:57 Many of which being of the Oriental Tongues, will soone else find Jewes and Chapmen, that will purchase, and transport them whence we shall never retrive them againe: For thus has a Cabinet of Medals above ten-thousand Medals (not inferior to most abroad, and far Superior, to any at home) which were collected by that hopefull cherisher of greate, and noble things, Prince Henry; imbezild and carried away during our late barbarous Rebellion; by whom, and wither none can, or list to discover:58 What that Collection was, not onely of Books, and Medals, but of Statues, and other [word deleted] Furniture; let the learned Library-Keeper Patritius Junius, tell you in his Notes ad Epist[ol]am Sancti Clementi ad Corinthos: Quem locum (speaking of St. James’s) si vicinam pinacothecam, Bibliothecæ celeberrimæ conjunctam; si Numismata Antiqua Græca ac Romana; si Statuas et Signa ex ære et Marmore consideres, non immerito Thesaurum Antiquitatis, et ταμιει˜ον instructissimum nominare potes etc.59 Were not this losse enough to breake a

55

56 57 58

59

catalogue was published by John Spencer, Catalogus universalis librorum omnium in bibliotheca Collegii Sionii apud Londinenses (London, 1650). The Great Fire destroyed much of the library. Some of the surviving books were sold, like Evelyn’s library, sub hasta, in 1977 [!], and some of the remaining titles went to the Lambeth Palace Library. Henri Justel (1620–93; ODNB) was a Huguenot who had sold his library of seven thousand volumes before moving to England in 1681 to take up an appointment as assistant keeper of royal manuscripts. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in the same year and became keeper of the library in 1689. In France, he had been a sécretaire du roi, and Oldenburg’s regular correspondent for the Royal Society. See Treasure, “The French Background and the English Refuge of Henri Justel.” Evelyn’s hope for the library at St James’s was fulfilled in the appointment of Richard Bentley as keeper in 1694 (Diary V.196). See Birrell, English Monarchs and Their Books, 43–67. the Codex Alexandrinus, presented to James I by the patriarch of Constantinople in 1624 and now BL Ms Royal 1. D. V–VIII When Bentley drew up his proposal in 1697 to house the Royal Library in a new building in St James’s Park, he also drew attention to the amount of unbound material (see Haugen, Richard Bentley, 106–7). Henry, Prince of Wales (1594–1612) had paid £2200 in 1611 “for antiquities of medals and coins” and more in 1612 for “a cabinet of antiquities” from the collection of Abraham Gorlaeus (see Dactyliotheca seu annulorum sigillarium quorum apud priscos tam Græcos quam Romanos usus ... promptuarium. Accesserunt variarum gemmarum ... scalpturæ [Leiden, 1601]), which contained coins and medals as well as engraved gems and cameos. Some of his collection was lost after his death; much of what remained later belonged to his brother Charles. The collection was looted during the civil war. See Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales, 198–99. Birch, The Life of Henry, Prince of Wales (London, 1760), 164–6, reports on the examination of Hugh Peters in September 1660 by Elias Ashmole and Thomas Rosse, and notes that the twelve thousand coins reported in 1652 had been reduced to four thousand by 1660, when Ashmole was asked to catalogue the collection. For the dispersal of Henry’s collections see Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales, 199–200, Wilks, “Art Collecting at the English Court,” and Brotton, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, 21–50. “which place, if [you were to consider] the nearby art gallery adjacent to the famous library, if [you were to consider] the ancient Greek and Roman coins, if you were to consider the statues and busts made of marble and bronze, you could justifiably call a treasure-house of antiquity and a most learned storeroom.” Patrick Young, ed., Clementis ad Corinthios epistola prior. Ex laceris reliquijs vetustissimi exemplaris bibliothecæ regiæ (Oxford, 1633), M4v.

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Lovers heart?60 The Royal Society at Gressham Colledge, has a mixture (though little apposite to the Institution and Designe of that worthy Assembly) yet of many excellent Books, and some few Manuscripts, given them (at my Instance) by the late Duke of Norfolck, which is but a part of that rare Collection of good Authors, which by the Industrie, and Direction of Francis Junius (Son learned Son of the learned Patric) Mr. Selden, and the purchase of a library on what was brought at once out of Germanie was left neglected at Arundel house when standing before it was demolish’d, and converted into Tenements:61 I now mention’d Mr. Selden: There is a Fragment of that greate Antiquaries Librarie at the Middle Temple, but his Manu-scripts and best Collection, were Bequ[e] ath’d to the Bodlean at Oxford, to which both he, and especially Archbishop Lawde were the most munificent Benefactors:62 Though with all these, so poore in Manuscripts, that they were asham’d to publish their Catalogue with that of the Libri Impressorum; but which might yet have ben equaly inrich’d with any perhaps in Europ had they purchas’d what was lately offerd them, by the Executors of Isaac Vossius (though indeede at a greate price) who have since carried them back into Holland, where they expect a quicker Mercate:63 I wish’d, with all my heart, some brave and noble benefactor Mecænas would have 60 The passage beginning “There are in it” and ending here is omitted from the version sent to Pepys. See Particular Friend, 199, n. 2. Patrick Young (Junius) (1584–1652; ODNB) was keeper of the Royal Library from c.1605–49. He supervised the move of the Royal Library from Whitehall to St James’s, and the amalgamation of that collection with Prince Henry’s library, which included most of the large collection of John, Lord Lumley, acquired by Henry in 1609 (see Lumley Library, ed. Jayne and Johnson). Young was also responsible for cataloguing some of the cathedral libraries (e.g., of Worcester Cathedral, Atkins and Ker, ed., Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Wigorniensis). He was deprived of his post in 1649. John Selden persuaded Bulstrode Whitelocke to accept the position in order to safeguard the collection (Whitelocke, Diary, 243). See the introduction to Carley, The Libraries of Henry VIII, for the history of the Royal Library. 61 Henry Howard, 6th duke of Norfolk was granted a license by act of parliament in 1671 to rebuild Arundel House. His son, Henry, the 7th duke, obtained another in 1689 for converting the whole property into tenements, some of which were “York Buildings” in Surrey St where both Pepys and Evelyn lived. See Diary III.234 and n. 4. Howard donated the library at Arundel House to the Royal Society in 1667. See Letters 285 and 318 and Bibliotheca Norfolciana: sive Catalogus libb. manuscriptorum & impressorum in omni arte & lingua, quos illustriss. princeps Henricus Dux Norfolciæ, &c. Regiæ Societati Londinensi pro scientia naturali promovenda donavit (London, 1681; in the 1687 library catalogue). 62 Selden’s inventory of manuscripts is Bodleian Ms Seld. Supra 111. It corresponds to the contents of his library at his death in 1654, before it was moved. The printed books which entered the Bodleian were listed in Thomas Hyde, Catalogus impressorum librorum in Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ (Oxford, 1674), but Selden’s manuscripts were not catalogued until Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum (Oxford, 1697), I, i, 157–67. When Selden died, he willed his Greek and oriental manuscripts to Oxford, and the rest of his library to his executors, who in turn offered it to the Inner Temple, on condition that they erect a building to house it. When this offer was refused, Oxford was given the books. They arrived there in 1659. See Roberts, “Extending the Frontiers,” 315–21; Barratt, “The Library of John Selden and Its Later History,” and for the library in the larger context of Selden’s work, the transformative study by Toomer, John Selden. Of Archbishop Laud’s donations to the Bodleian, Roberts claims, “His support was of an order that no English library had ever received before, both in value and in breadth” (“Extending the Frontiers,” 311). Between 1635 and 1640 he made a series of gifts to the library, comprising nearly 1300 manuscripts, with particular emphasis on oriental languages. See Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, I, i, 46–76; Fletcher, English Book Collectors, 66–72; and Coxe, Laudian Manuscripts. 63 Vossius died in February 1689, leaving his estate to his nephew and niece. Oxford assigned Richard Bentley to negotiate with his heirs. See Bentley’s correspondence with Edward Bernard in Bentley,

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made a present of them to Trinity Colledge in Cambridge, where that sumptuous Structure (designed for a Library) would have ben the fittest Repository for such a Treasure:64 Where are our Bodleys Swissets, Bodleys, Lawds, Sheldon, Bishops and opulent Chancelors? Will the Nepotisme never be satisfied! Sed præstat motos componere65 – The Next to that of Bodleian, are the Librarys of Magdelen College, Christ-Church, University, and Baily, which last is furnish’d with divers considerable Manuscripts, and lately (through the bounty of Sir Thomas Wendie) with a number of other curious Books:66 I neede not tell you how glorious But to returne againe neerer this Citty, that at Lambeth, replenish’d at present with excellent Books, Ebbs and Flows, like the Thames running by it, at every Prelats Succession or Translation:67 There’s at present a good Assembly of Manuscripts in a Roome by themselves: The Bishop of Ely has a very well stor’d Library: but the very best, is what Dr. Stillingfleete (Deane of St. Paules) has at Twicknam, ten miles out of Towne:68 Onely that good, and learned *Man of St. Martines, [RM: *Dr. Tenison] neere you, has begun a Charity (for so I reckon it, as well as that of his two Scholes etc) worthy his publique and generous Spirit; and the Esteeme of all who know him:69 Our famous Lawyer Sir Edward Cooke, purchas’d a very choice Library of Greeke and other Manuscripts, which were sold him, by Dr. Meric Casaubon (son of the learned Isaac) and

64 65 66

67

68

69

­ orrespondence, 6–10, and Katz, “Vossius and the English Biblical Critics,” 178–9. Bentley’s negotiaC tions were unsuccessful, and the books were removed from England and sold to the library at Leiden for £3000. the newly built library of Trinity College designed by Sir Christopher Wren “But better is it to calm the troubled waves.” Virgil, Aeneid 1.135 (Fairclough, trans) Oxford libraries: see Philip and Morgan, “Libraries, Books and Printing,” in Seventeenth-Century Oxford, ed. Tyacke, 650–85; Bodleian: Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, I, i; Thomas Hyde, Catalogi impressorum librorum Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ in Academia Oxoniensi (Oxford, 1674; Evelyn Library, no 1117); Philip, The Bodleian Library in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; Magdalen College: see Magdalen MS C.1.3.7 and Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, I, ii, 71–8; Christ-Church: Kitchin, Catalogus Codicum MSS. qui in Bibliotheca Ædis Christi apud Oxonienses adservantur (Oxford, 1867) ; University College: Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, I, ii, 1–5,and Hunt, “The Manuscript Collection of University College, Oxford”; Balliol College: Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, I, ii, 6–11, and Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College Oxford. Sir Thomas Wendy (1643–73; H) was MP for Cambridgeshire (1660–73) and knight of the Bath who gave his library to Balliol. Clerical libraries: Archbishop Bancroft had established the library at Lambeth Palace in his will of 1610. Its catalogue (1612) listed 5580 printed books and 470 manuscripts. Bancroft’s successor, George Abbot, added 2667 books in 1633. The library was moved to Cambridge in 1648–9, and returned after the Restoration. See Cox-Johnson, “Lambeth Palace Library 1610–1664”; James, “The History of Lambeth Palace Library”; Roberts, “Extending the Frontiers,” 309–12; and Carley, “‘Accurately and Exquisitely Made’: George Abbot’s Preface to the 1612 Catalogue of Lambeth Palace Library.” Francis Turner (1637–1700; ODNB) was bishop of Ely from 1684 to 1689. Some of his library was acquired by Thomas Bowdler (1661–1738) and eventually donated to the Founders’ Library, University of Wales, Lampeter (see James, Catalogue of the Tract Collection of St David’s University College, ­Lampeter). In 1699, Evelyn attempted to recruit Thomas Tenison to persuade William III to purchase Edward Stillingfleet’s library (Diary V.323–4), but his manuscripts were bought by Robert Harley and are now in the British Library while his collection of nearly 10,000 printed books was bought for £2500 by Dr Narcissus Marsh and is in Marsh’s Library in Dublin (see White, ed., A Short Catalogue of English Books in Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin, Printed before MDCXLI, and McCarthy, Marsh’s Library, Dublin, 51–2). For Tenison’s public library, see Hoare, “Archbishop Tenison’s Library at St Martin-in-the-Fields.”

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these, together with his delicious Villa Durdens, came to the possession of the present Earle of Berkeley, from his Unkle Sir Robert Cook:70 He has sometimes told me, he would build a Convenient Repository for them, which should be publique, for the use of the Cleargie of Surry; but what he has don, or thinks to do herein, I know not: Why is not such provision made by a publique Law and Contribution, in every County of England? But this Genius dos not allways præside in our Representatives: I have heard that Sir Henry Savell was Master of many precious Manuscripts and he is frequently Celebrated for it, by the learned Valesius almost in every page of that learned mans Annotations on Eusebius and the Ecclesiastical Historians, publish’d by him:71 The late Mr. Hales of Eton (whom I mention’d) had likewise a very good Library;72 and so had Dr. Cosin (late Bishop of Dureslme) a considerable part of which I had agreed with him for my selfe, during his Exile abroad (as I can shew under his owne hand) but his late Daughter (sinc my Lady Garret) thought I had not offerd enough, and made difficulty in delivering them to me, ’til neere the time of his Majesties Restauration, and after that, the Deane her Father, becoming Bishop of that opulent See, bestow’d them on the Library there:73 But the Lord Primate Ushers was inferior to none, I have nam’d among the Clergie, for rare Manuscripts which a greate part of which (being brought out of Ireland, and left his son in law Sir Timothy Tyrrill) was disposed of, to give Bread to that incomparable Prælate, during the late fanatic war: Such as remain’d yet at Dubline, were preserv’d, and by a publique purse restord and placed in the Colledge Library of that Citty:74 I have already mention’d what Isaac Vossius brought over, that had ben his learnd Fathers, and many other Manuscripts, which Isaac had himselfe brought from Queene Christina out of Sweden, in Recompense of his honorarie, whilst he was invited thither, with Salmasius, Des Cartes, Blundel, and others by the Heroic and Royal Errant:75 But those Birds, as I sayd,

70 One apparent exception to this list of clerical libraries, whose inclusion at this point is justified by Evelyn’s (mistaken) view of its final destination, is the library of Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634; ODNB). Durdans House in Surrey (near Epsom) in fact was acquired by his son, Sir Robert Coke, who married Theophila Berkeley to whom it had been left by her mother, Elizabeth. The house and its extensive library descended to his nephew, George, earl of Berkeley (d. 1698) who was an original fellow of the Royal Society. See Hassall, A Catalogue of the Library of Sir Edward Coke. 71 Sir Henry Savile: see note 31. His notes on Eusebius were acknowledged by Henricus Valesius (Henri de Valois, Seigneur d’Orcé [1603–76]), whose edition of Eusebius Pamphilius, Ecclesiasticæ historiæ libri decem appeared in Paris in 1659 (Eve.b.56), 1688 and 1673. 72 John Hales (1584–1656; ODNB). Oxford Regius professor of Greek (1615–19) and fellow and bursar of Eton, he worked closely with Sir Henry Savile. During the Interregnum Hales was forced to sell his extensive library for £700, much less than its value. 73 See Evelyn’s letter to Cosin of 25 April 1652 (Letter 59) and Doyle, “John Cosin (1595–1672) as a Library Maker.” Lady Mary Gerard was Cosin’s daughter. This passage is omitted in the version sent to Pepys (Particular Friends, 201, n. 1). 74 Trinity College, Dublin; James Ussher (1581–1656). See Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, II, ii, 16–48; Barnard, “The Purchase of Archbishop Ussher’s Library in 1657”; Lawlor, “Primate Ussher’s Library before 1641”; and Colker, Trinity College Library Dublin: Descriptive Catalogue of the Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts. 75 See note 63. Vossius’s library was widely considered to be one of the greatest in private hands. When it was shipped to Holland, it comprised thirty-four cases of printed books and 762 manuscripts. See

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have taken their flight, and are gon: I forbeare to name the late Earle of Bristols and his kinds-mans Sir Kenelme Digbys Libraries, of more pompe, than intrinsique value, as chiefly consisting of Modern Poets, Romances, Chymical and Astrological Books, for I had the Catalogue in my possession, before they were dispos’d of, put into my hands by my Lord Danby, (then Treasurer) who desir’d me to give my opinion of them, which I faithfully did: As for those of Sir Kenhelmes, the Catalogue was printed; and most of them sold in Paris;76 as many better have lately ben in London: The Duke of Lauderdailes is yet intire, choicely bound, and to be sold by a Friend of mine, to whom they are pawn’d; but it comes far short of his Relations, the Lord Maitlands, which was certainely, the noblest and most Substantial, and accomplishd Library, that ever pass’d under the Speare, and it heartily Griev’d me to be-hold its limbs (like those of the chast Hippolytuts) separated, and torne from that so well chosen and compacted Body: The Earle of Angleseys,77 and several others since, (by I know not what invidious Fate) pass’d the same fortune, to what-ever Influence, and Constellation now reigning, malevolent to Books and Libraries, which can portend no good to the future Age: – And now, I have in good Earnest, don with Libraries, but yet not quite with Mr. Pepys: For I mention none of all these, as if I thought it necessary every private Gentlemans Study, should be made Common; but wish we had some more Communicative, and better furnish’d with good Books, in one of the greatest Citties of the Universe (London) and for that end, that a stately Portico, were so contriv’d at the West-End of St. Paules, as might support a

­Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum, II, i, 57–72, and BL Egerton 2260, ff 142r–80 and Add 1783, ff 17–53 for catalogues of its holding, and Katz, “Vossius and the English Biblical Critics,” 178. 76 See the description of the Paris auction of Digby’s books by Samuel Tuke (Add 78306: f 143 [12.2.1667]). Tuke describes buying books from this auction and from the library of Nicholas Fouquet for the children of Henry Howard, duke of Norfolk. 77 the libraries of the nobility: Evelyn describes discouraging Sir Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby from buying the library of George Digby, 2nd earl of Bristol, which had been largely assembled by Sir Kenelm Digby (Diary IV.126 and n. 3, and Letters 285 and 389, from which he takes this description of the library’s contents). This collection was sold with another on 19 April 1680 and catalogued as Bibliotheca Digbeiana (London, 1680). Sir Kenelm Digby had also made a large donation of manuscripts to the Bodleian (see Macray, Catalogi codicum … Kenelm Digby). Evelyn was a colleague of John Maitland, 2nd duke of Lauderdale (1616–82; ODNB), the owner of Ham House (where the library room survives). His library was sold in several sales beginning in 1687 (Bibliotheca selectissima, diversorum librorum, viz. theologicorum, historicorum, philologicorum, mathemat. &c. Plurimisque libris, gallicis, italicis, hispanicis adornata [London, 1687]) and Catalogus variorum librorum in linguis & facultatibus omnigenis insignium sive bibliotheca instructissima doctissimi cujusdam generosi nuperrime defuncti [London, 1690]). His “relation” is most likely to be Richard Maitland, 4th earl of Lauderdale (1653–95; ODNB) who went into exile and the sort of poverty that would have occasioned his selling his library “sub hasta” (see Catalogus librorum instructissimæ bibliothecæ nobilis cujusdam Scoto-Britanni in quavis lingua & facultate insignium [London, 1688]). Arthur Annesley, 1st earl of Angelsey (1614–86; ODNB), was believed to have the largest private library in England, comprising almost 30,000 volumes. It was sold in 1686 (Bibliotheca Angleseiana, sive Catalogus variorum librorum in quavis linguâ, & facultate insignium [London, 1686; in the 1687 library catalogue]). See Myers, Harris, and Mandelbrote, Under the Hammer, and Munby and Coral, British Book Sale Catalogues, 1676–1800.

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Palatine,78 capable of such a designe; and that every Company and Corporation of the Citty, every Apprentise at his Freedom, Assisted (at first) by a general Collection, throughout the Nation (a Copy of every Booke printed within the Citty, and Universities) did cast in their Symbols,79 for a present Stock, and a future ample Funde: But this we are to expect, when Kings are Philosophers, or Philosophers Kings: which I think may happen, not during this, but in Platos Revolution – All that I shall Add, concerning Gentlemens being furnish’d, with competent Libraries, and for most part, Residing in Towne, is, how obliging a thing it were, and of infinite Effect, to the promoting a noble Usefull (lesse Mechanic) Conversation of Learned Gentlemen; If, as there is a Society for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, and, which was fit should be First (since Things were before Words) so there were an Academie, for that of Arts and Improvement of Speaking and Writing well;80 of which sort, there are (you know) some in Paris, and almost in every considerable Citty of Italy, which go-under the Devises of La Crusca, Humoristi, Insensati, etc. As that of the Beaux Esprits in France, set-up by the late Greate Cardinal de Richlieu,81 for the Polishing, and Inriching of the Language, publishing those many accurate Pieces, which it has from time to time produc’d: It is in these Assemblies, where a select Number of learned men (persons of the first qualitie) not onely come to heare, but esteeme it an honour to have their Ingenious Exercises, passe the Test and Censure of so many Civil and polish’d Witts: And all the Apparatus for this, is onely the Use of one competent Roome in the Gentlemans house, where there are Chaires and a Table, where the Person who Declaimes being seated, with a little more Eminency (like the Roman Rostra)82 and choosing his Subject in Prose, or Verse; Recites, or Reads his Composures before the Company: This, for being but one halfe-day or Afternoone in the Weeke, and Retiring in due time houre, is of very little Inconveniencey to the Master of the House: Here it is, I say, Gentlemen, and Scholars bring their Compositions Essays, Poëms, Translations, and other Oratorious-Prolusions, upon a thousand curious Subjects; Here they

78 Palatine: palatial building, and possibly also an allusion to the great Heidelberg library, in Rome since 1623. No such library was established at St Paul’s, but Evelyn’s subsequent encouragement of a public library in St James’s under the care of Richard Bentley (see Letter 747) points to the continuity of these concerns, and recalls his own early promotion of creating libraries in his translation of Naudé, Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library (1661). 79 their contributions, in support of this public deposit library 80 As res precedes verbum, the founding of the Royal Society precedes any attempt to launch an academy to cultivate the arts of language. 81 The cultural rivalry with France, already implied in the contrast between Paris and London libraries, reemerges in this argument for an English academy. Evelyn had visited the Accademia degli Umoristi when he was in Rome in 1645 and commented on its interest in “the purity of the Italian tongue” (Diary II.364). His account of the Accademia della Crusca (Diary II.415–16) derives from Balthasar de Monconys, Journal des Voyages (1665–6). Cardinal Richelieu’s Académie française (sometimes the Académie des Beaux Esprits) was granted letters patent by Louis XIII in 1635. Its statutes prescribed that “la principale fonction de l’Académie sera de travailler avec tout le soin et toute la diligence possible à donner des règles certaines à notre langue et à la rendre pure, éloquente et capable de traiter les arts et les sciences.” At this time it was nearing completion of its dictionary. The first volume of Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie française appeared in 1687; the complete text was published in 1694. 82 the platform for public speeches in the Roman forum

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give Law to Words, and Phrases and the Norma Loquendi:83 These passe Censure, and bring Authors to the Touch, Reject or Entertaine and Indenizon Exotics: And I neede not inlarge the To to Mr. Pepys, the Benefit, and noblenesse of Such Assemblies, who has himselfe, seene what Illustrious Persons, us’d to honor Monsieur Justell;84 how many greate Dukes, and blew-ribbons,85 Ambassadors, as well as Bishops, Abbots, Præsidents, and other learned men, and Travellers this brought together into Conversation, the most humane and obliging in the World; and how86 exceedingly it were to be Wish’d, some noble and worthy Gentleman would give a Diversion to,87 so becoming and usefully obliging Entertaining it would be: We should not then have so many crude insulse, and fulsome Rhapsodies impos’d upon the English World, for Genuine Witt, Language, and the Stage, as well as on the Auditors and Spectators, which would be purg’d from things Intollerable: It would, Inflame, Inspire, and Kindle another Genius, and Tourn of Writing, with Nervous, natural strength and Beauty, Genuine and of our owne growth, without always Borrowing and filching from our Neighbours: And indeede such was once Design’d since the Restauration of Charles the Second, [RM: 1665] and in order to it three or fowre Meetings, were begun at Grays-Inn, by Mr. Cowley, Dr. Sprat, Mr. Waller, the Duke of Buckingham, Matthew Clifford,88 Mr. Dryden and some other Promoters of it:89 But by the Death of the incomparable Mr. Cowley, Distance, and Inconvenience of the Place, the Contagion, then scatte and other Circumstances intervening, it crumbl’d away, and came to Nothing: What Straw I had gather’d towards the Bricks for that intended Pyramid (having the honour to be admitted an inferior Labourer) you may Command, and dispose of, if you can suffer my Impertinences; and, that already I have not shew’d you, the Plan I drew, and was laying before them for that designe: Which was (I said) the polishing of the English Tongue, and to be one of the first Intentions, and chiefest Subjects of the Academists90 – And now for shame, have don! – Mithinks I heare 83 rules or norms of speaking 84 Pepys had visited Paris in 1669, and had met Justel there. For Justel’s situation in France before his departure for England in 1681 see Treasure, “The French Background and the English Refuge of Henri Justel.” 85 A blue-ribbon is the highest badge of honour, as in the order of the garter. 86 The passage beginning “how many greate Dukes” is omitted from the version sent to Pepys (Particular Friends, 203, n. 2). 87 turn his mind to 88 Martin Clifford (c.1624–77; ODNB), master of the Charterhouse (1671) and author of A Treatise of Humane Reason (London, 1674) 89 Noting that “there were several persons of the society, whose genius was very proper and inclined to improve the English tongue, and partly for philosophical purposes,” in December 1664 the Royal Society had established a committee for “improving the English language” chaired by Sir Peter Wyche, which met in January in his rooms at Gray’s Inn (see Birch, History of the Royal Society, I, 499). It had twenty-two members, including those noted by Evelyn. Evelyn’s ideals, as articulated here, may not have corresponded to those of some of the other fellows. At the meeting of 18 January, “it was ordered, that Dr. Wilkins meet the first time (at least) with the committee” in order to convey the sense of the council that its aim be “chiefly to improve the philosophy of the language” (Birch, History of the Royal Society, II, 7). See Emerson, “John Dryden and a British Academy.” 90 Evelyn was unable to participate regularly because of his work as a commissioner for the sick and wounded, but sent Letter 247. He attached the proposals he had made in this letter to the original version of Letter 622 to Pepys of 1 October 1689 (Add 78314: f 70 [1.10.1689]).

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you Cry-out, what a Ramble has Mr. Evelyn made! What a deale of Ground, for so little Game! You Well; you see, what the Setting-up an Empty Noddle has produc’t, what a deale of Inke is run to wast! And indeede I had ben Criminaly un-Answerable, of Detriment to the Publique (as well as to your owne Repose) should I have dar’d to debauch you, with so Tedious, and Intemperate a Scribble, whilst you were not sui juris your Owne Man: But, if (for all that), this prove an Affliction also (as I have cause to apprehend, it may) the onely Expedient to rid your selfe of such Impertinents, will be to ­Assume your late buisy, and honorable Charge againe;91 when no man can be so Impudently Uncivile, as to expect you should Reade his Long Letters, when he Considers how many you will be then Oblig’d to Write:92 Says-Court 12 August. 1689 4 September.1689.93

Susanna Draper, née Evelyn Letter 620 (617) August 14, 1689 f 63r–v

Epistle DCXVII To my Daughter Susanna at Tunbridge.1

Child, I was (you may imagine) in no small fret, when I heard you were perswaded to abandon your selfe to the Waters,2 as to put off all thoughts of your Pencil,3 ’til your coming home 91 Pepys had been dismissed as secretary of the Admiralty in February, 1689 (Diary IV.644, n. 1). He defended himself in his Memoires relating to the state of the Royal Navy (Diary V.24) but was imprisoned on 25 June and released on 14 July. Evelyn’s change of mind about the date of his letter suggests that he had forgotten the dates in this chain of events when he copied the letter. 92 Pepys responded on 30 August (Particular Friends, C48, 205): “And such is the giveing a due Answer in the inestimable Honour and Favour of your Letter of this Day, and soe much the less estimable, by that alone for which you would censure it, its Length; as containeing, in lesse than 5 pages, what would cost me 5 volumes reading from any other Hand but Mr Evelin’s.” 93 The version sent to Pepys concludes with a paragraph on the verso of the final leaf in praise of “Lucretia Cornaro” (i.e., Elena Lucrezia Cornaro Piscopia, 1646–84), the first woman to be awarded a doctorate, also mentioned in the earlier catalogue, note 10 (Particular Friends, 204 and n. 5). 1 Tunbridge Wells was still the fashionable resort for medicinal bathing and drinking. Like Bath later, it also had a reputation for indiscretions. 2 She had been invited to join her brother John Jr and his wife who had gone there for the sake of his health (Add 78301: f 36 [11.8.1689]). Her letter to her mother of 26 August refers to this letter and includes an account of meeting Daniel Parke (1699–1710), a distant cousin who had been living in Virginia (see ­Letter 698 and Letter 705) and of her own painting and collecting (Add 78433: f 16 [26.8.1689]). 3 drawing

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againe; not that I would have coursed you to use any exercise prejudicial to your health, in case you found the Waters proper for you; but because seriously I did not conceive there was any necessity of your drinking them at all, being radicated in the opinion; that young and temperate people are no jot the better for using them, but rather suffer such pressures by them, and alterations, as nature (in a state of competent health) dos not require: In all Events, I cannot imagine the drawing of a few lines one quarter of an hour now and then (upon your days of Intermission)4 will at all concerne you: I am sure not so much disorder you, as the writing of letters which employ the head, as well as the hand: nor is it (you know) the doing of much at once, which makes the progresse; but the Constant little: For (you know) ’twas said of that Apelles ariv’d at his excellency: That he let no day passe without a line:5 The Gazet6 speakes of an Auction of Pictures expos’d at Tunbridge: What can there be but Trash! If you find any faire prints worth having, you may purchase: However dont quite abandon the Crayons Shall Walk, and Talke, and fatal Rustle, Thyne Ingenuity all bustle? Drink, Dresse, and Dice, and damned Daunce, Now we have Warrs with pagan France, From Morne’ to Night take up thy Time, So as thou hast none to Designe? Ô Wiccked Wells, Good Child, come home, And fall againe to Point7 and Loome: If thou forget Chromatique pencil, And then to words again do wincell,8 Far-better Thou hads’t learn’d to Spin, Than ever Tunbridge to have seene.

And so I have spent all my Diræ and Iræ,9 and give you, and your kind Sister,10 (both my Deare Children) my Blessing:

Deptford11 14 August 1689

4 It was not the practice to bathe every day. 5 Pliny the Elder derived the proverb nulla dies sine linea (no day without a line) from the working habits of the 4th c BC painter, Apelles. See Pliny, Historia Naturalis 35.36 and Junius, The Literature of Classical Art, II, 33. 6 The London Gazette, no. 2476 (5 August–8 August, 1689): “A Collection of Curious Prints, Paintings and Limnings, with many other Curiosities and Artificial Rarities, will be sold by Auction at TunbridgeWells for the Diversion of the Gentlemen and Ladies, on Tuesday next the 13th of this Instant, as also the remaining days of that Week, at Mary’s Tea-house by the Lower-Walks near the Wells.” 7 Designe: draw; point: needlepoint 8 probably “winkle” (also spelled wincle), as in the sense of “to pick out”: if so an unrecorded early use of this word as a verb 9 curses and rages 10 Martha Evelyn, Susanna’s sister-in-law 11 Susanna was there with her sister-in-law, Martha. Her reply (to her mother) of 29 July is in Add 78433: f 8 [29.7.1689]. Her letter of 5 August gives an interesting account of the life there and indicates that she has begun drawing (Add 78433: f 10 [5.8.1689]).

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Jael Boscawen Letter 621 (618) [n.d.]#1 ff 63v–4

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXVIII To Madame Boscawen at Cranburn Lodge.

I could not deferr the Acknowledgement of your so kind Letter (yesterday receiv’d) nor can any thing come to this place more acceptable, than the Confirmation of your health at Cranburn, which we heartily wish the continuance of; and particularly, that my pretty Country-man2 were quit of his Ague (if it might be Gods will) before the farther enterance into the approching Season: We are here much in the state you left us. My Wife having now and then (though seldome) any more of those Symptoms we feared, would determine in some paralytic ataque: I have my selfe ben under some unusual Indispositions of late: But what has an old-man to Complaine of, whom God has bless’d with so many Yeares of extraordinary health? And I blesse him for it: As to our passing the next Winter in Towne, divers Circumstances make us yet deliberate; nor is it the least, that yours may be uncertaine: I have very rarely ben from home of late; but now that I have gotten a paire of new Coach-horses, and a new-man3 to drive them (who promises he will dring [sic] no brandy such as killd his predecessor, my otherwise, honnest and faithful Servant) I shall indeavour to give you a Visite in due time: Meane-while, we continue in this Monastrie employed as we use to be: Reading, Working, Painting etc. as well content as They, – who Dresse, and Drole, and Play – I have now one question to Aske of my best Friend: I think, I have heard Mr. Boscaw­en4 mention an Mr. V.D.B.5 – who died some yeares since: Do you know the Gentleman his

1 after 22 August (see note 15) 2 Francis Godolphin seems to have been at Deptford in the summer of 1689 as his aunt Jael refers to his having “a grateful remembrance of the place,” and Evelyn refers to his visit there in a draft letter on the reverse of her letter of 4 June (Add 78309: f 105–6v [4.6.1689]). 3 Evelyn’s previous coachman died on 8 May 1686 (Diary IV.511). The new coachman was to win £40 in the lottery in 1693 (Diary V.158). 4 Edward Boscawen (1628–c.86; Diary, H). Originally of Worthevall in Cornwall, Boscawen was a rich Turkey merchant and MP for Truro from 1660 to 1681. He married Jael Godolphin c.1665. 5 probably Abraham [Van de] Bemde, whose daughter Mary had married William, Lord O’Brien in 1684. His son, John [Van de] Bemde (c.1655–c.1726), had expressed interest in Evelyn’s daughter Susanna earlier in 1689.

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Son,6 or any body that can informe you of his Person, Disposition, and Circumstances? I have heard there was a very handsome Estate in the Family, and that his Father gave £20000 with his Sister Daughter in Marriage to my Lord B. but that by the old-mans fate, Imprudence, the Fortune is since greately incumberd: ’Tis pretended there remaines yet a competent part free, and that the young Gentleman is without exception, and we [word deleted] here (who infinitely more value Vertue, than Riches, without it) would, with sobriety, and good-qualities, be contented with a reasonable Mediocrity; and a more discreete, and every way Virtuous, Ingenious, and good child, has no body to bestow; and therfore would place her well, if it be possible, in this corrupt, and untoward Age: I dare affirme, it is your owne care for one,7 who comes-behind none in all Perfections, and is every-day in my good Wishes: Pray, write me something upon this Chapter: I neede not say to you let this be yet a seacret betweene us. My most humble service to Dr. Godolphin.8 I rejoice at what you tell me of Massie.9 I send him my best Benediction, nor forget I Mr. Hugo:10 I looke for a Relation of what Voyages and Discoveries they have made in their Argo, and the ship they saild with from hence:11 For John Taylor,12 the famous Water-poet, went from London to Quinborow13 in a Paper-boate; and though this was by Water; yet the Chinezes they say, Saile by Land:14 Well raillery apart: Dr. Tenison came downe, and gave me a Visite, a whole Afternoone; what could have ben more kindly don! But as for my Lady Sunderland15 (though this was the last place she did honor to, when she Embark’d ) we have not receiv’d one line from her since she went: I am un-willing to be the first to Reproch her Ladyship (who is commonly so exact and nice upon me) but pray scrape a little of my Resentiment into the next dose you send her. I am most faithfully Yours

6 Evelyn obviously thought the son a possible husband for Susanna. By May 1691, he had come into ­information which caused him to reconsider (see Letter 645 and note 2). 7 probably Dorothy Boscawen 8 Henry Godolphin 9 Francis Godolphin  10 Hugh Boscawen 11 See Letters 627 and 633 to Francis Godolphin, mock-epic accounts of his journey to Cornwall.  12 John Taylor (1578–1653; ODNB) was a waterman and prolific poet and is sometimes claimed to be the father of nonsense poetry in English. 13 Queenborough on the Medway near its mouth at Sheerness  14 In Paradise Lost III.438–9, Milton compares the fallen angels to “Chineses [who] drive / With sails and winds their cany wagons light.” Evelyn could have known this invention from Milton’s poem (a 1668 copy of the first edition is listed in the 1687 library catalogue) or from Fernão Mendes Pinto, The ­Voyages and Adventures ... in the kingdoms of Ethiopia, China ... Japan (London, 1653; in the 1687 library ­catalogue, marked “perlegi,” and Evelyn Library, no 1012).  15 Anne Spencer left England for Holland on 22 August (Diary IV.647).

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Samuel Pepys Letter 622 (619) October 1, 1689# f 64

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXIX To Mr. Pepys etc.1

I had newly ben Reading Aristotles Book Περὶ τη̃ς μαντικη̃ς2 etc. or Divination by Dreames (which you know succeedes his other Treatises de Anima, Memoria, and Reminiscentia)3 when the very night after, mithought my Friend Mr. Pepys, and I were (amongst other things) discoursing in his Library, about the Ceremonious part of Conversation, and Visites of Forme among well-bred-persons, and I distinctly Remember, that I told him (what is true, and no Dreame) that the late Earle of St. Albans4 (Unkle I meane, to Henry Germin,5 the present Earle of Dover) tooke extraordinary care at Paris, that his young Nephew should learne (by-heart) all the Formes of Encounter and Addresses, such as the Latine, perhaps, would expresse by verba honestatis, and the French (if I mistake not, who are Masters and give the Rules of Compliment to Excesse) L’Etregens [RM: Entrjens]: As upon occasion of giving, or taking the Walle (as we call it) sitting downe, Entering in, or Going out at the doore; takingleave at parting, l’Entretiene de la Ruelle and other encounters a la Cavillere among the Ladys etc. In all which, never was person more adroit, than my late Neighbour, the Marquis de Ruvigne,6 even unto foure-score (nor lesse, that truely honnete homme his son, whom I love with all my heart) – And indeede the Italians and Spaniards exceede us infinitely in this point of Good-breeding; nay I observe generaly, that our Women of Quality often put us to Ô Lord Madame! when we have nothing to Reply: ’Tis literaly true, that I have seen two Ramuneus7 de Chiminée Angliè, Chimney-sweepers little dirty Boys of the Black-Guard; meete, and Acost each-other in perfect forme – But quorsum hæc?8 (a little patience) – I was never in my Life subject to Night-Visions ’til of late, that I seldome passe without some Reverie which verifies that of St. Peter (cited from the prophet) that your Old-men shall dreame dreames;9 and so you will shortly give me over for a Dotard, should I continue to interrupt you thus with my Impertinences: I will onely tell you, that my Wife (who is of a 1 Particular Friends, C49, 206–10. The original of this letter is Add 78314: ff 70–1 (4.10.1689) and is dated 4 October. 2 i.e., Περὶ τη̃ς καθ᾽ ὕπνον μαντικη̃ς (De Divinatione per Somnum) in Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia (462b–4b) 3 Evelyn used Aristotelis opera omnia quæ extant, Græcè & Latinè (Paris, 1654; Eve.c.15). It is first in the list of his philosophical books in the 1687 Library Catalogue. 4 Henry Jermyn, earl of St Albans (1605–84; ODNB) 5 Henry Jermyn, 3rd Baron Jermyn and Jacobite earl of Dover (1636–1708; ODNB) 6 Henri de Massue, 1st marquis de Ruvigny had died on 26 July 1689 (see Diary IV.523, n. 1 and 649, n. 5). He lived at Greenwich. He was the father of Henri de Massue, earl of Galway and 2nd marquis de Ruvigny (1648–1720; ODNB). 7 chimney sweeper; the proper form is ramoneur; This is a favorite anecdote: see his Character of England, 44–5. 8 What’s the point of this? 9 Acts 2:17

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much more Sedate Temper, and often Dreaming) has now and then, diverted me with stories, that hung as orderly together, as if they had been studied Narratives; some of which (for their extraordinary prittinesse) I have formerly made her write-downe, very seldome broken, or Inconsistent (such as are commonly mine) but such as the Peripatetic10 meanes, where he says quieto sanguine fiunt pura somnia:11 Comparing those other Confus’d Dreames, to the Resemblances which the Circles, of disturb’d, and agitated Waters reflect, that blend, and Confound the Species, and present us with Centaurs and terrible Specters; whilst the Calmer Fountaine, gives us the the intire Image (as it did Narcissus in the Fable) and entertaine us with our waking Thoughts: What could be said more Explicit of the Cause of this vanity of Dreames? which he, as well as Hippocrates,12 and others from them, attribute to the Crasis,13 and Constitution of the Body and Complexions domineering, with other Perturbations affecting the phansy? But leaving these to the learned Oneirocritics, I make use of it no farther, than to let you see, how often you are in my best, and Severest Thoughts and when I am far from Dreaming; Amici de Amicis certa sæpe somniant ερωτικὸς ἐν ερωτι:14 And if the subject of my extravagant Phantasme (which was a Dialogue with you about Formes of Speaking upon Ceremonious Occasions) naturaly leading me to something which I lately mention’d, where I spake of Academies, and the Refining of our Language, have not already quite tired-out your Patience. I would Entertaine you here, with a Copy of what I sent to our Chaire-man,15 some yeares since, as an Appendage to my former Letter, and as you Injoyne me: I Conceive the Reason, both of Additions to etc.

Se Letter to Sir Peter Wiche. Letter 24516

Anne Spencer Letter 623 (620) January 12, 1690 f 64v

Says-Court 1 October. 1689

Epistle DCXX To the Countess of Sunderland.

Madame, I much question whither in any Age or Place of this habitable World, there is to be found more convincing Instances of the Mutability and uncertainty of humane Affaires, 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Aristotle “When the blood is at rest, pure dreams happen.” Aristotle, “On Dreams,” Parva Naturalia, 461a. Hippocrates, “Regimen IV or Dreams,” Works, LCL, IV, 421–47. a blending of humours “Friends often dream about friends, lovers of their beloved.” Sir Peter Wyche Letter 247 to Sir Peter Wyche (20 June 1665). The remainder of the original version of the letter (Add 78314: f 70) is based on the proposals for linguistic reform in this earlier letter.

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than in this little fragment of it. To Assigne the Causes of these Effects, I undertake not, nor were it the subject of a Letter, but of a Volume, and would become the Inquiry not onely of States-men, but of Divines, Historians, Physitians and Natural-Philosophers too; since I think there were Argument to Employ all their Learning and Experience, And, I will suppose a large Chapter upon each of these heads, to be material, and usefully Entertaining: After a Prorogation of some Angry-men (of which I lately gave your Ladyship an Account) it is now at length (and as usually) brought to a dissolution, in order to the Election and meeting of another Parliament:1 But of whose Temper, we can yet make no Judgement, ’til it be seene of what Ingredients it is like to consist: And you will [discover?] this when you shall understand I am but just now, come from Mr. Boile,2 whom (upon my Lady Bristols3 describing to me, under what an Indisposition of body Mr. Florival4 labours) I have ben Consulting; the Effects whereoff I send to your Ladyship by another Expresse: – As to your motion upon this surprizing change of the publique Affaires, ’til another comes (for indeede, all is Proteus5 here, nothing that keepes its shape fowre and twenty houres) your Ladyship will best determine, by taking the Advise of such your Friends here, as are neerer the Resorts and Springs of Buisinesse than I am, or pretend to be: The moderate (and I think) wiser Church of England men, seeme to have the suffrages of most I converse withall, and those of the higher straine, are expecting their Turne, whilst the morose and and discontented party, are not unactive, but labour to come-in Senators againe: how the Balance at last will fall, Time will discover: The Marquis of Halifax6 has (as you will heare) deliverd up the Seales; but ’tis not yet sayd who shall suceede him: There have ben discourses of my Lord Dartmoths7 being Admiral, but certainely without good ground or appearance; nor are every body so Confident of the Irish Expedition, that the Conquest there will be so soone dispatch’d: Madame, thus far I have play’d the Sir Politique,8 but will detaine your Ladyship no longer with the Crudities of Madame your etc. London 12 January 1689/90

1 Parliament had been prorogued on 27 January, and dissolved on 6 February. William had announced his decision to lead an expedition to Ireland in his speech to parliament on 27 January (Diary V.4, n. 1). The new Parliament met on 20 March. 2 Robert Boyle 3 Anne Digby 4 Pierre Flournois. Evelyn refers to him in the diary as “one Florival of Geneva” (V.322). De Beer is ­mistaken in thinking that Charles Spencer’s tutor was Dr Charles Trimnell, the domestic chaplain. 5 changeable 6 George Savile, lord privy seal, who surrendered the seal on 8 February 1690 7 George Legge, who had been stripped of his command of the fleet on 10 January 1689. 8 From Sir Politic Would-Be in Ben Jonson’s, Volpone (1640 ed. of Jonson’s works in the 1687 library catalogue)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys Letter 624 (621) January 20, 1690#1 f 64v

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Epistle DCXXI To Mr. Pepys etc.

Sir, I have Seene, and Perus’d certaine Memoires, relating to the Navy-Royal of England for Ten-Yeares past2 etc. and am so thoroughly convinc’d of the Truth of every Period; both to what has ben don to in order to the extricating of it out of the Ruinous Circumstances, under which it then labourd, and Improvement it has since received, by the Integrity, Prudence, Courage, and Industrie of the Person3 who has written it, and his Collegues: That as I Judge no man on Earth so fit to Restore the Navy (and consequently, the best, and onely strength, under God, of this Nation) now in all Appearance, hastning to as deplorable (if not to a Worse Condition) so, should he decline, to set his hand to its Recovery againe, the Fate, and Preservation of his Country (than which nothing ought to be more deare so depending) being thereto required: He ought to be Animadverted on, as a Betrayer of it: I forbeare to who it is I meane, but Ita Testor, and do you guesse: Says-Court 20 January 1689/90

Robert Berkeley Letter 625 (622) January 26, 1690#1 f 65

Epistle DCCXXII To Mistress Packer: To Robert Berkeley Esquire of Specchley Worcestershire

Sir, It is not possible I should omitt so just and favourable an Opportunity (as this of Mrs. Packers Journey into Worcester-shire)2 with of presenting my Wifes, and my most humble 1 Particular Friends, D4, 219. The original version is dated 17 June 1690. This letter is clearly misdated and out of order. The date of the original version fits with the internal chronology of the correspondence and the events. The original is in the form of a statement rather than a letter. 2 Memoires relating to the state of the Royal Navy of England, for ten years, determin’d December 1688 (London, 1690). 3 Samuel Pepys 1 This letter may be misdated by one year. Berkeley’s reply to Evelyn of the same date (Add 15857: f 54 [26.1.1690]) is endorsed 26 January 90/1. 2 Isabel Packer, wife of Evelyn’s friend Philip Packer, was Robert Berkeley’s aunt.

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Services to Mr. Berkeley and his Lady;3 and by Reiterating my greate Acknowledgments, for the Favours you have heaped on me, so little meriting, and so uncapable of making you any Returne in proportion to what I have received: I am sure Mrs. Packer will testifie how greate, and distinct a value I retaine of your Vertue, and of the honour you do me in allowing me any share of your Esteeme: You will by hers learne all the Concernes of this Sooty, giddy, quarter, and how exceedingly fortunate you are, that your Lot is fall’n to be in so delicious a Recesse, and so remote from this empty, though noisy, World: Sir, I do not envie the Blessing, but Emulate it; and may you long Enjoy what you know so nobly to Cultivate and Improve: I assure you Sir, I oft delight my-selfe in Contemplation of that, to which I can superadd nothing but my hearty wishes I were in any sort able to do you some little Service, were there any roome left to Accomplish the Happinesse you enjoy, who am Sir Your etc. London 26 January. 1690

Anne Spencer Letter 626 (623) February 1, 1690 f 65

Epistle DCXXIII To the Countesse of Sunderland.

Madame, As I was extreamely Anxious, ’til I heard from your Ladyship, so I was no-lesse overjoy’d when I did, and that you were not onely safely ariv’d, but settld (once againe) so much to your Content, as you could be wish to be, ’til you are where you desire, and deserve to be: Your owne paradisian Home:1 In the meane time, it cannot be but that one, who has pass’d-through such variety of Life, and Fortune (and can make such those profitable Reflections of all the Circumstances, as your Ladyship) must be pleased even with the many very Speculation of the greatest Satisfaction, you will one-day and (as I hope shortly) receive of your having with so much Courage, and Christian Fortitude born, and surmounted all your Afflictions, and through the wise providence of God, more to your Advantage, than if you had stil enjoy’d the greatest outward Prosperity of the World: So difficult a thing it is to take a true Estimate of our owne Vertue and perfections, when we meete with no trials and occasions of Exercising them: But these are lessons I neede

3 Elizabeth Burnet 1 Anne Spencer and her husband Robert Spencer, earl of Sunderland, were in Holland, where Spencer had fled at the end of 1688. Evelyn imagines them restored to Althorp, their “paradisian Home.”

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not suggest to your Ladyship: I am heartily glad you have so excellent a person2 in your Family, as you write me word of, and of whom Dr. Tenison has given me a Character: My Wife (who most humbly presents her Service to your Ladyship) is not, I thank God, as yet much sensible of being worse in her health; but I hope, Improving rather, and thinkes herselfe very happy Mrs. Soulemont3 answers your Ladyships expectation, and favour, and kind expressions of it: I was lately in Towne, but miss’d of my Lady Clancartie:4 I exceedingly rejoice at the progresse of my Lord Spencer5 and his so laudable Curiosity: Amsterdam is a place of much Variety, but Utrecht (where you are) I think much healthier: Let my most humble duty be presented to my Lord Sunderland, from Madame Your etc. Says-Court 1 February. 1689/0

Francis Godolphin Letter 627 (624) April 4, 1690 f 65r–v

Epistle DCXXIV To my Deare Child Francis Godolphin1

My Deare Child, Dos so naturaly, prettily, and particularly describe Sunning-hill2 and Cranburn,3 that I conjure him to oblige me with a Diarie of his perigrination into Cornwalle; that he give me an Account of the most remarkable Places, and Curiosities he meetes with: The Lakes, Rivers and Mountaines, Wildernesses, Dens, Wild-Beasts and Monsters, and what manner of Creatures, the Miners and Tin-men are; and what Spirits (beside Brandie) they meete

2 Charles Trimnell (1663–1723; ODNB). Trimnell (Oxford BA 1685, MA 1689) had become chaplain to the earl of Sunderland on Thomas Tenison’s recommendation. He was subsequently bishop of Norwich and of Winchester. 3 Mrs Soulemont. She appears, as Elizabeth Solmon, going to Holland with Lady Sunderland in 1689 (CSP Dom. 1689:223), and is presumably the subject of Lady Sunderland’s letter to Evelyn on 6 August 1689 (Add 78679: f 132 [6.8.1689]). 4 Elizabeth MacCarty 5 Charles Spencer 1 Francis, son of Margaret and Sidney Godolphin, was eleven years old. 2 Sunninghill Park, Berkshire, was the home of Sir Thomas Draper (1660–1703; Diary), the uncle of Evelyn’s future son-in-law, William Draper (c.1665–1718; Diary). A letter from Jael Boscawen to Evelyn on 20 July refers to Francis’s being “much pleas’d with his travels” (Add 78309: f 107 [20.8.1690]). 3 Cranbourn Lodge in Windsor Great Park, then owned by Francis’s father

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with underground: The native and antient Language of the Country, and make a Nomenclator4 of all the Cornish Words he can heare of and write them downe; that he describe Birds, Trees, and Plants; Citties, Castles, Steeples, Palaces, and especialy Godolphin how situated: The Libraries, Pictures, Antiquities and to be sure, the Church of Breague, and that he will drop a Teare for me, on the Ashes of a Deare Saint there, whose memorie is most precious to Gran-papà And ah, how willingly should I now have made A Pilgrimage to that bless’d shrine! And neere her Urne, have placed mine: Since there, when ’ere from hence I part, At Breage (my Deare) you’l find my Heart.

And so, God Almighty Blesse my Deare Child, send him (Unkle Sir William,5 Doctor,6 Aunts,7 Misse Dol,8 Squire Hugo,9 and all the goodly Traine) safe back againe. Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine Cunctos ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui10 London 4 Aprill.1690

Samuel Pepys Letter 628 (625) April 7, 1690# ff 65v–6

Epistle DCXXV To Samuell Pepys Esquire1

Sir, I have many Ingredients by me towards a lawfull Excuse, and to Justifie my not waiting upon you all this while: But that I had no sooner return’d you the Doctors Booke,

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

nomenclature, i.e., dictionary or word-list Sir William Godolphin Henry Godolphin Jael Boscawen, Penelope Godolphin Dorothy Boscawen Hugh Boscawen “By what sweet charm I know not the native land draws all men nor allows them to forget her.” Ovid, Ex Ponto 1.3.35-6 (Wheeler, trans)

1 Particular Friends, D2, 213–15. The original (dated 26 February) is Pepys Library 2421, and is bound into Pepys’s copy of Locke’s Essay.

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[LM:  Dr. Luck]2 let the Author be Accountable, who has Baited and Entertain’d me with so rare, and extraordinary a Piece, that ’twas not possible for me to dismisse him at once Reading: And if I be not thoroughly Convinc’d, that there has nothing appear’d (to me at least) written with so much force, upon the Subject which he handles, I am content you deliver me up to a fore-lorn Condition as to Sense and Reason. I must yet ingenuously Confesse, my Apprehensions, least some Advantage might have ben taken by the Admirers of our Men of Malmesburie,3 and some pretenders of Des Cartes to the prejudice of Religion (notwithstanding all that Gassendus4 has produc’d)[.] But I soone found (with no small satisfaction) my selfe Convinc’d to the Contrary; nor know I of any, even amongst our most learned Theologues, who have vindicated, and asserted the existence of Almighty-God in all his Attributes, with more solid and incontestable Arguments: In the meane-time, I was not so much in paine, that supposing, nay Assenting (with that no lesse pious, than learned Prelate,5 whom I mention’d to you) that the knowledge of a Deity, was not connatural to our Soules, through any In-bred Notion ab initio,6 that she came into the world Rasa Tabula,7 without the least Print or Character on her (unlese we had Assurance of her Præexistence) for which Reason (whatever Crimes contracted, God might please to connive at for a time, ’til the Use of Reason, Deduction, and Complex Ideäs should render men without Excuse) we find no man charged with their Ignorance of him upon that Account; being men cannot reasonably ground their knowledge of his Existence upon Selfe-Evidence: For who shall Convince a person that either denys, or doubts it, by telling him, he must believe it, because it is Selfe-Evident, when he him-selfe knows, that he onely and eo nomine,8 Doubts, or dos not Believe, because ’tis not Selfe-Evident? I say, supposing this to be so (as I believe)[.] Yet, that God is, will be aboundantly Apparent by Connexion to other Truths, and every-days Phænomena (hinted by the Apostle)9 their depending on Inferior Beings, leading us Irresistibly to the Supreme Independent Being, or Nature of Infinite Perfection, the powerful Cause of all other Beings whatsoever: And, in this Sense of our Doctor, Thus the Doctor Angellical: Deus (says Aquinas) est suum Esse, sed quia nos non scimus de Deo quid est: Non est nobis per se notus [sic],

2 John Locke, An Essay concerning Humane Understanding (London, 1690). Evelyn first notes “Mr. Lock an excellent learned Gent: & student of Christ-Church” (Diary III.628) on 24 October 1672, when Locke, then in the household of Anthony Ashley Cooper, became clerk and later secretary and treasurer to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Locke had been elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1668, and Evelyn must also have met him in this context. 3 Thomas Hobbes and his followers 4 Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) was a reviver of Epicurus’s atomism. He was also known to Evelyn as the author of Viri illustris N. C. Fabricii de Peiresc ... vita (Paris, 1641), a biography of Peiresc, translated by William Rand and dedicated to Evelyn. 5 probably William Lloyd, the bishop of St Asaph with whom Evelyn dined on 19 February. The original of this letter was written on 26 February. 6 from the beginning 7 a blank slate 8 in his own name 9 Paul, Hebrews 11:1: “faith is the evidence of things not seen”

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sed indiget demonstrari per ea quæ sunt magis nota, quoäd nos, et minus nota, quoad Naturam, scilicet per Effectus.10 There are other incomparable Notions Sprinkled throughout the Doctors Book, concerning the Nature of the Soule, Spirits, Chaine of Creatures (happly, Indued with qualities, Sense, and Abodes, totaly un-known to us) of Time, Duration and Eternity; of Space and Extension, Matter and Bodies; Substances, and Substantial formes: The Use of Words in relation to Ideäs, Rhetoric and Scholastic Science, which he worthily Explodes, as of no manner Advantage to Use-full knowledge Learning, yet (to this day) so fruite-lessely retain’d in our Universities: Celebrates the stupendious operations of Algebra, Mathematical-Arts, and Experimental Philosophy; And, that All we know, or are Capable to know, is the pure Result of the Species and Objects, which we Receive, and Take-in by Ministrie of our Senses; simple Ideäs, so deriv’d from Sensations and Reflections, though the Boundaries of all we know; yet, such as is able to produce Infinite variety of Complex-ones; and all this, without the least prejudice to what we ought to conceive of God, and other Immaterial Beings: He treates of Virtue, and Vice, the Summum Bonum, of Truths and Demonstration: Describes the Measures of Probabilitie: Of the Resurrection, Divine Revelation and where Faith takes place of Reason: of Indulging, Amplifying and Inlarging the Christian Empire and communion; freeing it from the narrow and slavish Circumstances under which it universally suffers: In a Word, the Worke speakes the Author to be of a Cleare and Subacted Judgement: Free, and manly Thoughts, conducted with greate Modesty: The Style is as natural and perspicuous, as so sublime and noble a Subject is capable of; Explaining Metaphysical Notions, Strip’t of that Jargon and gibbrish of the idle Cloister: In short, I looke upon it, as what may serve for Institution, as well as Instruction, in the most Necessary, and the least-Understoodpart of real Philosophie, as far as our Attainements can pretend, in this Umbratile state: And now, though I should not have presum’d to say halfe this to Mr. Pepys, had he not oblig’d me to Returne his Booke with my Thoughts of it; I am perswaded the Worke will Live, and Obtaine, and Deserves to do so, and that (when you have perus’d it) your you will Concurr with in your Suffrage, with Sir Your etc. So-hoo-Square 7 April. 1690

10 “God is his own existence. But because what it is to be God is not evident to us, the proposition is not self-evident to us, and needs to be made evident. This is done my means of things which, though less evident in themselves are, nevertheless, more evident to us, by means, namely, of God’s effects.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Iq.2, a.1 (trans. McDermott)

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Flower Hyde Letter 629 (626) June 16, 1690 ff 66–7v

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Epistle DCXXVI To My Lady etc. Clarendon

Madame You send to me for the Kalendar; I tell you againe ’tis not yet come from the lazy Printers,1 and if it were, what can it teach you, that you and that My noble [words deleted] Lord,2 dos not know? There is, I tell you, nothing in it worth his notice, but an old Inclination to an Innocent Diversion; and the Acceptance the Trifle found, with my deare and (whilst he liv’d) too partial Friend Mr. Cowley,3 upon whose Reputation onely it has surviv’d Seaven Impressions4 and is now entering on the Eight, with some small Improvements, more agreeable to the present Curiositie: For ’tis now almost 40 yeares, since first I writ it, when Horticulture was not in that Ascendent in our Country, and neere 30, since first ’twas publish’d: which Consideration (will I hope) excuse its many defects: If in the meane time, it deserve the Name of Usefull, ’tis all, and more than it can chalenge, amongst so many more usefull Directions as are now extant: Indeede, when so many yeares past, I came from Rambling Abroad, had Observ’d a little 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 commonly hangs in most young-mens hands) to the best advantage: And when Books, and severer studies grew tedious (and other Impertinences would be pressing) by what innocent deceit, I might sometimes relieve my-selfe, without Compliances to Recreations I tooke no felicity in (because they did not contribute to any Improvement of the Mind): Then I first set my selfe on Planting Trees, and brought forth my Sylva,5

1 The eighth edition of Kalendarium Hortense was not published until 1691. The publishers were Richard Chiswell, with Richard Bently and Thomas Sawbridge. Evelyn had previously presented Flower Hyde with the 1679 edition of Sylva, the first to include Cowley’s poem “The Garden.” Evelyn seems to have written a poetic dedication to Lady Clarendon in his presentation copy of that edition to her. In his reply (1 May 1679) to her letter of thanks (30 March 1679), in which she describes herself as a “Rural Mechanick,” he refers to her “not as a Weeder, or inferior Labourer; but an Intelligence.” Add 78317: ff 139–40 (30.3.1679; 1.5.1679). Lady Clarendon’s letter is 140r; Evelyn’s reply 139v. This letter also exists in another form dated 4 August (Add 78309: f 69 [4.8.1690]). This version, however, is addressed to Anne Spencer, and differs in its references to the Spencers and Althorp. 2 Henry Hyde 3 Abraham Cowley 4 i.e., in Kalendarium Hortense (1664–83) 5 1664

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which Booke, Infinitely beyond my expectations, is now calling for a fourth Impression; and has ben the occasion of propagating many Millions of use-full Timber-Trees through his Majesties Dominions, as I may justifie (without Imodestie) from the many Letters, and some publish’d Accknowledgements, Receiv’d from Gentlemen of the First quality, and others, altogether Strangers to me: His late Majestie Charles 2d, 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 Woods, which the greedy Rebells had wasted, and made such havock of: Upon this Encouragement I was once speaking to a Greate Man,6 (then in despotic-power) to signifie the greate Inclination I had to serve his Majestie in a little Office (then vacant) the salary not considerable, to the merite of publique Benefit, whose province was to Inspect the Timber-trees, in his Majesties Forests, and take care of their Culture and Improvement: But this was conferrd upon another,7 who I believe, had seldome ben out of the Smoke of London; where though there was a vast deale of Timber, there was not many Trees: I confesse I had an Inclynation to the Employment upon a publique Account, as well as for its being suitable to my Rural Genius, Borne (as I was) at Wotton in Surry, among the Woods: A litle after this happn’d the direfull Conflagration of the Citty, when taking notice of our want of Books of Architecture in the English tongue, I publish those Usefull directions of Ten of the best Authors on that Subject, whose workes were very rarely to be had, all of them written in French, Latine, or Italian, and so not Intelligible to our Workemen Mechanics: What the Fruit of that Labour and Cost has been (for the Sculptures8 were accurate, and very chargeable) the greate Improvement of our Work-men, and several Impressions of my Copy since will testifie.9 In this Method, I thought best to begin with planting of Trees; because they would require Time for Growth, and to be advancing to Delight, and Shade at least, and were therefore by no meanes to be neglected and deferr’d; whilst Buildings might be raised, and finish’d in a Summer or two, if the Owners please, and had purse to do it: Thus Madame, I endeavord to do my Country some little Services, in as natural an Order as I could, for the Improving and Adorning their Seates and Dwellings, and, if possible, make them in love with with these usefull and Innocent delights, in Exchange of a wast-full and Ignoble sloth, which I had observed so universaly corrupted on Ingenuous Education: To these I therefor Added my little History of Chalcographie,10 Perfection of Painting,11 Bibliotheque,12 with some other Intermesses, which might divert within-dores, as well as altogether Without – And now Madame, can you forgive this tedious excursion? I hope you will: But, suppose, I thinke my-selfe (after so many Years, as now your Ladyship has now borne my Impertinences) obligd to render you an Account of the Time I have spent, which I acknowledge, should have ben Employd on better things: But my noble Lord (you tell me) sends for my Gardning-Horne-book,13 and that has train’d me into this Boasting fit:

6 7 8 9

Thomas Clifford Sir Charles Harbord engravings A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern was first published in 1664, two years before the Great Fire, and reissued in 1680.  10 Sculptura (London, 1662) 11 An Idea of the Perfection of Painting (London, 1668)  12 Evelyn’s translation of Gabriel Naudé’s Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library (London, 1661)  13 probably Kalendarium Hortense

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Pardon, deare Madame, the Foly, and Presumption: It shall be a warning to me: But I had a strong Impulse to Entertaine your Ladyship with something of lesse Morose, and Melancholy, than indeede the Times and Circumstances we are fall’n into, Suggest; and especialy because your Ladyship acquaints me how often you Recite my Friends Poemes, and the greate honor he did me, in that which you tell me is above all others your Favorite: Will you againe forgive me, If I send you, what I Return’d (poore repent poetaster) to one who was wont to (as your Ladyship dos) to beare with my Follies14 1.

Ah happy, happier far, And borne under a happier star, Than Crowned Heads, and Princes are! Were I, like Cowley, Arbiter Of my owne Life, And could at once breake from [insert: shake-off ] those gilded Toies, To tast thy well-describ’d, and solid Joyes, With such a Wife, And such a Friend! the Conversation were a Blisse That would transcend, all this mistaken World calls Happinesse!

2.

Who could indeede, with thy divine Art plant, Might of that celebrated Science Vaunt, Which thou Ascribs’t to me, Who scarse the Names of Herbs alone do know, Thou skills’t the Vertues of their Juice, And how they in their Causes grow; And cans’t prescribe their Sovraine Use, And wondrous Sympathie: Let Men with n’ere such Indus’trie the plot, For various Simples dig, and Sow, [LM: 2 Reg.4] Unlesse into’t the Meale some Prophet throw15 (Poets are Prophets too) Death still is in the pot. Unlesse to Art, Experience also joine Art’s but Imposture, how so’ere it shine: Experience Art, and Nature can Refine, And Wonders can produce, and things divine: Thus Chirons skill, and Orpheus16 in thee meete, Who every point dost hit, and use-full mixe with sweete. 14 See Letter 279 (24 August 1666) to Abraham Cowley for an earlier version of this Pindaric, originally composed in response to Cowley’s “The Garden.” It is also included in Add 78357: 27v–8v. 15 2 Kings 4:41 16 Chiron was the centaur who educated Jason, the leader of the Argonauts, whose search for the golden fleece Evelyn cites in the concluding lines of the poem.

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

3.

Should the Almighty now cause to *descend [RM: *for some hold paradise was in the Moone] Those Bles’t Abodes againe, And Man to Cultivate them without paine; Whilst He were destitute of Such a Friend, As well could Counsel him his thoughts to bend On the stupendous Workes of the Creation, And wisely to Improve the Speculation: He would be Tempted, as before, To Tast, and to know something more: And He age’n Would Fall, ag’en would sinn: For ’tis not Trees, or Plants, make Paradise, But Prudence, how on those, well to Philosophise.

4.

Ah! Blest Abodes! (like thine) when they did Teach Wisdome in Gardens, and in Gardens preach! [RM: v. Agellum:]17 When to Cephisian18 Walkes the Ladys came Invited by Learn’d Mantinica’s name; Who in th’Umbeliferous Academie Taught Men low pleasures to Defy! If they did presse To courte the faire Pythagoresse, [RM: Porphyrius de Vita Proclo]19 How would they crow’d to heare thee speake, Who art a living Vocal Bibliotheque? Whose learned Conversation can, Make every place a Tusculan;20 And every bank, and every streame Parnassus-Top, and Hippocrene: Eternal Spring there never Wants, There all the Flowers are Amaranths: Which on thine owne smooth brows Temple sit, Decree’d Dictator of Pindaris Wit: Whilst thou in Numbers un-confin’d Free as thy selfe, Greate as thy Mind: (Fettr’d in slavish Rhymes of late) Didst all our Poets boldly [insert: bravely] Emancipate: 17 Aulus Gellius 18 from Cephisia, the fashionable resort made famous by Aulus Gellius in his Noctes Atticae 19 Porphyry (234–c.305 AD) wrote lives of Plotinus and Pythagoras, but no biography of Proclus, who lived after him. 20 Cicero’s villa at Tusculanum.

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5.

May others Skill in Plants and Herbs Impart, Thou, thine owne Garden Art, And Gard’ner too, and dost produce The fragrant’st Flowers for Sent, the sweetest Fruits for Juice Where every Grove, and evry shade, Is of a Tree of Knowledge made, Which Men may Touch, and Tast without offence, Secur’d by thyne Exemplar Innocence: Gardens our Poets do inspire, Thalia21 is the Garden Muse: To Gardens Lovers oft retire: Ah, who would not the Garden choose, Where the first Friendships of the World were made knit And where (if any still on Earth remaine) ’tis yet!

6.

Under thy Chertsean Platane,22 free From Noysie Worldes, ambitious Care And empty Shew, I’d rather Sup upon a Leafe, I sweare, Alone with thee, Than Feast ’mongst all the Apician23 crue, Who Surfeit on our healthfulle Toile, And a whole Garden at a Collation Spoile; Without one Graine of Sense, or Wit, (That Salt of Life, as well as Health) Though they had all the World can boast, of Cheere and Wealth.

7.

Earths Heaven! If in lesse Than Heaven it selfe, be ought of Happinesse, ’Tis here, ’Tis here (my Friend) where Vertues move The Senses; which unguarded, Traytors prove; And Natures Gifts betray, and we polute The Sweetest Flowers, poyson the wholesom’st Fruit: A Garden is a Consecrated place, Where the first Covenant of Grace Was with our parents made, ’Til Sinn did chace

21 the muse of comedy 22 The Clarendon estate, Swallowfield, was in Berkshire near Chertsey. “Platane” is the newly introduced plane tree. 23 luxurious in reference to food, usually derived from M. Govius Apicius of the 1st century AD

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn Them thence: And there it is, un-happy men May hope to Gaine that Bliss-full state agen: When like my Cowley, they do wisely choose Ægypt, for Canaan, to loose: Who then the Sweetes of Life sets out to seeke Let him his Argo steere to this happy safe Creeke: He Colchas, nor the rugged seas Needs tempt, here, here’s Hesperides. Says-Court June 16 – 1690

Samuel Pepys Letter 630 (627) June 21, 1690# f 68r–v

Epistle DCXXVII To __ __ __1

Sir, When I Reflect on (as who can but Reflect) upon what you sent me this Morning; so many, and so different Passions, crowded themselves upon me, that I knew not which first to give vent to: Indignation, Pitty, Sorrow, Contempt, Anger, Love, Esteeme, Admiration: All that can expresse the most Natural and generous Resent’ments for the greatest Ingratitude Imaginable, take place in me, on the behalfe of an Injur’d Person. With what Indignation, for the Folly of these men;2 Pitty of their Ignorance, Griefe and Contempt of their Malice and Ingratitude do I looke upon, and neglect them! On the other side, In what Tyes of Love, and Esteeme and just Admiration ought we to Reguard him, who has the Courage to Expose himselfe to all these Sufferings, with so undaunted a Resolution! Because his Innocence, and Merit will not onely Justifie him to all his Delators and all the World, but Indeare him to his abus’d Country, when sensible of their Condition, and the Injuries some Envious-men have don him: I say not this to flatter him, nor needs he my Comfort, or Counsel, who has within him, and of his owne to support him: It would go very Ill with me else, of the same Thoughts, and Principles, and such as I hope become an honest-man: And now, after all this, againe, when I reflect on the Persons; I am so far from being displeasd concern’d that these Malevolents so unjustly provoke him my Friend; that I think they could not have contriv’d any thing more to his honor, and 1 Particular Friends, D3, 216–18. The original version is endorsed “June 11.1690. Mr Evelin to Mr Pepys upon occasion of Mr Pepys’s communicateing to him his Memoires of the Navy” (Particular Friends, 216, n. 1). 2 i.e., those responsible for Pepys’s imprisonment. See the diary entry for 10 June 1690 (V.24). He was in custody for three months. Pepys had resigned his position as secretary for Admiralty Affairs in February 1689, when William came to the throne.

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to their own Reproch: So Reasonable, so every way Ingenuous, in so just and generous a style; In a word so Consummate is that excellent Remonstrance, and so Un-contestably Vouch’d! This sir, is my Opinion of it, and I value my-selfe upon my Judgement [word deleted], that it must stand like a Rock, and dash in pieces all the Efforts of Spite-full men, who Envie his vertue, and worth, and thinke to justifie thire want of both, and the Condition they have reduc’d things to, by endeavoring seacretly to under-mine him, whilst they dare not come to any one particular, though they have the most favourable Conjuncture for it imaginable: I affirme, and boldly say againe, that who ever shall hereafter be the Compiler of an honest History of this Nation (this prodigious and wonderfull Revolution, as far at least, as concernes the imports its most material Concerne) has already the most shining and Illustrious part adjusted to his hand; If there be, any of that profession (History-Writers, I meane) who in this deprav’d Age (or any other) dare do Right to Truth: Be the Event, as it pleases God; unlesse men will pluck-out their owne Eyes, or shut them against the Sun at noone; It must be Acknowledg’d, He, has stood in the breach, when the Safety of the whole Nation was in uttmost perille: And by whose Counsell, Prudence and, Industrie and Experience, as it was once, so can it otherwise yet (in all appearance) be hard’ly Resolv’d from the same danger, more fatal to it. Don’t imagine I speake a big me so vaine as to think my Friend capable of being oblig’d by being flatterd what I say, or taken with Magnificent Sounds: I have no such wretched designe, and he knows me better: But, I have deepely, and sadly consider’d, the state in which we are, and that no personal Resentiments or Reflections of un-gratefull men whatsoever, ought to cancel our Endeavors to Support and Relieve it, whatever Victimes we make with Honour and a good Conscience: Wherefore Sir, I cannot but Magnifie and Approve, what he has so prudently, and so maturely prepard, and resolv’d to publish: And, I confesse, the just Timing of that, is with me (as with your selfe) the onely considerable which remaines: For (as you note) It would might now looke, as if he had ben afraid it should Appeare, ’til our New Kings back were turn’d, and he on his Expedition into Ireland:3 And should he attend ’til the next sitting of Parliament. That he did it to Conciliate Friends, and prevent what he feared of his Foes. In this straite, what were best for him to do? Why, in my poore Opinion, what he himselfe Resolves to do, namely, to publish it, now, whilst the King is yet here, the Parliament yet sitting; his Enemies yet in power have all the papers and Vochers he Appeales to: Unlesse he should think fit, to take in the Advise of my Lord __ __,4 whom I doubt not but you’l alow to be a person, that (however he had ben prevaild on, to comply in some particulars, ’til he may decently extricate himselfe) is now at liberty, and has at all times (to my certaine knowledge) the very same honest-sentiments with our Friend: And as to what concernes this particular; No man of a more solid, and steady Judgement, of greater discernment, and upon whose Integrity he may Repose: I have no more to Add, but that I am Your etc. Deptford: 21 June – 1690

3 In a letter of 8 July 1690 (Old Style: the New Style date being 18 July) John Evelyn Jr wrote of the ­victory at the Boyne and that “the business in Ireland is as good as done” (Add 78301: f 39 [8.7.1690]). 4 Sidney Godolphin

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Anne Spencer Letter 631 (628) July 23, 1690#1 f 68v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXXVIII To the Countess of Sunderland

Madame, I had prepar’d a Letter to Congratulate my young Lords2 and your Ladyships and all your illustrious Families happy Arival, and Returne to Althorp; when just as I was writing, came the sad tidings of the Death of that Excellent Lady, your Daughter, the Countesse of Arran; which struck such a damp in me, that I was forc’d to breake-off from a Gratefull Subject, to Condole with your Ladyship, and those whom I thought it my Obligation to Endeavor the Comforting: And this was the more Afflicting, that after such Assurances of her Ladyships perfect Recovery (upon which I was meditating to write to your Ladyship) this fatal Newes should should dash our Hopes againe, without any reserve: But so is the Will of God, and this the Constitution of all-things here; no true Satisfaction, no permanent Felicity to be found on this side Heaven, whatever other Circumstances of Happinesse (as far as wee can reckon any such thing, in the power of this world, to give us) may seeme to promise of more lastingnesse and stabilitie; ’tis all but a seeming, a meere shew and false Appearance: For either the things which we hope to Enjoy, are taken from us, and perish in the Fruition; or we are taken from them, when we thinke our-selves most secure: Surely, If in this life any thing were desirable, the having, and the leaving Virtuous, and Gracious Children behind us (such as might be examples of Virtue, Adorne, and Improve the Age) were to be esteem’d the most valuable of Blessings: But as such Blessings are rare, so when God bestowes them, they are soonest taken from us againe: They can no more live in so corrupt an Age than a healthfull Body in a vitiated Aire: What then are we to do, when we loose them? Not to consider them as Lost, but happily Absent: Madame, You know how easy ’twere to say Aboundance of fine things on this Subject: No Topique more fruitfull: But what’s all this? The Wound is deepe, and in a sensible part; and though Time and Reason mitigate the present Smart; I cannot say, it has heald what I oftentimes suffer, when the losse of some deare Children and Friends come into my thoughts: One, onely consideration remaines, that (as I said) they are so far from being Lost, or Dead, that they Live, and are now Immortal, and would not for all the world, be with us againe: Why then Grieve we for them? Why, plainely for our-selves, whom we love more than God, whose will it is we should part with them, and whatever he pleases to take from us heere, and Depend on him alone, who alone will never faile, never

1 Anne Spencer’s letter about the death of her daughter, Anne Douglas, is dated 22 July (Add 78309: f 67 [22.7.1690]), which suggests that this letter may be misdated. Her reply to him prompted a long letter on the history of his involvement with gardening on 4 August 1690 (Add 78309: f 69 (4.8.1690) and in part in Diary [1887] III.317–19]. This letter contains much of the material (including the poem) used in Letter 629 to Flower Hyde. 2 Charles Spencer

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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forsake us, but give us that which shall never be taken from us: Live we then Madame in this Religious Indifference, and Resignation: But still God has not left your Ladyship without those Blessings: He has but, in part, Eclips’t, and rather Borrowd for a while, than taken them away: Besides, my Lord your Husband, whom you have seene Restored (and, which to see so, you esteem’d so greate a Mercy) you have a Daughter,3 and a Son, who are, and ought to be all that you can Wish, or Desire in Children; and Him will Almighty God preserve: In both you will see the Fruits of your pious Care, and Reward of your Submission to the will of God, and receive all the discipline you have past-through, as a greater Mark of his Favour and Love, than if you had never Suffer’d the least checq or diminution of your former prosperity: This I am so well perswaded of you feele already; how ever now (by this Lugubrous Accident, as by others sometime Interrupted) that I would not exchange your inward Consolation, for the Returne of all those external fugitives (you once injoyed) to be depriv’d of this: Madame, this is a Seacret known onely to those who feele it, which, since I am sure you do, I leave you to that God who gives it, who is your Stay, your Refuge; and may be all that you can want and desire to supply this Losse, and more than you can wish. Says-Court 23 July 1690

Thomas Tenison Letter 632 (629) August 4, 1690 f 69

Epistle DCXXIX To Dr. Tenison

Worthy Sir, The greate desire I have to Improve your kind Inclinations towards Mr. Stringfellow, of whose Abillities, and Qualifications to serve the Church, in the station you some time propos’d; makes one hope, that (after your Approbation of his Preaching, and the Testimonie of those who know how suitable his Conversation is to his Doctrine) you do not forget so excellent a Man: I have heard your *Tabernacle [RM: *now Trinity-Church] is now in some forwardnesse; and though I have never positively told Mr. Stilling fleet1 he might certainely Depend upon his Remove from that pernicious Aer and sink of the Citty, so ’tis his humble Health, which I so earnestly recommend to your favour, and charity; for so I am sure he will reckon his Translation to a better Aer, and my selfe infinitely Obliged to you, who am Reverend Doctor etc. your Says Court 4 August. – 1690

3 Elizabeth MacCarty, née Spencer 1 a mistake of Stillingfleet for Strengfellow

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Francis Godolphin Letter 633 (630)1 August 9, 1690 f 69r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXXX To my Deare Child Francis Godolphin

[RM: Son to my Lord now 11 yeare old] Never did Ulysses Aldrovandus Ulysses2 who writ of Birds, Beast and Fishes, Men, MerMaids and Monsters; no nor Ulysses of Ithaca Multorum mores homines qui vidit, et

1 Francis’s account of his travels, and a draft of this letter are Add 78307: f 135 [5.7.1690] and f 136 [9.8.1690]. 2 In the letter Evelyn plays with the parallels between Francis Godolphin’s journey to Cornwall (Tregorthnam, Tregunnel, and Boscawen are Cornish place names), the wanderings of Ulysses (and the many ­commentaries on it), modern attempts to revive the Olympic games, schoolmasters’ use of Homer for teaching grammar, and modern books of travels. Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605) was a natural historian who published on birds (Ornithologiæ ... libri XII [Bologna 1599]), fish (De Piscibus libri v. [Bologna, 1613]), animals (De quadrupedibus solidipedibus [Bologna, 1616]), and monsters (Monstrorum Historia [Bologna, 1642]). An anthology of his work was published in 1642 (Paralipomena ... Historiae omnium animalium quæ in voluminibus Aldrouandi desiderantur, etc.). By 1690, however, he was regarded as an outdated and pedantic anthologizer. His namesake, Ulysses, is described by Horace (Ars Poetica, 142) as one who “mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes” (“who saw the wide world, its ways and cities all,” Fairclough trans.), a paraphrase of the opening of the Odyssey. For this he became known as a boaster, like the Pyrgopolinices (braggart about captured towns) that Plautus exposes in his Miles Gloriosus, or Braggadocchio, the cowardly braggart in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. Evelyn’s comparison of Ulysses’s adventures to contemporary English life is probably a joke at the expense of the attempt by Robert Dover to revive the Olympic Games in the Cotswolds in the early seventeenth century (commemorated in the Annalia Dubrensia. Vpon the yeerely celebration of Mr. Robert Douers Olimpick games vpon Cotswold-hills [London, 1636]) and revived after 1660. It featured a harpist dressed as Homer. Evelyn uses these associations to mock schoolmasters (didascals), their assistants (hypodidascals), and vapulantes (flogging schoolmasters). Aristarck-Asses is a pun on Aristarchus ­(c.216–144 BC), the librarian at Alexandria (and by-word for pedant). Homer is thereby reduced to a grammar lesson of aspers (diacritical marks), aorists (simple past tenses), and barytons (words not ­accented on the last syllable). Francis, on the other hand, has flown as if he had Mercury’s slippers on his feet and outdone even the 70-year-old William Camden. In his accounts of his travels Francis also surpasses the ancient geographers: Pomponius Mela, De situ orbis (Basle, 1576 edition in the 1687 library catalogue); Claudius Ptolomaeus, De Geographia (Basle, 1533; Evelyn Library, no 1222); Strabo, Geographica (Amsterdam, 1652 edition in the 1687 library catalogue); Antoninus, Itinerarium Provinciarum (Lyon, c.1545; Evelyn Library, no 36); Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerarium D. Beniaminis: cum versione & notis Constantini L’Empereur (Leiden, 1633; Evelyn Library, no 121); Julius Caesar (multiple editions including Amsterdam, 1621 and 1670). And if Francis is better than the ancients, he is certainly better than such moderns as Thomas Coryate (1577?–1617; ODNB), author of Thomas Coryate, travailer for the English wits … From the court of the great mogul resident at the towne of Asmere, in the Easterne India (London, 1616; in the 1687 library catalogue) and Coryats Crudities, (London, 1611); or John Ogilby (1600–76;

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Urbes, in all his ten-yeares Errors and Ramblings (himselfe so transmogrified at his Returne, as no living Creature knew him, for but his old Dog) and for so that all the World has for above 3000 yeares cryed-up for so renoun’d a Leg-stretcher; I say, neither of these, have ever left to posterity, such an Account of his Travells, as my deare Grandchild has don: For that Pyrgopolinices Braggodoccios stories (what ever they pretend) are all damn’d Lyes; sung about by one Homer, an old Blind, squalid Ballad-Singer: who with a Bag-Piper and his Trull went roam’d about to the Wakes and Faires of Greece, and where the Country-Bumkins met at Foote-ball Matches, Pitching the Bar, and Cricket and Ninepins, for Cakes and Ale: And this was that thy cal’d th’Olympic Games forsooth, and make such a noise with in Storie, which our Didascals, Hypodidascals, Rascals, Aristark-Asses, Dominocriq Sir τύπτως,3 Magistri-Vapulantes and Tyrannical Grammaticasters, Scourge and torment poore Boys posteriors for; to get their paradigms, Aspers, Aorists, Barytons, and βοω̃ς4 and other horrid Vociferations by heart, as hard to get downe or up, as Tregorthnam, Tregunnel, Boscawen, the Confragose-Way twixt the Mount and Lands-End; which you have describ’d, with all the Rest of your Apodemics and Peregrinations in so short a time, as if you had flown with Mercuries pantofles at your Feete; and that so prettily, elegantly, exactly, and easily, as would have made our famous Camden himselfe, asham’d to see himselfe (Septagenarius) out-don, by one of Eleven: And this is no storie, or Tale of a Tub;5 but a true Historie so very well written, without deviation, and childish diverticles, during so tedious a Journey; that I am no lesse surpriz’d, than pleas’d with the Relation: Mithinks, whiles I was Reading it, I was Travelling with you, and saw the Citties, Palaces, Bridges, Rivers, Seas, Harbors, Mounts and Rocks and horrid Precipices, through which you have gon, and other remarkeable Adventures: So as I defie all the Pomponius’s, Melas, Ptolomies, Squit-eyd Strabos, Antardus’s, Benjamine Itinerarnts, nay Caesar himselfe to have describ’d their Travells halfe so well: Tom Coryat, and Ogilby were Coxcombs in compare with Massie, whom I glorie-in, and whose Ὁδοιπόρικον6 I shall preserve as a most Authentic piece of Historie among the Classics of my Bibliotheck; for one of its most estimable Volumes; and with ten-thousand Thanks and Blessings to him, for a Present, indeede for a Monument of his Early Wit, Judgment, and excellent Endowments, and which (after all I have merily prefac’d above) I know he will take in serious-part, and proceede to Adorne and perfect more and more, that as he is the deserv’d Darling of his noble Father, and Learned Unkles; so he may (like them) be qualified to serve his Country, as a Man of honor: This I fore-see, and therefore Augure of my deare Grand-son, on whose Praise, and egregious Performances, I could Annales Condere,7 write a greate deale more, could I any longer deferr, the letting you know how

3 4 5 6 7

ODNB), whose Britannia (London, 1675) is listed in the 1687 library catalogue, as are his Tables of his measur’d roads (London, 1676) as well as his atlases of Africa (London, 1670), America (London, 1671) and Asia (London, 1673). beater ox (a difficult declension) a cock and bull story. Not surprisingly, Jael Boscawen reprimands Evelyn in a letter of 22 August for ­having “astonished him [Francis] with your hard words” (Add 78309: f 109 [22.8.1690]). guide-book to fashion a history: a reference to Tacitus’s Annales

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very Acceptable a Present, you have made me; or suffer this Opportunity to slip, of dispatching this by your Unkle Doctor8 this Morning, who tells me he shall be going towards Eaton tomorrow early: I am, my deare etc. I pray forget not to salute in my Name, your Heroical Συνοδοιπορος9 etc. Mr. Sir Hugo Raptim

Deptford 9 August – 1690

Henry Hyde Letter 634 (631) September 18, 1690 f 69v

Epistle DCXXXI To the Earle of Clarendon

My Lord, The least of the Favours which I have receiv’d from your Lordship (if any thing can be call’d little, which comes from so greate and generous a mind) may, and ought ever to be Accknowledg’d by me; but are never to be Repai’d to any Proportion: What then do I owe for all Accumulations; to which you have now added so kind an Invitation to Cornebery,1 and to Satisfactions so adequate to my most natural Inclinations: The Waiting on your Lordship, and my Lady2 (the best, and noblest of Friends) and the Enjoyment of the most Agreable Delights, that the Wisest Man would choose in the best of Times, much more in this Conjuncture:3 But, my Lord, as I have allwayes found it, there is still some-thing, that Interrupts the Accomplishments of my Happinesse, whene’re I fancy my-selfe the neerest to it: I should else not have ben thus long in paying a spontaneous personal dutie, to your Lordship. There are (my Lord) Two Impediments, which requiring my necessary Attendance here, will, I fore-see, exercise me with such uncertainties as to Time, that I cannot promise my-selfe the Blessing, which of all other, would be the most Acceptable 8 Henry Godolphin 9 fellow-traveller 1 Clarendon invited Evelyn to his estate at Charlbury in Oxfordshire in a letter of 3 September 1690, a letter in which he writes of Swallowfield that “the Plantation here pretends to be one of your eldest Children, and ... was designed by your selfe” (Add 78678: f 97 [3.9.1690]). A subsequent letter of 11 October refers again to “soe prosperous a Plantation as this is, made and caryed on by your Instructions” (Add 78678: f 99 [11.10.1690]). 2 Flower Hyde 3 On 24 July, Evelyn noted: “Mr. P: sent the next day to the Gate-house, & severall greate persons to the Towre, on suspicion of being affected to K. James: amongst which was my Lord Earle of Clarendon” ­(Diary V.27). Clarendon was re-arrested in 1691 (Diary V.41 and 60) during which time Evelyn was given a royal warrant (20 March 1691) to visit him (CSP Dom. May 1690–Oct. 1691: 317).

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to me: There is a Controversie4 betweene me and a person (well-known and no lesse obliged to your Lordship) which concernes me a thousand-pounds, which is to be heard, and Judged by the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury:5 it being a buisinesse under their Cognizance, and which I am in hopes (after long attendance) now at last to bring to some period before the End of this Moneth: And in the meane time, my good Brother calls earnestly for a promise I made him, of coming to him, to Wotton; he being now very Infirme, and, I suppose, desirous to Settle some Concernements of our Family:6 Dos your Lordship thinke any thing of lesse Moment, could stay me a moment from preventing even a flying-Coach to see Cornebery now you and my Lady are both there? Certainly, nothing: And since I ought to come when my Mind and Body are at intire Liberty, your Lordship will receive my Unfein’d Excuse, and the Regrett which accompanies it, for my being so Unfortunate at this time, in Hopes of a more Propitious, for I am, my most noble Lord, Your Lordships etc. London 18 September – 1690

Sidney Godolphin Letter 635 (632) September 20, 1690 ff 69v–70

Epistle DCXXXII To my Lord Godolphin

My Lord, I ever valued the profession of a Man of Honor, though but in Verbal Promise, above all Security: But when it comes Confirm’d under his hand and seale; then to be legaly obliging: And though (as the Saying is) Verba honestatis non obliquat,1 which in Court Construction, is no more than Your humble servant Sir – Yet, how would my Lord Absolve the Person, who (whilst in a certaine letter to one whom among so many Expressions of the most intimate Indearements a Friendship can be Establish’d) Adds this passage: (Remember, that from hence forth, I looke upon you, as the Depositorie of all my Concernes, 4 Evelyn probably alludes to a dispute with Sir Charles Porter who in 1687 had been appointed remembrancer of the first fruits and tenths while William Prettyman was suspended. Porter appears to have undertaken to make himself responsible for Prettyman’s debts, but after a series of meetings with the Treasury Board in 1690 he was finally (on 6 August) threatened with removal from the office unless he satisfied “John Evelyn concerning the debt owing to him by Mr. Pretyman” (Calendar of Treasury Books 1689–92: 767). See also Letter 589 to Porter. 5 Sidney Godolphin; Sir John Lowther; Richard Hampden; Thomas Pelham; Sir Stephen Fox 6 presumably alluding to the settlement of the estate, to which he was the heir-presumptive following the death of his nephew George, who died without male heirs. Both brothers believed, incorrectly, that their father had entailed the estate, and that George’s daughters would have to be compensated. 1 “the word of integrity does not turn away”

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to be wholy Guided, and directed by you etc.)2 is, I heare (and that from good hands) concluding on the greatest and most Important Concerne of his whole Life, and in which, his Friend is so much concern’d, who has ever lov’d him, above all Man-kind, and never ceas’d to pray for his happinesse, without so much as once mentioning of it to him. – Well, be it so – Res integra,3 All is still well, and you have no neede to Consult a GhostlyFather upon the Scrupule: For, whilst I understand you have made your Choice of a Lady4 so Transcendently like her Predecessor: Accomplish’d in all the Vertues and Ornaments, she was possess’d of; not onely my Consent must be Included in it, but my highest Approbation: [RM: upon report of his having married the Lady which did not prove true] There’s onely one thing yet which to render your happy Lady, not onely the Resemblance, but the very Prototype, of that Incomparable Saint; but her very-selfe, remaining: That she Accept of my humble Service; and Reguard me with some Distinguishing Grace for the sincere Honour and Affection, I have ever born to him, on whom she has placed hers so worthily – which is all the Merite I pleade; And so God Almighty, Give ye both Joy. Says-Court 20 September 1690

Samuel Pepys Letter 636 (633) October 2, 1690# f 70

Epistle DCXXXIII To Mr. Pepys etc.1

Sir, ’Tis now mithinks, so long since I saw my Friend, that I cannot but Inquire after his health: If he Aske what I am doing here so long? Sarcinam compono:2 I am making-up my Fardle of Impertinences, that I may march with the lesse Incumbrance:3 But harke you my Friend, Do you ever expect a more proper Conjuncture, than this approching Session, to do your-selfe Right, by publishing that4 which all good-men (who love and

2 another citation of Godolphin’s letter to Evelyn of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]) 3 “the matter is complete” 4 The ODNB notes another rumour of this marriage, but none happened. 1 Particular Friends, D6, 221. The original version is Houghton Library (Harvard) *64M-118 (dated 25 September), which concludes with a paragraph discussing a visit to Wotton to see his brother George “himselfe succumbing apace to Age and its Accidents” (221), but omits the second paragraph of the ­letterbook text. 2 “I pack up my bundle” 3 probably a reference to Evelyn’s dealing with Sir Charles Porter at this time with relation to William ­Prettyman’s debt to the Crown (Diary V.33 and n. 1) 4 Memoires relating to the state of the Royal navy of England for ten years ... 1688. (London, 1690).

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honor you) cannot but rejoice to see? You owe it to God, to the Nation, and to your-selfe, and therefore I conjure you seriously, Thinke of, and Resolve upon it: I dream’d last night (for you know, I have little else to entertaine you with for the most part, besides Dreames) that you sent me word you would dine with me to day: which, according to the Oneirocritics (or as Homer his ὀνειροπώλης)5 are to be Interpreted by the Contrary and by that Rule, I should Dine with Mr. Pepys which I believe will allmost succeed [?]: But since the times of Joseph and Daniel,6 I have found them oft mistaken, and the truth is, I am Ingag’d to dine at White-hall to day, though I assure you, I had rather eate a sallad on a Joynt-stoole with you, and Dr. Gale,7 than with all the pompe of Courts: This is no Complement upon my honest word, of Sir your etc. London 2d October. 1690.

Nicholas Crisp Jr1 Letter 637 (634) October 15, 1690 f 70

Epistle DCXXXIV To Sir Nicolas Crispe Knight etc.

Sir, Upon the difficulty you were pleas’d to make, of coming-up to the summ which I conceiv’d I might reasonably expect (for a Lease of so long a day) I have since made a more accurate Enquirie, whether I had ben so much mistaken, as to the value of the present Rent; which you already receive of the Tennants, as you (upon misinformation) believed I was: And I find, that they not onely yeild the Rent you named, but £25 per Annum more; Tyrring alone, payes you £30, Mr. Pitcher (if I am not mistaken) £13 and the Gardner (who rents the Ground and Meadow) £12 more, in all £55 besides the dwelling-house of Mr. Dods 13[,] Tennements and other Advantages: As it was not therefore Sir, without Consideration of your Merite and Pretence (as an antient Tennant) that I demanded such a Fine; so I presume you will not think me one un-reasonable, that I still Insist on what I first propos’d: A lease of that duration being (you know) little inferior than to an Inheritance. I Do not therefore, I beseech you, Conceive I treate you unkindly, if I assure you,

5 dreams 6 two Old Testament prophets associated with the interpretation of dreams 7 Thomas Gale 1 The son of Evelyn’s earlier correspondent, who had died in 1666. Crisp responded on 23 October (Add 78318: f 54 [23.10.1690]).

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that I heere often from those who would deale with me on more advantagious termes: Never the lesse, that you may not think me hard, or that I would not preferr you before any other whatsoever; I am content to abate, an hundred pounds, which, Considering how much more your present Rent exceedes what you were inform’d it did I hope will satisfie you and Mr. Herbert, that I deale (and as I am oblig’d to do) Generously with Generous persons, who am Sir your etc. Deptford 15 October. – 1690

Anne Digby Letter 638 (635) November 21, 1690 f 70v

Epistle DCXXV. To the Countesse of Bristol:

Madame, I am, you know, often with the Countesse of Clancartie,1 and your Ladyship may be sure, we as often discourse of your Concerne, as well as of hers: And when you, and my Lady Sunderland 2 receive some papers, she is sending your Ladyships I am perswaded you will not think it unreasonable they should be publish’d, as the likeliest meanes to discover the Truth; and if not altogether take-off, at least not alay the present Clamor,3 which is so publique and generaly believ’d: For my part, I am in Suspence, and can yet hardly believe him so very proflygate, as that (in the Circumstances he lies under, and how heavy it will be when the particulars are better known) he would persist to affirme things (and so positively) with so little concerne: The same confidence renders my Lady (his mother) much lesse dejected, and the confident that things are not so enormous, as Reports would make them: This Account I thought my selfe obligd to give your Ladyship who am Madame etc. Dover street 21 November – 1690

1 Elizabeth MacCarty 2 Anne Spencer’s daughter Elizabeth MacCarty, née Spencer, was married to Donough MacCarty. 3 Donough MacCarty had been taken prisoner at Cork on 28 September as was reported in the London Gazette, 6 October (Diary V.38, n. 1).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 639 (636) December 26, 1690 f 70v

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Epistle DCXXXVI To the Countess of Sunderland

Madame: We began our Festivitie, and anticipated Christmas here, with the Venison you sent us, and Celebration of our Benefactrice: May she long Injoy the greatest, and (I think) most desireable Blessing of Greatnesse, a Mind and a power to Oblige others: This felicity is peculiarly yours, and ’tis the noblest, and most divine: – I was the last Weeke to waite on the Countesse of Clancartie1 (to whom I had before deliver’d your Ladyships letter) who still Indulging to better hopes of my Lord, her son,2 than perhaps others do, thinks it hard, he should be denied the Conversation of my Lady, his Wife:3 ’Twas natural for me to Answer, that my Lord Sidny,4 being (duely expected) might probably give some more light to the clearing, and removing those objections, which has created all these difficulties, and that then their coming together, would be happy on all sides: Since this, his Lordship is arrived, but so taken-up with greate Persons above him; that I am watching an opportunity of doing you the Service you injoyne me. I may not conceale to your Ladyship that my Lady Clancartie has ben most earnest with me, to Induce your Ladyship to remit of the prejudice you have against her son so flagitiously wicced, as some would make him: But she complaines of his being indeed perverted, and Interrupted of his Education, and the Advantages he might have reaped under your Ladyships Government, and the Conversation he might have ben brought into, could she have pre have prevail’d, when time was. Some Apprehensions I also find in her Ladyship least her Son should be exchangd for some Considerable Prisoner abroad, which were (she thinks) to precipitate him into an irremediable Ruine both of Person and Estate, which the Conversation of his Wife, with the Assistance and Countenance of Friends, might be a meanes to prevent: These, and the like, are the expressions of a tender Mother, griev’d and imbitter’d with the Ruine, not onely of her son, but of his Family: I beseech you Madame, that you will take notice of what I write, that I may appeare to have faithfully discharg’d her Commands to Madame your etc. Dover street 26 December – 1690

1 Elizabeth MacCarty. Evelyn notes on 3 November: “Went to the Co: of Clancarty, to condole with her concerning her debauched & dissolut son, who had don so much mischief in Ireland, now taken & brought prisoner to the Toure” (Diary V.38). 2 Donough MacCarty, Anne Spencer’s son-in-law 3 Elizabeth MacCarty, née Spencer 4 Henry Sidney, 1st earl of Romney (1641–1704; ODNB). Sidney had accompanied William III to Ireland, and had fought at the Battle of the Boyne. He had been named one of the lords justices when William returned to England, and lord lieutenant in 1692.

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Charles Spencer Letter 640 (637) January 15, 1691 ff 70v–1

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXXXVII To my Lord Spencer:

My Lord I was going on to Chide your Lordship gently and kindly, and to pursue what in my last to yours in October, I had huddl’d-up in such hast; when an unexpected Accident allow’d me scarse time, to Reade what I had written to Reprove your Lordship, and to beg, that you will no more use me thus; make me the Subject of Panegyrique and of Praises, enough to raise an old-mans Blush, were he so vaine as to assume the least of them: You strew flowers that over-come me, and profuse your Oyntment – quorsum hæc perditio!1 Unlesse it be to Exercise your owne rich Talent, and shew the Richnesse of your Veine:2 Upon that Consideration alone, I allow the Fiction, Receive, and Reade your Eloquent and Charming Letters with Admiration, and the Progresse you daily make in all the parts of Erudition: I say, I was now (my Lord) going to Complaine of you, and with Reason; when the very moment I was writing came your learnd Dissertation,3 which had quite composed, and Reconcil’d the Quarell, but for that cruel Sentence, your Lordship would make me the Executioner of, and that upon a false suggestion (which no Law allowes) of not onely condemning the Innocent, but of destroying the Lovely-Offspring of so noble a Parent Ergone supremis potuit vox improba verbis Tam dirum mandare nefas? – Ergone sic periit Spenceris docta propago?4

Can your Lordship think me so barbarous? It would have even inrag’d Augustus againe, to doome those Papers to the flames- Et pati occidere, quibus æternitas d­ ebeatur:5 – – – No, no my noble Lord: The Treasure you have now sent me, is of more value, than thus

1 in what direction this ruin 2 In a letter to Mary Evelyn of 3 June 1691, Anne Spencer asks her to tell her husband that “my lord is grown troublesome from the wisedome he has gained out of his book of gardening” (Add 15889: f 108 [3.6.1691]). 3 This possibly refers to an early draught of Charles Spencer’s essay on the Battle of the Boyne which he presented to Evelyn later in 1691 (Add 78310). 4 “Was an unjust voice, then, able to command so terrible a crime with its final words? Thus, then, did the learned offspring of Spencer perish?” The first two lines derive from the verses sometimes attributed to Augustus, in overturning Virgil’s request that the unfinished Aeneid be destroyed. 5 “the saving of those who deserve immortality from sinking into oblivion.” Pliny, Epistulae 5.8.1 (Radice, trans)

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to be made Away: The Entertainement of your Tusculanum6 at Althrop, might render even Cicero himselfe jealous of the Glory, he has ben so many Ages in possession of: For what amongst all his famous Questions,7 find we discuss’d with more Solidity and subact Judgement, more Eloquence and Learning! In a word, your Lordship has determin’d the Cause: Macte Virtute:8 Go-on my Lord: You are in a noble and right way path, that will leade you to Thoughts and to things worthy your Illustrious Birth and Education; and they give presages of an happy Age to Succeede, when greate Persons shall (after your Example) apply themselves, to what will inable them to serve their Country usefully, both at Home and Abroad: Cicero and Caesar of old: The Seldens and Grotiuss,9 Consuls and Commanders: Orators and Emperors, Politicians and Jurisconsults, would rise-up at the name of a Sidny, and Spencer; and ah! how I exult, that I have liv’d, not onely to see the Day, but to have in possession what I so Infinitely esteeme: A Learned Work of my Lord Spencer dedicated to his Friend, a Title which I value to that degree, as to desire no greater honor (were it not indeede too greate a one) than when I am dead, I might conjecture have for Epitaph on my Tomb what, in memorie of Sir Philip Sidnie, Sir Fulk Grevile10 caus’d to be Ingraven on his. Here lies J. E. Friend of my Lord Spencers11 to Embalme and Immortalize my Name: I shall preserve your Papers my Lord as I would the Recover’d-Pieces of Polybius or Livie were they in my possession, and think myselfe Rich in Enjoying them – This my Lord I think of the Entertainement you have given me, and of the Author Adde quod12 – But I am tedious – Vale, et Gaude meum Decus, et Seculi:13 Dover street 15 January. – 1690/91



6 7 8 9

Ciceronian academy Cicero wrote no work entitled Questions. This is probably a reference to his Tusculan Disputations. Be blessed with merit. Examples of publicly engaged scholars, and a reference to Grotius’s Mare Liberum (Leiden, 1609; in the 1687 library catalogue) which was answered by Selden’s Mare Clausum (London, 1636; in the 1687 library catalogue).  10 Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke (1554–1628), the author of The Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1652). His epitaph was: Fulke Grevil Servant to Queene Elizabeth Councellor to King James and Frend to Sir Phillip Sydney. Trophaeum Peccati.  11 The Spencers were related to the earls of Leicester and the Sidneys, and hence, Evelyn suggests, both to the poets Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser.  12 add to that  13 “Farewell, and rejoice, my glory, and that of the age.”

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Thomas Osborne Letter 641 (638) February 4, 1691 f 71

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXXXVIII To the Marques of Caermarthen1

My Lord, I understand there is a Lease of 31 yeares added to the Life of her Majestie the Queene Dowager2 now passing the greate Seale for your Lordship in which there is Comprehended a smalle slip of ground, which his late Majestie (King Charles the 2d) was pleased to grant me (for the Accommodation of my poore Dwelling at Deptford) of which there remaines but 9 yeares un-expired: The whole containes but halfe an Aker, and one single roade joyning to my Court, and on which I have erected a Stable, and an out-house, which was before a noisome Ditch, which I filled-up, and have inclosed with a brick-wall. I humbly beseech your Lordship, to leave out inclos’d this poore fragment, that it may still go with what I hold of his Majestie, and for which (my Father in Law) Sir Richard Browne paied so considerable a Summ, after a nineteene Yeares Service and Exile (as your Lordship well knows) of the Crowne: This Favour I most humbly supplicate of your Lordship and do send my son to explaine it more particularly to you, being my-selfe detaind by a present Indisposition, who am My Lord your etc. Dover Street 4 February. – 1690/1

George Evelyn Letter 642 (639) February 23, 1691 f 71r–v

Epistle DCXXXIX To my Brother Evelyn:

Deare Brother, The uncertaine departure of Sir Charles Porter out of England (with whom you know, I then had a troublesome and tedious Concerne)1 put me by the full Resolution I had taken, 1 Osborne was created earl of Carmarthen in 1689 and was at this time effectively leader of the House of Lords and chief advisor to William III. He also had a tenancy for lands belonging to the crown on a 99-year lease (terminable on the death of Catherine of Braganza), lands that included Sayes Court. 2 Catherine of Braganza 1 See above, Letter 589 and Letter 634.

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of accompanying my Brother Glanvil2 to Wotton at Christmas last, and ’til that Affaire was settled (which could not be in my absence) I had no prospect when I should be at liberty, which has (’til now) suspended my Answer to your most obliging letter of the Moneth past: I have now (I thank God) brought that Buisinesse with Sir Charles, to some conclusion, and do therefore promise my-selfe the satisfaction of visiting you this Spring, and passing my Easter with my Friends, though I could not the Christmas, and do not despaire of getting my Brother Glanvil to accompany me: In the meane time, Uncertaine Reports here of yours, and my Cosins (your Sonns)3 Indispositions (which, with all my heart, I wish may prove otherwise) makes me send my servant to bring you my sincere desires of your health and prosperity: There being no man wishing you more hapinesse, with a longer Enjoyment of it: It is most true, that your Advancement in Yeares, my treading so very neere after you, and the Vicissitudes of secular, and worldly things (of which we have both had so much Experience) calls upon us both, to make-up our packetts, and be prepard for the Call: The ordinary limites of humane-life, we have both (by the goodnesse of God) exceeded; so that the maine thing we are to mind, and Consider, is, how we may leave the World as becomes us, and the greate Obligations we have lie under, for having ben hitherto conducted through such difficult times and extraordinary Revolutions: The Improvement and good Effect of these Meditations (which I know take-up your Serious Thoughts, as well as mine) is my daily Prayer to Almighty-God for us both, and that (in particular) he will Blesse and Support you in all Events and Circumstances, are the repeated Wishes of (deare Brother) Your etc. Dover-Streete 23 February. – 1690/91

Richard Chiswell1 Letter 643 (640) May 15, 1691 f 71v

Epistle DCXL. To the Booke-seller.

I did not believe you would have ben so backward in gratifying me with a few Copies of my owne Book,2 design’d for some Friends of mine to whom I could not (in good manners) omitt the presenting them with a Trifle they so long expected, and I have so long

2 William Glanville 3 John Evelyn (1653–91). His father gives an account of his final sickness in a letter to Evelyn (Add 78304: f 88 [27.2.1691]). 1 Richard Chiswell, the elder (1640–1711; ODNB, I). See Keynes, Bibliography, 161–2. 2 Kalendarium Hortense, now in its 8th edition. See Letter 629.

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promis’d: This delay has quite Spoild the Grace of it, as it would have don a much more valuable Present: ’Tis indeede a Trifle, but such (I assure you) has cost me more paines than it did, the first, or following Editions, by the Additions3 I have made to it; and I have the more reason to Complaine of it, because (you well know) I might have had 100 Copies more (with many thankes) from another Booke-seller, whilst I was working for you gratis, I therefore shall henceforth fore-warne all Scriblers, and impertinent Authors of Books (be they Profitable or Un-profitable) of what the Pöet has said of other Animals Sic vos non vobis4 – Gentlemen, you have your labour for your Paines – Says-Court 15 May 1691

William Glanville Letter 644 (641) May 20, 1691 ff 71v–2

Epistle DCXLI1 To my Brother in Law Glanvill at Wotton:

Deare Brother So many of my Brother Evelyns Relations having ben to Condole my Nephews2 Indisposition, it may happly be misinterpreted that I should be onely the un-concern’d: You know, that upon Mr. Harveys3 letter (which you sent me to peruse) I came on purpose to your Lodging, with a full Resolution of then waiting on you to Wotton, had you thought it Convenient, and you may be assur’d, I should most readily have Accompanied you afterwards, had you thought it Convenient I received the least Intimation of your going: But knowing nothing of that (by reason of your owne surprize) I trust it will not be Imputed to any want of a real Sympathie, or kindnesse on this occasion: But Whilst you may easily, and very truely Suggest to your-selfe the true, and onely Reason which still

3 For this edition Evelyn had written “A new Conservatory, or Greenhouse,” “A Catalogue of Fruit Trees,” and had added Cowley’s poem “The Garden” for the first time. 4 Evelyn alludes to a story in Ælius Donatus’s Life of Virgil in which Virgil wrote a poem in praise of Caesar that a poetaster claimed as his own. Four of the five lines of Virgil’s poem begin with this phrase, “thus do ye, not for yourselves.” See Vitæ Vergilianæ antiquæ, 112–13. 1 This letter is in response to one from William Glanville from Wotton advising Evelyn of their nephew’s illness but “advising you not to come now” when Wotton is full of “so many hangers on, who have for severall weeks pesterd my brothers house” (Add 78305: f 73 [13.3.1691]). What seems to be Glanville’s reassuring reply survives partly in a modern transcription in Add 78305: f 75. 2 John Evelyn (1653–91) 3 Stephen Harvey (1655–1707; ODNB, H). Evelyn’s agent and steward of his manor courts, Harvey lived at Betchworth, five miles east of Wotton. He was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1673 and called to the Bar in 1680, and was MP for Reigate (1698–1707).

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Retards me: There are in the world, both here, and in other places, that are ready to say think fancy that my Greate Expectations carry me rather, than any other Concerne: But, he, who knows the hart, knows ’tis that alone, which keepes me here: I have as un-fain’d a love and Affection for my Brother, as his constant kindnesses to me and mine, aboundantly deserves, and deepely am Sensible of his Affliction: As to the rest (whatever others think) both my owne greate Age, present Circumstances (for which I have cause to blesse God) and the Serious Meditation I have long-since had (with no small Experience) of the un-certaine things of this world (more than for the providing of things honest, and decencies of Life, becoming my Relations, in a moderate way, which, I blesse Almighty God, I both Enjoy, far beyond my deserts, and hope to leave without Reproch) will, and ought to Acquit me of all meane and unworthy Interests: So far I think I am indeede a Philosopher and a Christian: Brother, after all this, I neede not Explaine what I would Signifie by this long period: But the Favour I would desire from you is, that though I am in my owne thoughts assur’d, and from Reasons (which it may be you would think Uncertaine) that my Nephew (by what I understand) will happily recover of this Ataque that upon prudent Reflections on what I have suggested, concerning my not coming along with you, you will friendly, and sincerely Acquaint me with your thoughts and Advice, how I should behave my selfe, to avoyd the being thought either an Unkind, and Ill-natur’d Unkle, or an Indifferent and Selfe-concern’d Relation onely; either of which, would Afflict me not a little: This Favour I promise my-selfe from that true and sincere Friendship which I have borne you, and believe to be Reciprocal: You know this World is top-full of Malice and Folly, and how difficult ’tis to steere betweene these Rocks: Be you my Pilot then: If you conceive my coming to Wotton expedient upon any of those Circumstances, favour me with a line or two from you, before you Returne: For as I would not spare the paine of a Journey, so nor would I willingly be an Eye-sore to any etc. Sayes Court 20 May – 1691

John Bemde1 Letter 645 (642) May 23, 1691 f 72

Epistle DCXLII To Mr. V. de Bemdy:

Sir, By something2 which my Wife has lately Acquainted me with all, which I confesse you have just Reason to believe, might lessen the Esteeme I have for you (had there ben any 1 John [Van de] Bemde (c.1655–c.1726). The son of a London merchant, he was admitted to Gonville and Caius College in 1673, and elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1678 and a member of the Council in 1698. See also Letter 678. 2 Bemde had courted Evelyn’s daughter Susanna (see Letter 621). A letter from Elizabeth Packer, Philip’s daughter, of 2 July 1689 notes that her sister Temperance had been “to wait on you with Mr. Bende and

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Ground for Prejudice of that nature) I think my selfe obliged to declare to you, and that with all Ingenuity and Truth; that as I have never heard any-thing of you but honorable and highly becoming the Character of a worthy Gentleman; so, nor has any Relation of mine, directly, or indirectly, so much as once Suggested to me any such un-handsome Reflections: I am sure, they should be very unwellcome to me, who have, and allways shall have a very greate Reguard to your Friendship, and the Obligations I have for so many, and extraordinary Civilities, as I shall ever Acknowledge to have received from you; Accounting it my greate Un-happinesse, that the Circumstances I lie under, deprive me of the meanes of expressing the Value I have for your Person and Worth, and when I have sayd this, I am Sure you will Acquit me of a possibility of entertaining the least Reflection, which may Diminish the due Esteeme I have for Mr. Bemdie, and which I shall ever preserve who am etc. Says Court 23 May – 1691

George Evelyn Letter 646 (643) May 25, 1691 f 72r–v

Epistle DCXLIII To my Brother Evelyn:

My deare Brother The unexpected Report of my Nephews Death1 is the more Astonishing, after so greate Indications of his not onely being in an hopefull way of Recovery, but already so far advanc’d, as to be going abroad, and Refreshing himselfe, without any Apprehension of

that as they came back he expressed abundance of esteem and value for your family and said that if his circumstances would give him leave to marry he should think himself very happy to come into it and would not wish to make a better choice then of your daughter” (Add 78436: f 43 [2.7.1689]). Further letters from her pursue the subject (Add 78436: f 45 [19.7.1689]; f 51 [22.2.1690]; f 53 [1.3.1690]). Bemde dropped the suit in 1691 (see Elizabeth Packer, Add 78436: f 62 [6.7.1691]), and took up a relationship with Temperance Packer, who also lived in his mother’s house, and whom he secretly married in 1699. See Harris, “A Revolution Correspondence,” 168. Evelyn also wrote to Mary Tuke about the situation (Diary [1887], III, 333–5). Her response was scathing (Add 78435: f 108 [17.4.1694]): “Your discription of Mr. B. Malitious proceeding gives me a detestation of him, when I reflect with what esteeme and respect he us’d to speak of you and your Daughter, and how happie he should be to Compass his desires to Match in your family.” 1 John Evelyn (1653–91). Evelyn gives a detailed account of his final illness and death on 21 May (Diary V.54). As he notes, “I became the next heire to my Bro: & our Paternal Estate, exceedingly far from my least expectation, or desert” (54–5). In a letter of 6 July 1691 Jael Boscawen writes that she should congratulate him “did I not think it was as well a matter of condolement to you as congratulation” (Add 78309: f 113 [6.7.1691]).

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what you write me word (and I find by this Expresse)2 is so fataly happn’d! What shall I, or what can I say, to Aleviate your too too just Affliction? It would indeede be almost uncapable of Consolation, if any losse in this world (after what you, and I have both seene and sufferd, in the losse of so many deare Relations) were able to mortifie that Christian Principle which teaches us Submission, and Resignation to the will of God, without murmuring: ’Tis, I confesse a difficult lesson in things so neerely concerning, and I do, with all my heart deplore your cause of Complaint, and this deadly and afflicting stroke, however it may seeme (to those who do not know me, as I am assur’d you do, and judge by themselves) an advantagious Accession to one for whom you have allways express’d so brotherly an Affection; which is to me, I assure you, more than a double Inheritance, and for which I sincerely wish you may yet long enjoy your owne health to Support your mind, and beare-up your Spirit under this Trial: The greate hast Mr. Fitch3 is in, forces me to Contract much that I might add, upon this sad Occasion; but you have long since Acquainted your selfe with all that Books, and discourses, and the kindest Relations can furnish on the Subject: I shall not faile of coming to do this Last Office to my deserving Kindsman, and in the meane time, remaine with all sincerity and perfect Affection Deare Brother your etc. London 25 May – 1691

Samuel Pepys Letter 647 (644) June 12, 1691 f 72v

Epistle DCXLIV To Mr. Pepys etc.1

Sir, As I have allways endeavord, that my Conversation should be Easy to my Friends; so I think my-selfe the more obliged to those among them, who use me with your Freedome, and without Formality: I should have ben very uneasy, if your coming hither to morrow (in complyance of my fondnesse, and the satisfaction I receive in your Company) should have ben to the prejudice of your weightier Concernements: And therefore I will not expect the favour of a Visite from you, ’til a necessity of some Relaxation, dispose you

2 Evelyn received notice from his brother of the death on 23 May (Diary V.55). 3 probably Heneage Finch, 1st earl of Aylesford (1648/9–1719; ODNB) who had purchased Albury, near Wotton, once Thomas Howard’s estate, in 1687 1 Particular Friends, D10, 227. This is the only text of this letter.

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to take the fresh of the River2 this way, and that you are at intire Leasure, and I may have you wholy to my-selfe, who am wholy Sir Your etc. etc. Says Court 12 June–1691

William Glanville Letter 648 (645) June 20, 1691 f 72v

Epistle DCXLV To my Brother Glanvile1

Dear Brother There being a Combination of some un-quiet Land-holders of this Parish (whose Lands, and very few dwellings, though in the Parish, lie in the County of Surrey) to exempt themselves from any-longer paying their quota of the poores Officers; pretending that they are an Hamlet by themselves, and so oblig’d to take care onely of their owne few poore: The men are so pertinacious, that the parish find themselves necessitated to Assert their Custome, and determine this new Controversy (never rais’d til now) by Dint of Law: The Consequence is of that Concerne, that should these men prevaile, the burden would become insupportable to a Parish, where that charge is already so very grievous, and above any of our Neighbours, by reason of the numbers of such as daily are Employed, in the Kings-Yards and Workes, who dying, leave their Wives and Children behind them, without any Consideration or Reliefe of the publique: They are come to me, to desire I would Recommend their Case to some eminent Counselor for Advice, that they may proceede to Tryal; and wish it may be Sir George Treby2 above all others: But I tell them, he being Recorder of London I am doubtfull whether he will serve them, though, his having lately don me the favour to give me his opinion in a private question, betwixt (now since) a greate man and my selfe, Induces me to believe, he would not refuse the patronage of a poore Towne, which (than any place in England ) suffers more for the publique, and necessary defence of the whole Nation: The Favour therefore, which I Request of you in their behalfe, is, that you will Assist them with your

2 the ebb of the tide 1 Glanville was living at Greenwich, near Deptford, in 1691 (Diary V.71) and became a member of the Greenwich Hospital committee. 2 Sir George Treby (1644–1700; ODNB, H) was recorder of London (1683, 1688–92), MP for Plympton (1688), solicitor-general (1688–9), attorney general (1689), and chief justice of the common pleas (1692–1700).

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Addresse to Sir George: Pardon the trouble which this may bring you, but it is upon a Charitable Account, and to oblige a greate-many; as well as Dear Brother your etc. Says Court 20 June. 1691

Sidney Godolphin Letter 649 (646) June 26, 1691 ff 72v–3

Epistle DCXLVI. To my Lord Godolphin

My Lord How ever unsuccessfull my Son has ben, in his dismission of an Employment which indeede more his Inclination (of having something to do in this buisy world ) than any Incouragement of mine has prompted him to: tho I cannot but Approve of his Recourse to your Lordships patronage, and under whose protection I doubt not, but he may still have the honor of serving in a Station1 he pretends to without other Ambition, than that of coming sometimes into your Lordships thoughts, who I am perswaded, will have some kindnesse for him (if not for my sake alone) to Encourage the Industrie of a young-man, who disdaines no Employment, by which he may (in time) become more Usefull to the Publique in an Age, not over-fertile of his Abillities: That your Lordship will cherish these Inclinations with the continuance of your Favour, is my Request: I am in the meane while, not a little Astonish’d, that his having the prospect of a (possible) considerable Fortune2 (to the little I shall leave him) should by some, be us’d as an Argument, why he was to be put-by; when those who are actualy in possession of vast Estates, are as greedy, and solicitous, as those who have none at all: Ah, what an unhappinesse it is, to be Counted Rich and not to be so! I Acknowledge, and not without a Gratefull Sense of God Almightys Providence, that since it was his will so to deliver my late Nephew from his Languishing Infirmity, an Accession, not Contemptible, but altogether unexpected, should devolve on me or Mine, after my Brother. But as this, whilst my Brother lives (and which I wish may be long) is of no present Advantage to me us; so neither is there any just cause, it should prejudice my Sons pretence in what he seekes your Lordships favour in: Besides all this, when your Lordship considers that there goes out a thousand pound a yeare in two Joyntures (though what is free, and in Expectation be considerable) yet it is a diminution 1 John Evelyn Jr had served in the Treasury on a commission about concealment of lands in 1687 (Diary IV.565), but was dismissed from his post in June 1691 (see Darley, John Evelyn, 282), and was looking to be appointed a commissioner of the Irish treasury, a position he obtained on a warrant of 10 May 1692 (CSP Dom Nov.1691–Dec 1692: 278). 2 After the death of his cousin, he stood to inherit the estates of his uncle, George Evelyn, according to the agreement made by the two brothers (see Letter 660).

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considerable also: But I will afflict your Lordship no longer with my Affaires, who have so weighty ones to take up the time you so kindly alow me, and the Addresses of Your etc.

Say-Court 26 June 1691.

Anne Spencer Letter 650 (647) June 27, 1691 f 73

Epistle DCXLVII To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame: I Accknowledge an Accompt is due (as you say) from me of my present Circumstances: In a word, they are very Solitarie: My Wife and Daughter1 being both gon to the Bathe, where, and at Sir George Hungerfords of Cadenam, whose mother2 (my Wifes Aunt) a widow of above Eighty, and who has long desired to see her once more ere she dies. I believe they will stay a Moneth or six Weekes, and thence give my Brother Evelyn a Visite at Wotton in their Returne, where she will probably find me most part of the remaining Summer: I heare your Ladyship is like to have the Company of our Cranburn Friends,3 and my Lady Sylvius very shortly: Ah how am I divided, think you, betweene two Inclinations! I neede not Interpret: Your Ladyship knows my foible, and pitties it: Wherever I am, I am Madame most certainely your and their most etc. Says Court: 27: June 1691

1 According to Jael Boscawen, Mary Evelyn and her daughter Susanna “have been long designeing” a trip to Bath (Add 78309: f 113 [6.7.1691]). 2 Susan Hungerford, Susanna’s godmother 3 the household of Sidney Godolphin

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Evelyn Letter 651 (648) July 21, 1691 f 73r–v

957

Epistle DCXLVIII To my Brother Evelyn: of Wotton

Deare Brother Upon Receipt of your last (which I found at London) I fully Resolv’d to waite on you this Weeke;1 but in hopes of bringing my Brother Glanville2 along with me, I Suspend the giving you the trouble of sending your Coach (mine being with my Wife at the Bathe) ’til the next Weeke after this, when, if his buisinesse should detaine him longer (as I feare it may) I will (if God give me leave) not faile of waiting on you, on Wednesday next at farthest, leaving my Brother Glanville to accompany my Wife, who will first be obliged to see Deptford before Wotton and to dispose of her Bagage a day or two, before she can set out towards Wotton: In the meane time, be assurd, that I shall come, with a full purpose of being intirely dispos’d of by you to the uttmost of my Capacity, and I conjure you to believe that I love, and honour you so sincerely, that I will do all I am able to give Ease to your mind, and do pray, and heartily wish we may live comfortably together, and that you may be sensible of it by Effects; for what is there, but at this Age and my Circumstances, that I shall care to Enjoy (of more than at present, by Gods goodnesse, already I do) when you are gon? The greatest satisfaction I can figure to my selfe (upon this unexpected, and un-desired Revolution in your Family) being I unfaindly protest, the Opportunity of Verifying the Affection I have for you; And which I shall endeavor so to shew, that I may be instead of a Son to you, as well as a Brother: And I am sure, my Wife has as greate a Love and Esteeme for you and my Neece,3 as any Relation she has in the World: As to the (no disconsolate) Widdows removall, it was not mine, but my Brother Glanvilles opinion alone, who believed, we then might lesse Incommode you: But since you informe me otherwise, it shall be no farther Obstacle to the comming of Deare Brother your etc. Says Court: 21 July: 1691

1 Evelyn eventually went to Wotton on 28 July (Diary V.67). 2 William Glanville. George Evelyn’s letter of 17 July, labelled by Evelyn “inviting me downe upon settling his Concernes etc.” is Add 78304: f 92 (17.7.1691). The letter of 10 September 1691 (Add 78304: f 94 [10.9.1691]) containing the terms of the final agreement with Evelyn suggests that Wotton was worth £50,000. Glanville’s frank letter of 12 August 1691 (in reply to Evelyn’s of the 5 August) establishes that George “expects mony should be raised to pay his own debts, and that an addition should be made to my Cosine Mary’s portion.” He also establishes that his son’s affairs require his absence (Add 78305: f 76 [12.8.1691]). See also Letter 660. 3 Mary Wyche

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 652 (649) July 31, 1691 ff 73v–4

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXLIX To my Lord Godolphin

That I beg your Acceptance of this meane Present1 (after so many, and fresh Obligations)2 argues me of a poverty, which I am not yet asham’d to Accknowledge; because it has not ben Contracted for want of doing some Endeavors; but for want of Addresse and Opportunities of Improving them to more Advantage: For if after so many yeares that their late Majesties [words deleted] so promiscuously scatterd their Favours, I once little thought I should still be planting Cole-worts: It was not so much a marke of my Ambition, as of my desire to do my duty in something, which might have ben more Usefull: I was ever a severe Enemie to that Sloth, which I observed Birth and Fortune did too frequently Countenance in the Gentlemen of this Nation: And this Aversion put me first upon blotting Papers in the times of Publique Calamity;3 which yet I thought to take my leave of, when the Sun should shine againe: But as I was (and still am) the worst Scrambler in the World, I expected some Reserve and among better Company, and now you bid me still to Hope: Don’t you remember who was usd to say Hope was indeede a good Breake-fast, but an Ill Supper?4 Alas, Tamdiu istis immorandum est, quamdiu nihil agere animus majus potest5 – ’Tis now late houre, and either I have no Genius, or no luck, and that’s all one in the event of things, to chose who are weary with looking for no Appearances: I have formerly had Ambitions, but without ever those Solicitudes which was necessary to compasse them; as considering that after all, It was not in my power to add one Cubite to my Stature:6 And therefore have long since committed that to God, who onely knows what is best for me: And if he be pleasd to Sanctifie this Indifference, I shall every day lesse Complaine; and

1 probably the 8th edition of Kalendarium Hortense, just published in an expanded form 2 probably a reference to the appointment of Evelyn’s son, John Jr, as one of the commissioners of the Irish Revenue 3 the Civil War and Interregnum 4 “Saith Mr. Bacon well my Master, then Ile tell you; hope is a good Breakfast, but it is a bad supper.” Bacon, “A Collection of Apophthegms,” no. 96 in Resvscitatio, or, Bringing into pvblick light several pieces of the works, civil, historical, philosophical, and theological, hitherto sleeping, of the Right Honourable Francis Bacon (London, 1671), 235. 5 “One should linger upon them only as long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater.” Seneca, Epistulae 88.1 (Gummere trans). In his Publick Employment and an Active Life (London, 1667), Evelyn cites Seneca in support of his argument that “Action is the proper fruit of Science, and therefore they should quit the education of the colledge, when fit to appear in business, and take Seneca’s advice” (78). 6 Matthew 6:27

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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believing (as I do) that these out-ward things little signifie little either his Love, or Displeasure, whilst I consider to whom they are dispens’d – very few Instances excepted, of which yours is one, and may passe for Miraculous, and that in the middst of this prosperity, you continue your Friendship to me, though I pay you nothing for it but my prayers, and such poore Accknowledgements as I am able, and which I am sure you Accept with all my Infirmities: But I thinke I know what Master you serve, as well as your Friend, and that indeede binds me to you with a faster tie, than any other Relation whatsoever, and makes it Impossible for the World to prejudice you in my Thought, whilst I behold your Colluctation in that slipery, and invidious Post;7 and that you do allways what became you, in the greatest of secular Temptations: He who dares not do amisse for the Love of God, is the noblest Servant to a Prince, and may brave the Vicissitudes of the most capricious Fortune: Because (however God disposes of his left hand Blessings) his grace his Eye is still single, and he can Rejoice and Congratulate where ever Heaven gives bountifuly to his Brother, for he has his Treasure layd up already,8 and in a sure Habitation: Or if Prosperity follows him all the days of his Pilgrimage here (as Antepasts of those better things to come) He is still the same, Thankfull to the Donor, and on all occasions of doing good, no lesse carefull to dispense worthily, than to Aquire: When a Man is arivd to this noble Pitch and celsitude of mind, I looke upon the person with veneration, and next to Consummate, Infinitely more oblig’d to God for his Grace than for his Prosperity, such as the World so calls, and courts: And such have I long thought you, my excellent Friend without Flatery or Designe, which makes me take this Occasion to tell you freely what I think, and what you so earnestly desire of me: I allways speake it openly; and believe it part of your Reward, and ’Tis a safe one; and had we had more in such Eminent Stations, we should not have sigh’d in the midst of our growing Happinesse, and drown’d the Rejoicing at the structure of that Sacred Temple (I do not meane, our late Revolutions, but) the miraculous Restauration of Church and State (which you and I have seene) with the sad Remembrance how far it came-short of Expectation, and of the Ideäs, which all men conceiv’d (as it was Impossible they should do otherwise) after such a Discipline, if an unaccountable madnesse and folly had not possess’d us: Thus it is, when we Idolize Phoenomenas, and take Comets for Starrs of Magnitude, ’til they spend themselves, and vanish into nothing. Pardon this transport: I had but begun the Character of one whose vertues make a Real Constellation; But to finish that, I should be more Eloquent in saying no more, than saying and writing so little, and so Imperfectly: Wotton 31 July: 1691

7 Godolphin was commissioner of the Treasury 8 Matthew 6:19

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Anthony Wood Letter 653 (650) May 29, 1691 f 74

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCL To Mr. Wood:1

[RM: Se Epistle 454. p. 37.]2 Sir, Having lately received an Account from Mr. Aubery3 (as formerly by the Specimen and Proposals you have publish’d) of the Progresse of your intended Historie,4 [RM: Athenæ Oxon] and that you desire to be inform’d, who one Mr. Welles5 (sometimes since of Deptford ) was: The best light I can give you will be from the Inscription upon his Wifes Monument in that Parish-Church: Of what Country, or Family of that name, he originaly was, I cannot say; but it might happly be conjecturd by the Armes, had not the Cleark (whom I order’d to send me the inclos’d note) forgotten that Circumstance: Thus much onely I can add, that Mr. Welles the Husband, married into a very antient and worthy Family of the Wallengers, and Gonstones,6 of which the last (namely Benjamine) had ben Treasurer of the Navy-Royal during the Reignes of Henry VIII: King Edward VI: Queens Mary and Elizabeth a Place of greatest trust and honour: And to these two Families, my Wife has a neere Relation etc. – But to returne to Mr. Welles: He was Author of a Booke of Shadows or Dialing, an excellent Mathematician, well acquainted with Mr. Gunter, Gelebrand, Dr. Gilbert, Mr. Oughtred,7 and other famous Mathematicians of his time: I have several Horoscopes, and other schemes of his among my papers: He had two Sons (whom I well knew) whereoff the Eldest Succeeded in his Fathers Office of Store-keeper in the Naval Arsenals, a Place of good credit, and requiring extraordinary Application:



1 2 3 4

The original version of this letter is Bodleian Ms Wood F. 41: f 224. Letter 456 to Robert Plot (16 March, 1683) John Aubrey (1626–97; ODNB), who acted as Wood’s research assistant Wood’s Athenæ Oxonienses (London, 1691, 1692; Evelyn Library, no 1598). Evelyn may also refer to his Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis (Oxford, 1674; Evelyn Library, no 1590). 5 John Wells was the author of Sciographia, or The art of shadovves (London, 1635; Evelyn Library, no 1567) and The compleat art of dyalling (London, 1637). 6 Wood notes that Wells married Catherine, the daughter of Thomas Wallenger and Benedicta Gonson, who is buried at Deptford. Evelyn’s wife, Mary, was the great-granddaughter of Benjamin Gonson (Diary IV.304, n. 1) and from this family Evelyn acquired Warley in Essex. 7 Edmund Gunter (1581–1626; ODNB), author of The Description and Use of the Sector, the Crosse-Staffe and other such Instruments (1623), and other works; Henry Gellibrand (1597–1637; ODNB), author of An Institution Trigonometricall (London, 1635) and other works on mathematics and navigation; William Gilbert (1544? –1603; ODNB), author of De Magnete (1600; in the 1687 library catalogue); and William Oughtred (two works in the 1687 library catalogue)

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His second son, Ben Wells,8 Dr. of Physitian formerly Fellow of All-Soules in Oxford, a very good scholar, lately deceas’d at Greenewich leaving onely two Daughters: – This Sir, being all I can at present learne of Mr. Welles,9 I take the opportunity to superadd something wich more immediately concernes my selfe: ’Tis some time since that Dr. Plot, communicating to me your noble Designe, requir’d me (as from your selfe) to give him some Account of my owne Family etc.,10 what then I writ, I do not now so well approve of, and divers Circumstances since that intervening, both as to my Fortune (which may possibly transfer my hitherto abode here at Sayes-Court in Kent, to the seate of my Ancesters in Surry) and an honorable Charge, which his late Majestie conferred on me, of one of the Commissioners of the Privie-Seale, seemes to require some other Account from me, than that which Dr. Plot exacted of me, but which I desired he would intreate you to Menage, not as written by me in my owne person (which were a Vanitie insupportable) but that you would use the sponge,11 as you thought fit, and as becomes the modestie of one who has no other Ambition than in this, than that (if needes you will take notice of an inconsiderable Man) though I can contribute little to your worthy Labour, I may yet endeavor, that the honour you intend me, and the glorious Universitie who is pleas’d to owne me, may not suffer through your too greate Civilitie, or Reproch me of Presumption, or Ingratitude: I am Sir Your etc. Says Court May 29 – 1691 This date is misplacd

Sir, If I may be so bold I should esteeme it a greate favoure (if at least you have prepard any thing concerning me) that you would transmitt me a Copy thereoff before you print it. Anne Spencer Letter 654 (651) October 14, 1691 f 74v

Epistle DCLI To the Countesse of Sunderland:1

Madame, Though I have ben Absent from this place the greatest part of the Summer, I was not forgetfull of Acknowledging your Ladyships favour in behalfe of my Son, however 8 Benjamin Wells (c.1615–78) was the author of The expert phisician (London, 1657; a translation of Bricius Bauderon) and A treatise of the gout, or joint-evil (London, 1669; in the 1687 library catalogue). 9 Wood’s account of John Wells follows Evelyn’s account very closely.  10 Letter 456 (16 March, 1683) 11 wipe out, erase 1 Anne Spencer replied in Add 15889: f 112 (21.10.1691).

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unsuccessful: And since that there ought to have come another Letter to your Ladyship from Surrey, not onely to expresse the Sense I have of all my Obligations, but to beg that I may be continu’d in your favourable thoughts of me; whether these came to your Ladyships hands, I have reason to suspect, having heard nothing from Althorp ’til having this day ben to waite on my Lady Bristol,2 her Ladyship acquaints me how Ill your Ladyship has lately ben, and how lately Recover’d, which I heartily congratulate, with my most humble thanks to Almighty God in your Ladyships behalfe and my owne, who have so greate a Concerne for your Ladyships Prosperity and Contentment: I Rejoice to heare that the rest of your noble Family are in health, and that my Lord Spencer3 (whose hands I kisse) continues every day to add new Argument of Joy and Comfort to your Ladyship who am, Madame Your etc. Dover Streete London 14 October. 1691.

William Godolphin Letter 655 (652) October 20, 1691 f 74v

Epistle DCLII To Sir William Godolphin Baronet:

Sir, I have an humble Request to make to you in behalfe of a Gentleman whom I have a greate Concerne for: I think I have heard you say, you were well Acquainted with Sir John Trevor:1 Mr. Bemdy2 (who is the Person I would oblige) has a Cause to be heard at the Chancery on Saturday next: The Favour I seeke is, that through your Intercession, Sir John would not let the Cause come on, ’til he-himselfe is on the Bench to Examine it thoroughly: There is no other Favour desired. But there is greate Reason that a Cause of so much Importance to the Gentleman be heard by one who is so able to Examine, and

2 Anne Digby 3 Charles Spencer 1 Sir John Trevor (1637–1717; ODNB, H). In 1690 he became speaker of the House of Commons, and was appointed first commissioner of the great seal in June 1690 and a member of the Privy Council in 1691. He had been master of the rolls (1685–9), and was reappointed to the post in 1693. 2 probably John [Van de] Bemde (see Letter 645). This may refer to the case published as The case of John Vanden Bemde, Esq., and Sir John Rotheram, Kt. ([London?], 1692).

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just to Determine a Controversy which has so long ben depending: I have no Apologie to make for this Confidence, but the generous Freedome which you allwayes alowe to Sir, Your etc.

Says Court: 20. October–1691

Anthony Bowyer1 Letter 656 (653) November 5, 1691 f 74v

Epistle DCLIII To Anthony Bowyer Esquire at Camberwell

Sir, I am this day inform’d of that excellent, and good Man, Dr. Par’s2 being so very Ill, that ’tis believ’d he may not escape the Indisposition he labours at present under; for which, I assure you, I am extreamely sorry, and concern’d, he being a person for whom I have a very greate Reguard, and therefore (as a publique losse, as well as of my owne in particular, and as one to whose friendship I have ben so much oblig’d) do with all my heart, wish, and pray for his Recovery: But as he is advanc’d in Yeares, (and prepar’d for a better World, to which he has Indeavor’d to Conduct so many) should he not survive his present sicknesse: Imboldn’d by your pious, as well as Generous Inclination to dispose of that Living on some worthy Successor; I become an humble Suitor to you in behalfe of Dr. Bohune:3 A person not onely well known, and particularly Esteem’d of by Dr. Parr: But for his Learning, excellent talent in preaching, pious and use-full Conversation, aboundantly qualified: He is not by many miles, neere this place these parts, and there-fore ’tis from no suggestion of his, I bespeake your suffrage, that would have so many other reasons your favour for one, who, were he here himselfe, would not neede my single suffrage, that would have so many Intercessors, as a Person most worthy your Patronage, and the Charge of a people accustom’d to so charitable a Person as Dr. Parr; whose Example in that particular (as well as in all the rest desierable in his function) I am assur’d he would industriously Imitate: Sir, If this Testimony prove so happy, as to receive a favourable Answer; I would Incourage the Doctor speedily to waite upon you, and render you a fuller Account of his Abillities to Justifie my Character of him, and this greate presumption of Sir Your etc. Dover-streete 5. November. – 1691.

1 Anthony Bowyer (c.1633–1709; Diary, H). The son of Evelyn’s Surrey acquaintance, Sir Edmund ­Bowyer (c.1613–81), Bowyer was MP for Southwark (1685, 1690–8) and lived in Camberwell where Richard Parr was the vicar. 2 Richard Parr 3 Ralph Bohun was rector of West Kington in Wiltshire at this time; see Letter 657.

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Ralph Bohun Letter 657 (654) November 5, 1691 f 75

Epistle DCLIV To Dr. Bohune:

Doctor That excellent Man, Mr. Stringfellow, Lecturer at our little Tabernacle neere this quarter;1 hearing that Dr. Par2 was dying (and Remembring my Wife and I have often wish’d it in our power, to do you some little Service) gives me leave (for it seemes it has ben mention’d to him, as worthy his owne Concerne) to make use of all the Interest I have, to Recommend you to a Station more agreable to your merite, the Circumstances of your health, and the Inclination of your friends in this place: I have therefore (to loose no time) written this very Instant to Esquire Bowyer,3 and am sending it to Camberwell by an Expresse, to bespeake his patronage in your behalfe: I shall to-morrow endeavor to find him out at Westminster (he being you know a Member of Parliament) and according to the successe, give you notice of it: In the meane time you will not neglect what other Interest of your owne, or in friends who have any with Esquire Bowyer, amongst whom, I presume Mr. Tyrills4 very considerable: No more at present: You will easily Resolve how necessary Expedition is in this Case, and therefore committing it to providence, with all our good Wishes here I remaine Your etc. Dover Streete 5. November. – 1691.

Charles Chamberlain1 Letter 658 (655) November 10, 1691 f 75

Epistle DCLV To Mr. Chamberlaine etc. Alderman of London:

Sir, The Picture you are pleasd to mention, Cost me an hundred broad-pieces (now fourty yeares since) besides some other Curiosities, I also gave in exchange to on[e]

1 2 3 4

Trinity Chapel, Bond St. Evelyn gives a brief history of the church building and its location in Diary V.62. Richard Parr Anthony Bowyer; see Letter 656. Bohun’s friend James Tyrrell; see Letter 535.

1 Charles Chamberlain (d. 1705, L). Appointed alderman of Lime St ward by royal commission in 1687, Chamberlain was superseded by the restoration of the city’s charter in October 1688. He was a staunch Whig and a director of the Bank of England (1697–8; 1703–5).

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Mr. Frizell,2 than whom no man better understood the Value of Pictures: so that, if I part with it for lesse than 150 ginnies, I shall be a considerable looser: That therefore Sir is my positive Price, if I part with it, knowing it to be not onely one of the largest, but one of the very best of Paulo Veronezes in Europe,3 Reckond to have ben of that rare Collection of the Duke of Mantöas4 which was dissipated by the Spaineards when they tooke Mantüa, and brought out of Italy by Mr. Frizell who was emploied by King Charles the first to buy Pictures there: I give you this Account Sir of it, that I may not Seeme to value it above its Merit,5 nor indeede equal to it, who ever may have the possession of it after Sir Your etc. Dover-streete: 10: November 1691

Anne Spencer Letter 659 (656) November 10, 1691 f 75r–v

Epistle DCLVI To the Countesse of Sunderland at Althorp:

Madame Whilst you still multiplie Obligations on us, the same Accknowledgements, and greater (were it in our power) are due to your Ladyship: We are at last come to Winter in this place, if this extraordinary temper of the Aer, may be called Winter, considering the season, or that as the Earth turnes about its poles in the diurnal Motion, it may not have yet forgotten its Annual Progresse, which I should almost be tempted to believe, did not the measures of Day and Night, and the last verse of the 8th of Genesis1 oblige me to 2 William Frizell (c.1610–after 1662). Charles I’s postmaster for foreign affairs, Frizell was also an agent in the purchase of the duke of Mantua’s collection of paintings. Frizell was also a protégé of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel, and was involved with Evelyn in the late 1640s in a project to devise a perpetual motion device (see Darley, John Evelyn, 78–81, and Reade, “William Frizell and the Royal Collection”). 3 This painting cannot be identified. Charles I had bought “23 Italian Collexecon peeces” from “ffreizley” in 1637 (Bodleian Ashmole 1514: ff 184–5, and Millar, Abraham van der Doort’s Catalogue of the Collections of Charles I, 181–3). This included “half a figure soe big as the life signifying faith in white houlding a Communion Cupp & the Cross in her Armes,” “Said to be don by Paul Veronece” (182). If Evelyn’s reference to “fourty yeares since” is taken literally, it implies that the picture had been acquired by Frizell in the sales of Charles’s collections organized by the Commonwealth in 1649–51 (see Millar, The Inventories and Valuations of the King’s Goods 1649–1651). Frizell is not listed as the buyer of any of the five painting attributed to Veronese in the sales inventories, although he does seem to have acquired pictures from the royal collection including some he sold to Charles II in 1660 (Reade, “William Frizell and the Royal Collection,” 73–5). See also Chambers and Martineau, Splendours of the Gonzaga. 4 Frederick II, duke of Mantua, ruled when the city was sacked by the Austrians in 1630. 5 Evelyn sold the painting bought for 100 guineas (£110) for £150 (Add 15857: f 177 [7.11.1691]). 1 “While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

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conclude the Contrary: But however indulgent the Weather is,2 we go through the same probation here of Rheumes and Cathars upon coming out of the purer Aer, into a Region of Smoke:3 Under this Dispensation I am my selfe at present (though I hope almost over it) which has confin’d me very much within doores, as I have yet hardly seene any of our Friends, besides the good Doctor4 and my Lady Sylvius: but we are now upon making our Circle among the rest: As for my Lady Clancartie,5 I have not so much as seene or heard from her now these six moneths: But the Countesse of Bristol6 (whom my Wife was yesterday to waite upon) acquaints her, that your Ladyship is now no longer in any suspense about that unhappy Lord,7 whose wretched Condition I deplore for his Mothers and Families Sake, the trouble and Affliction he has caus’d to all his Relations: In the meane time, that your Ladyship and yours are at last deliver’d,8 I cannot but Rejoice: Our pretty Tabernacle9 here being now open, we have the excellent Doctor in the Afternoones, and in the Mornings, One whom the Doctor has ben pleas’d to receive upon my Recomendation,10 that gives both him, and our new Congregation exceeding Satisfaction, which your Ladyship will believe no smalle one to me: My Lord of Dover11 ( whom I have ben to Visi[t]e) is come to be our neighbour in this Streete: Sir Stephen Fox rod Triumphant yesterday in the head of his Electors; and so Madame you have all I know, and the full of my Concernes, so long as I am assur’d of your Ladyships and noble Families Prosperity the Continuance of which I daily pray for who am Madame Your etc. Dover Streete 10. November. – 1691



2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Evelyn notes on 30 November: “A most unwonted warme & calme Winter” (Diary V.77). Evelyn’s constant complaint about London since his publication of Fumifugium (London, 1661) Thomas Tenison Elizabeth MacCarty Anne Digby Donough MacCarty Although Robert Spencer had still not been included in the Act of Indemnity (confirmed by William III on 23 May 1690), he had convinced William that his services were indispensable and had come to England early in 1691. On 26 April he declared himself a Protestant and on 13 May he had seen William III and been released from his debt to the Treasury. Evelyn recorded on 24 April that “I visited the C. & E. of Sunderland, now come to kisse the K. hand after his recesse in Holland. This is a Mysterie” (Diary V.49). 9 Trinity Chapel, Bond St  10 William Strengfellow 11 Although Henry Jermyn (1636–1708) had fought for James II in Ireland, he appears to have surrendered to William III in August 1690 and his pardon was passing the seals in early November (Diary V.72).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

George Evelyn Letter 660 (657) November 13, 1691 ff 75v–6

967

Epistle DCLVII To my Brother Evelyn of Wotton:

[LM: Indeede this Estate was not Intail’d, (as my good Brother, and every body else, concluded it was) but was my Brothers free-gift to me, and long promised, which was my best Title, though when I wrot this letter, both he and my selfe believ’d to be Intaild. I therefore do, and must Accknowledge, it was his to dispose of as he pleasd: The rectifying this mistake by the Craft of an Interloper, cost us great Trouble, not witho[u]t Gods most just Reproving my meere provocation.]1 Deare Brother: I came so lately to Towne, and have since ben so treated with a Cold, as I have hardly ben abroad. However, or where-ever I am, you shall allways find me ready to oblige and serve you in what lies in my power: I am onely concern’d and sorry, you should (as I find by an expression in your letter) think it necessary to put me in mind of Articles,2 or Witnesse, to performe any of your desires: Since as the Succession falls to me, by our Fathers Intention (as you have your-selfe expressed it) and your kindnesse to Confirme it (by promise, often repeated) in the settlement, I shall have more than Complement in my power, to expresse the real Value I have for so worthy and generous a Brother: Therefore hope you will no way question my Performance of my Part; whilst I perswade my-selfe, the neerenesse of my Relation, and the steady friendship which has allwayes

1 This note was added later by Evelyn, and responds to objections to the settlement raised by one of George’s granddaughters and her husband, Dr Fulham, in a legal action launched in 1698–9. See “The Case of George Evelyn of Wotton in the County of Surrey, Esq.” ([London?]: [1698?]), a broadside which presents both the case against the settlement and Evelyn’s response to the charges. Later insertions in the text reinforce these claims. A letter from Evelyn’s son, John Jr (whose son was to inherit Wotton) on 23 December 1693 commenting on succession observes: “I am wholly to seek for reasons why Parents should punish themselves to leave their Descendants a great deal more than they were born to, or then is really sufficient to make them happy” (Add 78432: f 54 [23.12.1693]). 2 legal documents. As Evelyn’s marginal note makes clear, there was no entailment of the property or even an intention on their father’s part that the land pass down in the family. Nonetheless, in a letter to Evelyn of 26 May, George wrote: “tis my Comfort, that you and my Nephew are in Vivis, to succeede me in the enjoyment of the Estate our Father left us, now it hath pleasd God, to put a period to my line.” In a footnote Evelyn wrote: “Dos not this presuppose my Father having Intail’d this Estate at the settlement made on my Brothers Marriage?” (Add 78304: f 90 [26.5.1691]).

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been betweene us, will so far weigh with you, as to consider the Circumstances in which the Estate is Left; so greate a share of it, not likely to be any Advantage to me, or mine, in many yeares: The other Part in your Possession, I wish may remaine so to your full Content and Satisfaction, in no respect (by these suggestions) having a thought to discompose the ease of your mind; but would contribute to it most sincerely, as far as I am able: I will therefore believe, on your part; That if you could Charge it with lesse than £120003 you would: It is certainely a very greate summ to raise; and (since you are pleas’d to enter into particulars) be a very difficult taske to performe: Yet will I not dispute a Case, that will trie my Friendship and Affection towards you, my so free Benefactor. And though I never inquired into the Value of the Remainder, farther than your-selfe acquainted me: Give me yet leave in Reply, to assure you, That it is not the bare Estate which would render me un-willing to part with it, for a far lesse Summ than what you mention, so much as the Preserving of a Place where you, and our Family have lived with such Reputation, and so many Yeares. This Reguard, I perswade my selfe (due to our worthy Parents, who left it to their posterity) cannot make the future disposal, or present Circumstances of it, Indifferent to you: Certainely, otherwise, you cannot reasonably imagine, the Land would raise fifty-thousand pounds, (strip’t as it is going to be of its Woods and Timber) unlesse they weigh the Aër at the a rate, which few I feare would purchase so deerely: These suggestions then Deare Brother do not sound like your owne, nor indeede of one who dos not Regret (as I am confident you do not) that the Succession falls is a pure and generous Gift to so neere a Relation, who never gave Cause to Repent of transferring a Paternal Estate to a Brother in failure of Male-Issue, as some, you know (and have suffer’d by) have unkindly (but for most part unprosperously) don: [LM: My Niepce Montague, by perswasion of her Mother]4 I speake not this in the least extenuation of your kindnesse to me (which I shall ever acknowledge) but to shew, that it is not without precedent, where there is a just Esteeme, and generous mind to Support and Improve a Family. ’Tis what I myselfe have long since don and as it still remaines un-alter’d in my last will and Testament, should I have left no Issue male: The same my Cousin Evelyn of Nutfield5 assur’d me he had also don: And though it may be said, my Fortune is not so Considerable, ’tis yet far from Contemptible,6 and may one-day, with its present and continual Improvements, be after few yeares, very well worth the leaving to those who shall come after; not onely the lease part, of which yet un-expird is neere 80 yeares good, but my owne land of Inheritance: After all (I can safely protest) I never had any aime at what is happn’d by the Providence of God (and your long promise) who was very well satisfied with my moderate portion: And if I wish for more, it is that I might contribute in a better manner to your desire, and that my circumstances would allow me to ease you in the Interest of the

3 the sum that George Evelyn thought necessary to recompense his daughters 4 Anne Montagu, Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn; see Letter 663. 5 George Evelyn (of Nutfield) (1641–99; Diary, H) was the son of Sir John Evelyn of Godstone, and MP for Bletchingly (1679–81). 6 Evelyn had cause to be more sanguine about his estate after the settlement of the final claims with his uncle-by-marriage, William Prettyman.

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£6000 you are taking up, without contracting that there may something more yearely be fell’d of the woods (provided they will answer the Account is given you of their Value) to inable me to discharge the halfe, as I think it was agreed betweene us this summer: Taxes are very greate, and likely to continue so: My Dwelling must be kept in due Repaire, and some Servants there to looke after my Goods, ’til I can dispose of them, and my Family: My Son has no Advantage yet from the Court, or any Imployment: And, I believe it would trouble you to heare he had little expectations there: His Charge is constant, and growing; and though I cannot excuse much of his Conduct, I cannot abandon him: I beseech you Deare Brother consider with kindnesse on all sides, and let me understand the Result of your thoughts, and you will ever find in me, all that Complyance, which you may promise your-selfe from him, who is (as well without Articles or Witnesse, as with a Thousand) in all Sincerity Your etc. Dover-street 13 November: – 1691

Lawrence Stoughton1 Letter 661 (658) November 23, 1691 f 76

Epistle DCLVIII To Sir Lawrence Stoughton of Staughton in Surry Baronet

Sir, I had not ben thus long in waiting on you, and paying my greate Acknowledgements for the honor you lately did me, and the worthy Inclynations I understand by Mr. Crosse,2 you have express’d (upon a proposal, which but for a very un-wellcome, and unforeseene Interruption3 was made by my Brother Evelyn of Wotton, concerning my Daughter)4 but for a very un-wellcome, and un-foreseene Interruption: There being nothing I should account my-selfe more happy in, than the Renewing of a former Alliance with so honorable a Family,5 and so neere a Neighhour to the Place,6 where I am like to spend the remainder

1 Sir Lawrence Stoughton, 2nd baronet (1668–92) entered the Middle Temple in 1686 and Grays Inn in 1689. In December of 1691 he married Mary Barnaby. He was distantly related to Evelyn. 2 unidentified 3 the death of Evelyn’s nephew, John Evelyn, the only surviving male heir of his brother 4 Evelyn refers to this proposal only as “Sir Lawrence Staughton: &c” in his entry for 15 November 1691 (Diary V.77). 5 Evelyn’s aunt Katherine (1584–1610) had been married to “Thomas Staughton of Staughton” (c.1579– 1611) in Surrey. 6 Stoughton lived at Stoke near Guildford in Surrey

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of my Life: It is not therefore Easy to expresse the disturbance it has given me; that upon a serious, and earnest Discourse with my Daughter, she Discovers so greate a Concern for a Gentleman7 (who indeede is a person of worth, and had formerly proposd to us such Conditions as were not to be rejected) that I find she is not yet able to overcome her Inclinations; though she have the discernement (with griefe) to acknowledge, how everyway Agreable the Proposal made her is, could she surmount this latent Passion: You will easily imagine, how greately I was surpriz’d with this unexpected stop: The Gentleman (whom I mention) upon some intervening Circumstances, having generously, and of his owne-accord desisted from any Addresses, for many Monethes, nor hitherto, I am well assur’d, renewed them by any private Intercourse whatever: There being therefore no farther progresse on that Treaty (if that may be so cal’d, which proceeded little beyond a bare proposal) I did not, until now, discover the Reluctancy which I find in her to comply with what her-selfe Confesses, would Answer all the Ends propos’d for her happinesse, and the Satisfaction of all her Relations: I must acknowledge to you that this disappointment is the more Afflicting to me, as my Confidence of her having no Prospect of renewing any farther Overture, Induc’d me to Embrace the Proposal of Marriage made me by my Brother, and Mr. Crosse from your-selfe, with infinite satisfaction: But thus it is fall’n out to my extreame regrett and sorrow: whilst In the meane time, her Discretion and dutifull behaviour hitherto, forbids us to use the Authority of some Parents on these Encounters and Occasions: I must therefore leave it to her better Consideration, whilst I beseech you to believe how sensibly I am concern’d at my owne Un-happinesse, as well as at hers; and the Trouble I have caus’d to a Person I have so greate Reguard and honour for, who am Sir Your etc. Dover Street 23: November 1691

Thomas Berenger Letter 662 (659) November 30, 1691 f 76v

Epistle DCLIX To Thomas Berenger Esquire at Iver:1

Sir, I am very sensible of the greate honor you are dispos’d to do me, and my Familie, in the proposal2 you are pleas’d to make: It is what I should have Sought and Embrac’d with 7 Thomas Berenger; see Letters 662 and 664. 1 The Victoria County History of Buckinghamshire records that “by 1695 the Manor [Cornwalls or Ever Cornwallis] had come to Thomas and Richard Berenger” III.287. Possibly Berenger knew Evelyn through Pepys, as a Robert Berenger was senior officer in the Exchequer when Pepys worked there and Pepys’s wife, Elizabeth, stayed at the Berenger’s house, Hunston Park near Cornwalls Manor, in 1660. 2 a request to open negotiations for marriage to Evelyn’s daughter Susanna (see Letters 661 and 664)

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infinite Satisfaction, would Circumstances give me leave, with any honor and decency to Interrupt an Ingagement, under which I at present am: I Accknowledge in the meane time the greate Obligation I have for your worthy thoughts of a Person so little knowne to you; wishing with all my heart, I were in Capacity to receive the Honour you Intend: Sir, Your etc. Dover-Streete: 30. November – 1691

Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn Letter 663 (660) December 1688# ff 76v–7v

Epistle DCLX To my Sister Evelyn at Woodcot

[LM: This letter is misplac’d. See the date:]1 Dear Sister, I had once resolved with my-selfe, never more to have given you the trouble of a letter from one so unwellcome to you, as (I am sure) this must be, and, as I protest to you, the

1 Although Evelyn notes that this letter is misdated, it must have been begun after the death of Evelyn’s niece, Anne Montagu, on 17 February 1688 and (as the letter makes clear) within the calendar year of her death. A letter from Evelyn’s brother-in-law, William Glanville, of 17 April 1688 asks him in his own name and that of George Evelyn to approve a letter composed by Glanville to be sent “to the Woodcott widow.” It is then to be shown to a Mr Martin, one of the witnesses of Richard Evelyn’s will (Add 78305: f 71 [17.4.1688]). The reference to “the late Tryal at Westminster,” however, appears to refer to Montagu’s prosecution by John Lewknor in February 1690 (CSP Dom. 1690: 486). There are at least two legal issues dealt with in this letter. The first is the breaking of an apparent entail and the disposal by Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn (the widow of Evelyn’s brother, Richard, who died in 1670) of the properties in Surrey (Baynards near Cranleigh and Woodcote Park near Epsom) that both John and George Evelyn regarded as part of the Evelyn family properties and subject to entail (Diary IV.569 and 583, n. 1) Elizabeth Evelyn granted Baynards to her daughter and son-in-law (William Montagu, c.1652–91) (Diary IV.582–3 and V.86). As a result it fell into the hands of Montagu after Anne Montagu’s death in 1688 (see also Letters 660 and 666). In 1685 Montagu had an affair with Jane Lewknor (b. 1661), his wife’s first cousin (Diary IV.583), and eloped with her in December of that year, taking a casket of valuables. After 1688 Montagu was a justice of the peace in Northamptonshire and sought parliamentary protection by standing for the borough of Stockbridge, an election in which his victory was challenged for corruption in 1689. The result was “the famous Infamous Tryal of my unworthy Nephew Montague at the Kings-Bench” on 14 January 1690 (Diary V.3), initiated by John Lewknor (1658–1707), Jane Lewknor’s husband, to illegitimize any children born of his wife’s relation with Montagu. As a result of this trial Montagu was imprisoned for damages of £5073 and valuables owed to John Lewknor. As a result of this, Lady Lewknor interested herself (after Montagu’s death in 1691) in the suit of her lover’s first cousin, Ralph, Baron Montagu, in his claim to the Albermarle inheritance. Montagu, who married the insane widow of Christopher Monck, 2nd duke of Albermarle (d. 1688) in 1692 (Diary V.167 & n. 1), claimed the inheritance, but was opposed by John Grenville, 1st earl of Bath. She was concerned in this suit (on behalf of Montagu) because her husband was in King’s Bench Prison for debt (see also Letter

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occasion of writing it is to me: But the late Tryal at Westminister following the Processe in the spiritual Court, some monethes before, and the publique discourse in which your Name is often mention’d (and now the talke in all places to your prejudice) I could not but reflect (as o’ft I do) upon the favour you were pleas’d to do me in a letter receiv’d from Woodcot in Aprill last, upon the Death of my late deare Niepce2 and therein the most tender and obliging Expressions relating to the memorie of my deceased Brother your Husband3 and his Family: I have been exceedingly Surpriz’d of late (I say) to heare a Name, then so precious in your Esteeme, wounded, and dishonor’d in your Person, to a degree intollerable, and indeede (if true) Scandalous and unworthy: Be pleas’d to cast your Eye a while upon a passage of that Indearing period of your Letters to me, and on which I frequently meditate: Pray give me leave so far to take notice of your Close – “Suggesting to me Estrangements, that I as little know of, as I have contributed to the pleasure I tooke, and the Rest I set up in the onely deare Remaine was left me by your most excellent Brother, and my deare Husband: My Carriage since that sad Separation, I thought would have placed me past all assaults of not having the greatest respect imaginable to his Relations: If any thing has happn’d out, not pleasing to you (unknowne to me) I must lament it: I have, and shall ever receive all the Family my deare child came of, with a Respect becoming my Affection to her; and if you will give me leave to speake something for her, who is now not able to speake for her-selfe, I must tell you she had not a more perfect resemblance of her Father in her Person, than she had for his Family in her Mind, and I am very well assur’d, as she never omitted it when she had an opportunity, to pay you all the respect in the world, so she never had any person stop’d that naturall Inclination; and I who am left the unfortunate Remaines of this part of your Family, will beg leave to tell you, no Respect shall be left un-pay’d by Your etc.”4 Thus far your Letter. Indeede here is Sister aboundance of Respect, Respect upon Respect; but [w]here’s the Reguard, or least Respect to Truth and sincerity in all this? Can you in any sort of Ingenuity, reade this Paragraph of your Letter, and call to mind the greate Injustice of what you have don, without Regret? The softnesse of and seeming good-­nature of your Expressions and Cruelty you of your Actions, without Reproch? That after all these obliging Termes, and indearing Remembrance of your Husband, my Brother, and his Relations; you should contrary to his known and expresse Will and Testament, Give-away an Estate in Reversion, to your husbands Brothers, the Relations and Heires of so deare a Daughter, to One,5 that has apparently, ben the Heart-griefe and Ruine of your Daughter, the Reproch of the Mother, and publique Scandal of all the World? To one, I say, who upon Record, have lived, and continu’d in double, and notorious Adulterie! Debauch’d the Wife, and Ruin’d the Posterity of your owne flesh and blood (your Nephew Lewknor)6



2 3 4 5 6

694). The trial began before 1694, when it was being appealed (Diary V.167). Jane Lewknor interested herself in this long-running suit in respect of her relation with Montagu, and her seeking Archbishop Tenison’s intervention on her behalf is referred to in Letter 694 of 15 February 1693. Anne Montagu, née Evelyn Richard Evelyn See Letter 579 and Add 78302: f 85 (17.4.1688) William Montagu again William Montagu

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and fortified the suspicion and common talke, of what I yet cannot so much as permitt myselfe to entertaine the least thought of, by your giving that meritorious Son-in-Law, also your owne Estate, as well as that which was not your owne, by an Excesse of Fondnesse, and (if true) a degeneracy without excuse: Good God! That ever I should heare such things of any that carries the Name at least of a Family, never ’til now defam’d for Acts of so high Injustice, Unnatural Affection, and hypocrisie, as can proceede from nothing but a propense and unparalelld Malice, for no manner of reasonable Cause assign’d: God forbid that I should lay this to your Charge; but give me leave to tell you, what others do: All the Towne and Country is full of it, and you have but to Reade what you have profess’d so often, and so solemnly, in those lines of yours above, and Seriously Reflect on the Kindnesse you have shewd to the Family you so much respect, to satisfie your owne Conscience and all the World, how greately you are Injur’d: Could that deare Husband of yours rise out of his Grave, and see what you have don to prevent the Effects of his kind Intentions to the Family you so mightily Respect, by not onely giving away, but sacrificing the Estate he brought you, to one who has left you Childlesse, by his Vices: How, ô how would he celebrate your infinite reguard to his Memorie! ’Tis true, He is not the First (you’l say) and onely Young Gentleman who has prevaricated in this wiccked Age; ’tis Confess’d, and to be deplor’d: But, as that is no extenuation, but rather Aggravates; so heare we of few, or none, among the most Abandon’d, that have persisted in so Incestuous a Course, and have made their Crime so publicly scandalous, and nefarious: I Beseech you Sister, not to think me so vaine, as that after all this freedome, and what I shall farther add, that I can be capable of flattering you, in hope of private Advantage to my selfe: I leave that to the Musitians, Mechanics, Poets and Parasites of both Sexes: The Philosophy I have ben Reproch’d with, by the Fidlers, and fat Boufoones, has not ben learn’d among the Fopps: Nor am I growne old in Lewd, and Vicious Company: You may please to examine amongst what ranke of People I have convers’d, since I had the misfortune to fall so far under your displeasure, as to cause my Niepce to disinherit her Fathers, and your excellent Husbands Brother, and after all this, to give it me under your hand, That you knew nothing of it, contributed nothing to it, stop’d no natural Inclination in your Daughter etc. whilst my poore dead Cousen, has with teares, rëiterated, that you forced her to it, against her will, wishing the hand that sign’d it, had then ben off, as credible ­Witnesses are ready to depose: I am plainely astonish’d, to heare you affirme, that you contributed nothing to what you so unjustly deprived us of, when nothing of prejudice to us could have ben don but by your owne Concurrence, by whosesoever contrivance, and how notoriously false, the pretence, as well as unworthy, beyond all pretence, God has by his providence made appeare; by the very date of the Writings themselves: And with what Implacable Zeale, and feminine passion you persecuted my Neece, to gratify the Covetous, and Crafty, under the notion of obliging a deare Husband, and virtuous sonin law [RM: L.C. Baron Montague]: After this Exploit, the Advantage you have gain’d by a sullen and scornefuly [sic] abandoning your Husbands Family (a Family, though I say it, that would have made no prey of you) for the politer Conversation of your more refin’d ­Acquaintance and Admirers, dos not appeare, nor turnes (I am perswaded) to much ­Account: For my owne part, Sister, as I have often, and honestly told you, though I were sure of surviving your son-in law, I seeke nothing, nor am I a jot solicitous how you have

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disposed of things: Onely, ’tis Unsufferable to let you go-away with an Opinion of your Subtilty, with what Addresse and dexterity you have Impos’d upon your easy Brother and Relations, under the Countenance of such Respect; whilst you have openly defrauded and injured them: I say, and affirme it againe, that I covet not, what you so unjustly devest me of, as well as my honest and worthy Brother of Wotton: Much good may the detainer of it do them; and I wish you as much satisfaction in the admirable Choice you have made, to be the Heire of Woodcot and Baynards, and all the rest of your opulent Fortune, as you can derive to one who has ben the Ruine of your Child, your Family, and (what’s yet more than all this) your Reputation; which if upon a serious Recollection, you, at last find not to Answer your Expectations, like a Christian Lady, Implore the Mercy of the Righteous God, you have Offended, and Generously Acknowledge the Injurie you have don to those, who never deserved Ill of you: From my Heart and Soule, I Forgive you, and will beg of God that he lay it not to your Charge: You are not the First, has ben Deceived by Flatterers and Crafty people; nor is it any Reproch to be deceived; but to Love to be so, and to Cherish those who abuse you, a greate one surely: Take off then your Fondnesse to that proflygate Empty-out-side, which has perverted your wonted generous Nature, and as to the Real-Wrong you have don (what ever Intrested Persons may tell you to the Contrary)[.] Remember that God who sees the Heart, will not except of any-thing in Exchange of Duty, which may be paied in Kind; Restitution being absolutely necessary, to Remission: I pitty the Father, I deplore the Prodigal his Son, and am confident he dos so too: That the Young Gentleman may Reforme, is all the harme I wish him: And so Sister, beging your Pardon for the honest Freedome I have (once for all) taken (if in any thing I have transgressed) I humbly stand Corrected, and submit to your kinder Animadversions, having long ben of Opinion, That the best, and almost onely Use of Friends and Friendship, is the Advantage of Admonishing one-another. Your most etc. London December – 1688.

Mary Tuke, née Sheldon Letter 664 (661) January 12, 1692 ff 77v–8

Epistle DCLXI To Mrs. Mary Tuke:

Deare Cousen, Knowing how much you are in the Confidences of my Daughter, and have opportunities of seeing a Gentleman1 who sometimes made his Court at Somerset-house, and for whom I realy have greate Respect; I would not he should think, it has any time ben lessen’d 1 probably William Draper

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by some Missunderstandings, I heare of: That therefore I may take off all mistakes and prejudices, by a free Eclairissement of Particulars; I will first begin with Sir Laurence Staughton:2 Long after Mr. B–3 had as I believed, given over all Intention of making any farther Application here: My Brother Glanvill4 propos’d Sir Laurence Stoughton to us, and when I came (at the beginning of Summer last) to Wotton, my Brother Evelyn then spake very earnestly to me about it: In the meane time, Mr. B– desired to know, whether if by the End of the Michaelmas Terme (then insuing) he had an hearing, and determination of his Suite in Chancery, to his Advantage, he might be admitted to proceede againe? which my Wife return’d an Answer to. That Tearme expiring, and nothing don, by which he could well settle any present Joynture, (without much hazard) I could not imagine, that the admitting one Visite onely (for ’twas no more) of a Gentleman who made no Addresse ’til the end of November, was to be rejected; Mr. B– being himselfe uncertaine of bringing his Concernes to any Conclusion, as I was Inform’d from his owne Lawyer: In this Circumstance, could I do lesse than propose Sir L. to my Daughter, or more for Mr. B–, than then when I found her Un-easy, to desire him not to make any Addresse, in as faire, and decent a manner as I could:5 That I acquainted my Brother Evelyn how unhappy I was, beset with so many difficulties, is but what I thought my selfe obliged to do to those who propos’d him to us, when Mr. B– had deferrd desisted: I must in the meane time owne, that Sir Laurence was a person, whom I could not but looke upon every way suitable to my Circumstances, so neere the place,6 where I am likely (with Gods blessing) to continue our Family, and to which whom we formerly, had a neere Relation; and which would have renew’d a considerable Interest in the Country, with such other Inducements as might have made a lesse Indulgent Father, to have us’d an Authority in these Incounters, where there was no exception: But I have ben so far from doing it, that I have since all this againe, utterly Rejected, a Proposal of another Person of greate Estate, and every-way qualified, beyond any reasonable exception, to gratifie Inclinations, if what I all along, and as far as I am able have set apart for my Daughters Portion, may be accepted of, as it would have ben by those I mention’d, who yet did offer a very ample Joynture, an Easy, and Indisputable settlement: As therefore to the Addition of £500 more, which I understand by you, is Insisted on: It is what I could never promise positively, because it may never be in my power; but as it is not twise that Summ, which I would stick to give to make my Daughter happy; so I must not oblige my selfe by Covenants, and make that a Debt on my Estate, which I do in kindnesse onely, if God shall make me able: The present Estate hanging over me being so many wayes incumbred, and what I now possesse so settled as I cannot reasonably Charge it, nor is there reason I should; since by the Method of even a Smithfield Bargain,7 there ought to be a proportionable Addition of £50 per Annum to the Joynture of £400 a yeare, which is worth a thousand pounds: Many other things I could say upon this Article; but I will not tire a faire Lady, whose Friendship and

2 3 4 5 6 7

Lawrence Stoughton; see Letter 661. probably Thomas Berenger; see Letter 662. William Glanville See Letter 662. Sir Lawrence lived at Guildford near Wotton in Surrey. a sharp or roguish bargain

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Prudence I rely on for my Justification, and if neede be for Reconciliation too: Make use therefore of this paper, as you think Convenient: If the pretended Love outweigh the Fivehundred pound, there will neede, I think, few words to the Bargaine: I am Dearest Cousen Your etc.

Dover Street 12 January. 1691/2

Charles Spencer Letter 665 (662) January 15, 1692 f 78r–v

Epistle DCLXII To my Lord Spencer:

My Lord, Having now tempted, and sufficiently provok’d your Lordship in Plautus, Cicero, Pliny, Seneca, Lipsius1 etc. (for your Lordship is master of all styles) I give it over; on my word, your Lordship has tam’d the shrew, and ’tis more than time for me to leave off the Pedant, and write hence foreward in my mother tongue:2 And now I think on’t, I cannot a little wonder, that whilst there are extant so many Volumes of Letters and familiar Epistles, in the politer modern Languages Italian, Spanish, French, we should have so few tollerable ones of our owne country now extant who have adorned that part of Elegancy, so proper, and so becoming persons of the noblest quality, and men of Businesse, and Erudition too, as well, as well as Lovers, and Courters of the faire sex:3 Sir Francis 1 A survey of stylistic models for the letter, from the ancient and the modern world, in both Latin and the European vernaculars. This introductory list encompasses the range of styles in Latin prose, and the alternatives of the Ciceronian and the Senecan, including the latter’s best-known contemporary exponent, ­Justus Lipsius (see Lipsius, Epistolarum centuriæ duæ … His juncta est ejusdem institutio epistolica [Lyon, 1596; in the 1687 library catalogue]). For Evelyn’s holdings of Seneca see Letter 281, note 5. In the 1687 library catalogue, epistolary collections are grouped with the “Libri grammatici, logici, rhetorici” (ff 81–8). See Guillén, “Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter.” 2 Evelyn had corresponded with Spencer in Latin. See Add 78679: f 130 (3.2.1690), Add 15949: f 24 (9.8.1690), and his essay on the Battle of the Boyne (Add 78310). 3 Evelyn is correct in noting the relative paucity of such collections in English (but see note 7), although there were several manuals, including Angel Day, The English secretorie. VVherein is contayned, a perfect method, for the inditing of all manner of epistles and familiar letters (London, 1586; 10 editions by 1635), collections of translated material, such as Abraham Fleming, A panoplie of epistles, or, a looking glasse for the vnlearned (London, 1576), and collections in Latin of some major English authors, including Roger Ascham, Familiarium epistolarum libri tres (London, 1576; multiple English and continental editions, as well as editions of letters addressed to Ascham; Evelyn Library, no 57) and Milton, Epistolarum familiarium liber unus (London, 1674; in the 1687 library catalogue). See Schneider, The Culture of Epistolarity, 235–8.

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Bacon,4 Dr. Don5 and I hardly remember any else, who have publish’d any thing of considerable, and they but gleanings of our Cabbal men,6 who have put many things in an heape, without much choice or fruite: Especialy at as to Culture of the Style or Language; the Genius of the Nation being almost another thing, than it was at that time James Howel publish’d his Ho-Elianæ,7 for which he indeede was laught at; not for his Letters, which acquaint us with a number of passages, worthy to be known, and had never else ben preserved, but for that pedant, and the many impertinent Bookes, the poore Gentleman was faine mercenarily to put out, that he might Eate bread in the late times:8 Yet, I say, even those letters, are worthy the reading, for the Matter and Subject of divers of them: Familiar Letters of that, and other Kinds your Lordship knowes comprehends all the kinds of Rhetoric, Deliberative, Demonstrative, Judiciary, and what ever else can fall under the compass of Rhetorick.9 There were nothing I thinke more conducible to the Improvement of our Young Gent, be his aime whatsoever in the state publique or private Capacity, than an easy and natural style in Writing Letters, nor any exercise by which he may better discover his abillities, or improve those who reade them: What should we have don without Ciceros,10 and the younger Plinies?11 to name no more, because they are incomparably the best, and of the Latine Later Centuries, Politian Erasmus,12 to this time: I am bold to 4 Scrinia Ceciliana: Mysteries of State and Government (London, 1663) contained many of Bacon’s previously unpublished letters. Evelyn’s 1687 catalogue also lists The remaines ... Being essayes and severall letters to severall great personages (London, 1648). 5 John Donne, Letters to severall Persons of Honour (London, 1651; in the 1687 library catalogue) 6 Cabala: sive Scrinia sacra. Mysteries of State and Government: in letters of illustrious persons (1654; in the 1687 library catalogue) 7 James Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ. Familiar letters domestic and forren; divided into six sections, partly historicall, politicall, philosophicall, upon emergent occasions: by J.H. Esq (London, 1645; 1678 ed. in the 1687 library catalogue). It had been reprinted five times by 1692. See Howell, Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ: The Familiar Letters of James Howell, ed. Jacobs; and Patterson, Censorship and Interpretation, 210–18 and Schneider, The Culture of Epistolarity, 249–52. Howell (1594?–1666; ODNB) was a graduate of ­Oxford (BA 1613) and travelled extensively on the continent, writing Instructions for Forreine Travel (1642, 1650). As a royalist he was imprisoned in the Fleet prison (1643–51) where he wrote a number of royalist pamphlets as well as Epistolae Ho-Elianæ and a revision of Cotgrave’s French and English Dictionary (1650). 8 Evelyn had four of Howell’s political works in his 1687 library catalogue. 9 The relationship between the three genres of rhetoric and epistolary writing was a topic of controversy. Lipsius, for example, stressed the differences between the letter and the oration. See Lipsius, Principles of Letter-writing (1596 ed. in the 1687 library catalogue) and Guillen, “Notes toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter.”  10 Evelyn’s holdings of Cicero were extensive. Apart from several sets of his opera omnia, Evelyn owned the Epistulae familiares in editions published in Paris (1526, 1578, 1678) and Leiden (1599), as well as the English translation by John Webbe, the French translations by Etienne Dolet (Lyon, 1560) and J.G. (Paris, 1679), and an Italian translation (Venice, 1552). Of the letters to Atticus and Brutus he had editions from Paris (1547) and Leiden (1595). He also had Johann Sturm’s selections from the correspondence, which was a standard school text (London, 1661). 11 The 1687 library catalogue lists editions of Pliny’s letters from 1591, 1625 (Geneva), 1659 (Amsterdam; Eve.a.1), 1669 (Leiden), and 1677 (Oxford) as well as a French translation (Paris, 1633). 12 Evelyn had the 1521 (Basle) and 1552 (Antwerp) editions of Erasmus’s letters, as well as De conscribendis epistolis (Antwerp, 1546).

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affirme, that there is more good Learning to be gotten from the Epistles, than from all the rest of their Workes, more of the Soule, and most intimate thoughts, and deepest knowledge of the writers: St. Cyprian, St. Augustine, St. Hierome, etc. of the Fathers,13 Calvine, Melanchton, Vives, Politianus, Grotius, Salmasius,14 our owne countryman ­Ascham,15 etc. let not therefore the Aretines, Bentivoglios, Balzacs, Voitures,16 and the rest Transalpines and exotics, forever cary it away from England, where were the language Cultivated with that sort of Exercise and Conversation, I should not question, the its being equal to any of the most celebrated abroade: When therefore your Lordship shall think fit to descend so low, as to believe it not unworthy your Reflection; (You who are so perfect a Master in the learned Tongues) how would you Imbellish your native Language, and set an emulous example to others, revive the dul and torpent age, and put it out of debt by the product of a native stock of our owne, and as I said, the most usefull: I am your Lordships etc. Dover-streete 15. January. – 1691/2

George Evelyn Letter 666 (663) January 16, 1692# f 78v

Epistle DCLXIII To my Brother Evelyn:

Deare Brother, The occasion of my writing at present, is from a Visite made me this evening from Sir Richard Onslow:1 After the common Civilities were past betweene us, he inform’d me, 13 Of these fathers of the church, Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue shows that he owned Cyprian, Opera, ed. John Fell (Oxford, 1682; Eve.c.17); Augustine, De civitate dei (Geneva, 1622 and French trans. Paris, 1675), Meditationes (Douai, 1616 and English trans. London, 1607) and Confessiones (Colgne, 1631); Jerome, Epistolæ (Paris, 1649) and Lettres, Divisées en Trois Livres (Paris, 1672; Eve.a.95). 14 Of these contemporary Latin letter writers, the 1687 catalogue lists Calvin, Epistolæ et Responsa ­(Lausanne, 1576); Juan Luis Vives, Dialogi (Lyon, 1585) and a French translation (Paris, 1566), Linguæ latinæ exercitatio (London, 1660); Angelo Poliziano, Opera omnia (Basle, 1553); Hugo Grotius, ­Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650); Claude Saumaise, Epistolæ (Leiden, 1656; Eve.a.154). 15 not in the 1687 library catalogue, but listed in Evelyn Library in editions of 1590 (no 57) and 1703 (no 58) 16 Of these contemporary practitioners of the vernacular letter, Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists Pietro Aretino, Lettere (3 vols; Paris, 1609), two editions of Cardinal Bentivoglio, Lettere (Paris 1635 and 1636); Sieur de Balzac, Lettres (3 vols; Paris, 1634, 1642, 1647) as well as two other editions (Paris 1658, 1659); and Vincent de Voiture, Oeuvres (Paris, 1676). 1 Sir Richard Onslow, 1st Baron Onslow (1654–1717; ODNB, H). The nephew of Denzil Onslow and the son of Sir Arthur Onslow of West Clandon, Sir Richard was created a baronet in 1688 and made a baron in 1710. He was speaker of the House of Commons from 1708 to 1710.

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that his coming to me at this time, was to desire I would Acquaint you with the late Charles Baron Mountagues2 intention of disposing of Baynards, and his Offering it to him, as lying so conveniently to his Estate at the Vacherie in that part of Surrey:3 But that he should be very tender in dealing for it, if it should in any sort be to the prejudice of one, for whom he had so greate a Respect, and which he would indeavor to preserve to our Family: I told him, that I was sure, you would owne this expression, as a signal Instance of his greate civility, as became you: As for Baynards, I presum’d he could not but know, the Injurie had ben don you, by my Sisters in taking taring that Estate so unha[n]dsomely from you, without any Colour of Justice or Cause given: Sir Richard however press’d me, to write to you about it, and that you would please to let him know your Concerne, and whether, with your good liking, he might be encourag’d to proceede with Mr. Montague:4 For that he had promis ’d to returne him a positive Answer, within ten daies: I Assurd him, I would write to you by the very first opportunity, and that I did not question but you would speedily command me to waite on him with your Answer, and in all events, Acknowledge this greate mark of his Friendship, and Neighbourly Respect: What Safe Title Mr. Montague could make to what he came so surrepticiously by, I would not undertake to determine; but I believed you would not wish so good, and worthy a Friend, as Sir Richard Onslow to deale for an Estate, which being obtain’d fraud[ul]ently, might possibly Create him any Trouble, or Misunderstanding betweene so good, and antient Neighbours: And so falling into other discourse, he tooke his leave: Now Brother whatever Reply you think fit to make, let it I pray be so written, that I may shew Sir Richard the whole letter; or rather (which I Suppose he will receive as a greater Respect) write to him yourselfe, and I will waite on him with it: I writ to you the last weeke in Answer to a former of yours at large. I pray God give you ease of your Infirmity,5 and believe me to be My Deare Brother Your etc. Dover streete 16 January. 1691/2

2 This must be William Montagu (1652–91), the infamous husband of Evelyn’s niece, Anne Montagu, who died in 1688 (see Letter 663). He had persuaded Evelyn’s sister-in-law, Elizabeth Mynne Evelyn, to alienate this property to him. Evelyn seems to have confused him here with Charles Montagu, Baron Halifax (1661–1715), the head of the family. A letter from William Glanville of 13 January 1692 establishes Montagu’s intention of selling Baynards to Sir Richard Onslow and George Evelyn’s determination to make him produce “those deeds and conveyances which have given him Legall right and power to dispose of Baynards” (Add 78305: f 78 [13.1.1692]). 3 Baynards is seven miles southwest of Wotton, Evelyn’s family’s estate. George Evelyn’s reply to this letter (Add 78304: f 96 [15.1.1692]) indicates that Evelyn’s letterbook letter is misdated. Like Evelyn, George did not believe Montagu had any true title to Baynards. 4 Sir Richard Onslow eventually acquired the property in 1700 from William Freeman. 5 Whatever George’s infirmity at this time, Evelyn refers to his dying at 83 in 1699 “of such Infirmitys as are usualy incident to so greate an Age” (Diary V.357).

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Dudley Cullum1 Letter 667 (664) February 24, 1692 f 79

Epistle DCLXIV To Sir Dudley Cullum of Hawsted in Suffolck:2 Sir, I should long since have Accknowledg’d the Honor you were pleas’d to do me, in personaly waiting upon you, had you permitted me to know where your Lodging was in Towne: The Infirmities you found in the Lambeth Stove3 you very justly impute to the Materials they made the pipes of, Invironing them with so much fuel;4 though I will not deny, that the Blast is also too fierce, and therefore suppose, that may not onely be mittigated by the expedient you mention; but by making the Ground pipes, or Chanell, much wider, and lesse Contracted; or perhaps by Inserting the stove pipes into some collateral passage, all along the Walls of the Greene-house, made full of overtures, by which the warme Vapour (under Regiment) might be equaly distributed into all the parts, some what like this rude Scheme5

Image removed at the request of the rights holder

Fig. 11 Add 78299: f 79 ©The British Library Board. All Rights Reserved

a. The two stove or furnace pipes: bb:b: The collaterall or mural pipe into which the stove pipes are inserted at d.d. c.c. the holes towards the inside of the Repository:

1 Sir Dudley Cullum, 3rd baronet (1657–1720; ODNB, H). A horticultural writer, Cullum corresponded with Evelyn from his home in Hawstead,Suffolk, between 1691 and 1694 (Add 15857: ff 200–2). Cullum studied at Cambridge. Some of his experiments were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1694. He became baronet in 1680, high sheriff of Suffolk in 1690, and an MP in 1702. He married Anne, daughter of John, Lord Berkeley of Stratton, whom Evelyn knew well. 2 This letter is a response to one of 19 February (Add 15857: f 200 [19.2.1691]). Evelyn’s reply is drafted on the verso. Cullum responded on 5 January 1693, stating that “your late invented stoves for a green house succeeds (by the experience I have had of it), which has certainly more perfection than ever yet art was before master of ” (Diary [1887], III, 331) and on 14 May 1694 (339–40). 3 possibly in Spring Garden, see Diary III.291, n. 2 4 See Chambers, “John Evelyn and the Invention of the Heated Greenhouse.” 5 See also the images printed in Kalendarium Hortense (1691), 157.

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In all Events, I am not so much solicitous for its Successe, upon this first, and mistaken trial; as that it communicates the Effect, which I suggested, namely, the Introducing of fresh and natural Aire, accompanied with the warmth; the Intensenesse whereof, will I question not, but be soone moderated: I am Sir Your etc. I most humbly kisse your most excellent *Ladys hands [RM: *daughter of my Lord Berkely], whom I had sometime the honour of being known to.

Dover streete: February. 24: – 1691/2

Samuel Pepys Letter 668 (665) April 12, 1692 f 79

Epistle DCLXV To Samuell Pepys Esquire1

Sir I have so much to say to you upon the account of favours, and retort on the many obligations you are pleas’d to mention; that the little time I should be able to spend with you this Afternoone, were too narrow to expresse them in good forme: For what dos not he owe the generous person who is not satisfied to bestow a kingdom, but the whole *Universe [RM: *Copernicus Sphere in brass]2 upon his Friend, and then extenuate this munificence upon the receiving of a few lacerated and insignificant papers not worthy his keeping? But do you think I had the Impudence, or ill manners to suggest your bespeaking these things for me to your cost and trouble? No, you delight to overwhelme whom you favour with your generous Nature, and teach me to become more modest, by a Method not to be learn’d by any moral Precepts that I have note met with in all my Reading: You should not have ben solicitous about the Columna Trajana,3 for any accident you mention, if it

1 Particular Friends, D14, 232. This is the only text of this letter. 2 an armillary sphere, astrolabe, or planisphere; the OED cites one made in silver for Charles II. Particular Friends reads this as a reference to Aristarchus, but in the previous letter to Evelyn, apologizing for ruining Evelyn’s copy of Ciaccone’s engraved edition of Trajan’s Column, Pepys refers to his promise to send “a Sphære after Copernicus” (231). 3 Alphonso Ciaccone, [Alonso Chacón] Historia utriusque Belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti ... in Columna eiusque Romae [with engravings by Villamena] (Rome, 1616; in the 1687 catalogue and Evelyn

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had ben worth your acceptance and retention; for I looke on it as an honour, that it stood so long, and kept its station where you plac’d it: But I am glad you have met with one so faire, as I doubt not must be that of Sir William Lelys,4 to which the Notes may easily be supplied: In the meane time I know not whether you have seene a Second Edition5 of that noble Monument with very elegant Cutts publish’d in Holland, one of which I saw in the hands of Mr. Frazier;6 but the designe indeede seemes not to compare with Villamenas: I am asham’d at what the Epithete you bestow on what I either have, or ever could have perform’d in the History,7 where I had no liberty of writing Truth, if I had ben ever so well able: Upon this Compliment, we must have more discourse when we meete: Farewell Deare Sir Dover streete 12 Aprill – 1692

Mary Wyche Letter 669 (666) [n.d.]# f 79v

Epistle DCLXVI To my *Lady Wyche

[LM: *Mary Evelyn my God-daughter married to Sir Cyrill Wych1 Secretary of State in Ireland2 and since one of the Lord Justices]

4 5 6 7

Library, no 363, and bought from Villamen’a widow in 1645). It had already been published in Rome in 1576. Evelyn records seeing the column in 1645 (Diary II.378–9) and refers to the book in Letter 438 to Pepys. Evelyn probably refers to the collection of Sir Peter Lely (1618–80; ODNB) whom Pepys also knew and to whose collection of paintings and other works he refers in his diary. See Dethloff, “Sir Peter Lely’s Collection of Prints and Drawings.” This refers not to a reissue of Ciaccone’s work but another unidentified book of engravings of Trajan’s column. A third edition of Ciaccone’s work, edited by Raffaelo Fabretti, was published in Rome in 1683. Probably this is the “Mr. Frazier, a learned Scots gent” whom Evelyn mentions on 14 July 1683 as a purchaser at the sale of the library of Nicholas Heinsius the elder. Evelyn mentions Frazier’s having purchased “divers Roman Antiquities” (Diary IV.330 and n. 1). See Letter 492 to Johan van der Does. In Pepys’s letter to Evelyn of 28 March 1692, he refers to Evelyn as “an Historian” (Particular Friends, 230).

1 Sir Cyril Wyche (c.1632–1707; ODNB). He studied at Christ Church (BA 1653, MA 1655) and was created DCL in 1665. In 1657 he went to Gray’s Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1670. Wyche was knighted in 1661, became a member of the Philosophical Society in the same year, and a fellow of the Royal Society in 1662. He was also a member of the Philosophical Society in Dublin, and befriended John Evelyn Jr when he went there. He became secretary to Henry Sidney, lord lieutenant of Ireland but was relieved of that position (in which Mary Evelyn thought he would “not be much regretted”) (Add 78300: f 45 [26.5.1695]) by the appointment of Henry Capel as lord lieutenant. The reference in Evelyn’s marginal note to Wyche’s appointment as lord justice was added after he took up this post in 1693. 2 John Evelyn Jr’s account of their passage to Ireland is given in two letters of 22 and 23 August 1692 (Add 78301: f 39 & f 40).

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My Deare Neepce (for I will not call you my Lady Wych, ’til you give me leave) As I should take it ill my-selfe, and think it no part of good manners, to be impertinently curious after what another desired to keepe a seacret; so when one heares of the happinesse, and good fortune of those we Love, and Esteeme, not to Rejoice and take notice of it, would be as rude and un-becoming: The Report of your being Married3 (Deare Niepce) I do assure you is not due to any Impertinence of your Unkles; for finding that my Brother thought fit to conceale it, I believed (as I also told him) it was upon just and prudent reasons: But when afterwards I heard it so publiqly spoken of, and that by a Gentleman of quality (a meere Stranger to me) where I happn’d to be, and that it was to the Person in the world, whom I wish’d you would make your Husband; I went on purpose to kisse your hands at your Lodging, and to give you Joy, and since that, to Accknowledge the honor of a Visite from Sir Cyrill at his house, though I had not the happinesse to find either of you: An unexpected and very un-wellcome Accident4 hurrying me out of Towne on Saturday last, and keeping me at home ever since, depriv’d me of letting you know how much satisfaction I receiv’d by the fresh Assurance of your happinesse: Indeede you neede not have so industriously [word deleted] conceild That from so very neere a Relation, which I had so heartily contributed to wished, and who have upon all occasions of mentioning him, bespoken your preference of him and so often, and now lately to my Brother your Father also, that he would dispose you to receive his Addresses as every way the most worthy your Choice: For as I am ever had an extraordinary reguard for Religion and Learning, accompanied with Prudence and those other rare Accomplishments justly due to his Character; so do I not know that person living, with whom you could have ben more Happy, or don your Family more Honor: Receive then (Dear Niece) both from my Wife and my selfe these Congratulations of your Happinesse, with the hearty Benediction of Dear Niece Your most humble Servant and Unkle and Godfather JE:

3 The marriage took place on 2 May 1692 but Evelyn records it on 15 May (Diary V. 101). 4 the death of Sir Edward Evelyn; see Diary V.100

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John Tillotson1 Letter 670 (667) May 3, 1692 f 79v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCLXVII To the Archbishop of Canterbery etc.

[LM: Dr. Tillotson] My Lord, I dare not on any pretence, or merite of my owne, presume to bespeake your Graces favour in behalfe of this Bearer Mr. Lucas2: But in Conjunction with my Brother Evelyn and Glanvils Recommendations, and the particular knowledge we all have of his Abillities (and other Vertues – qualifying for his Sacred function) I could not resist the giving him this Addresse to your Grace; if, (as he is pleas’d to think) it may be of any moment to him, in obtaining the Presentation of Stoke-Climsland in Cornwall,3 now in his Majesties disposal (by the death of the late Incumbent) it being in his native Country, and where he has habitudes, and Consequently opportunities of doing Service in the Church among them, for which he is excellently qualified: This Suffrage (my Lord) being due to his life and Conversation, as well as to his Learning and Talent in the Pulpit, from those who know him (and are better Judges than my-selfe) will Justifie this Character, and the Assurance I have of your Graces favour to him, or Pardon for this greate presumption of My Lord, Your Graces etc. Dover-streete St James’s 3: May – 1692.

1 Tillotson had become archbishop of Canterbury in 1691. 2 This is probably Anthony Lucas whom Evelyn had heard preach at Wotton in 1687 (Diary IV.557, 559). Evelyn’s letter appears to have been unsuccessful. It also exists in a fair copy (Add 78318: f 62 [31.5.1692]). 3 six miles south of Launceston

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Tenison Letter 671 (668) July 16, 1692 f 80

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Epistle DCLXVIII To the Bishop of Lincolne

[RM: Dr. Tenison] My Lord: The Bearer hereof Mr. Turner,1 is the Person, whom upon the Recommendation of Mr. Holden2 (and the good Report universaly Given of him) I lately spake to your Lordship of: The Mistake under which it seemes I lay (as to the Tabernacle, where he is Petitioner to your Lordship he may succeede)3 obliges me to give him this Addresse, and to Renew my Request for your Favour to him, if you be not præingag’d: I have my selfe heard him Preach with much Edification, and in the plaine Practical way, which I believe your Lordship will like, and appeares Concern’d for those he would Instruct: But of this, and what else may best qualifie him for his sacred Function, your Lordship best will Judge, and soone discerne: I have reason to believe so very much Good of him, that I cannot but Bespeake againe your Lordships Favour and Kindnesse to him, with your Blessing to my Lord Your etc. Says Court 16: July –1692

I thought to have met your Lordship at the Auction of Mr. Boyles Books4 but buisinesse prevented me: I am in the meane time, much displeas’d that my Lord Burlington5 should suffer this Exposure, such as I take to be the Selling of that excellent persons Bookes, where there is no necessitie for it.

1 Evelyn had heard the sermons of John Turner (1660–1720; Diary), vicar of Greenwich, in 1688, 1689, and 1690 (Diary IV.591, 653; V.30). 2 Richard Holden, rector of St Nicholas, Deptford 3 Although Tenison had been consecrated bishop of Lincoln on 25 January 1692, he also retained the living of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the gift of the living of the “Tabernacle,” Holy Trinity, Bond St. 4 Robert Boyle had died on 31 December 1691. The sale was advertised in the London Gazette 7–11 July 1692. A contemporary account describes the library as containing 3571 volumes. See Avramov, Hunter, and Yoshimoto, Boyle’s Books: The Evidence of his Citations . 5 Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork (1612–98; ODNB), and the head of the family. In 1643 Richard assumed his father’s title and in 1644 he inherited through his wife the title of Baron Clifford of Lanesborough. Having been the lord lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, he was ­created earl of Burlington in 1665.

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Elizabeth MacCarty Letter 672 (669) July 30, 1692 f 80

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCLXIX To the Countesse of Clancartie:

[RM: concerning her son the Earle of Clancartie1 etc.] Madame, I know nothing more reasonable, than what your Ladyship has written to my Lord Sunderland, that this unhappy Affaire, may at last be put to some Issue, nor can I See how my Lord can in honor or Justice, refuse the Expedient you have propos’d to bring it to a Conclusion: But Madame, as to my Approbation of what you have already don, and now written to my Lord, I should be both Impertinent, and much wanting in Good-manners, should I take upon me to Advise you, who have proceeded with so much Prudence in all this Affaire, and which needes must Justifie you to all the World: I am Madame Your etc. Dover-streete 30: July. 1692.

Anne Spencer Letter 673 (670) August 2, 1692 f 80

Epistle DCLXX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, Though my *Son [RM: *made one of the Commissioners of the Revenue there]1 think to set forth towards his Journey into Ireland the next Weeke;2 yet one Day were too long to

1 Donough MacCarty had sided with James II and forfeited his estates in Ireland. He was imprisoned in the Tower. 1 The warrant for letters patent for this commission was passed on 10 May 1692. The secretary of the commission was Lawrence Steele, and the other commissioners were Francis Roberts, Thomas Keightley, Zacheus Sedgwick, and Christopher Carleton. CSP Dom. Nov. 1691–Dec. 1692: 278. See also Diary V.113. 2 Evelyn notes their departure for Ireland on 11 August (Diary V.113).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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suspend our Accknowledgments for the noble Present3 you lately sent us: I am afraid, if your Ladyship Continue this Course of Obliging, we shall hereafter claime prescription; for I am sure we can pretend no other Title to any Favour we Receive from Althorp: I wish that sweeter of Revenge were in my power, not to render Evil for Evil; but to Oblige and do Benefits, that could not be returnd repaied in kind: But this prerogative (and I think it one of the Greatest, and most Desirable) have Greate Persons above others, that among so many privileges, they have it in their power the receiving this is their peculiar, to Oblige, beyond possibillity of desert in the Receiver Returne other than what is paied to God, Gratefull Acknowledgements, which Add nothing to him, and is but our Duty: Such is mine to your Ladyship, whom though I am not Poët enough to make a Deity,4 I honor, and esteeme for all those Vertues and perfections in which you Resemble those Perfections, which are Transcendent in him, and so eminent in your Ladyship, as justifie my Ambition of being believ’d to be Madame Your etc. Dover-streete 2: August. – 1692

Samuel Pepys Letter 674 (671) September 9, 1692# f 80v

Epistle DCLXXI To Mr. Pepys etc.1

I have ben Philosophizing, and World-despizing in the Solitudes of this Place, whither I am Retir’d to passe and mourne the Absence of my Best and Worthyst Friend: Here is Wood, and Water, Meadows and Mountaines, the Dryads and Hamadryads; But here is no Mr. Pepys, no Dr. Gale;2 Nothing of all the Cheere in the Parler, that I Tast; All’s Insipid, and all will be so to me, ’til I See, and Injoy you againe: I long to know what you do, and what you think; because I am certaine you do both what is worthy the knowing and Imitation: On Moneday-next will Mr. Bently3 resume his learned Lecture, I think at 3 probably venison from Althorp as August was a common time for culling the herd 4 as did Virgil of Augustus in the Aeneid 1 Particular Friends, D15, 233. The original (in Pepys, Private Correspondence, no 44) is dated 29 August 1692. 2 Thomas Gale 3 Richard Bentley (1662–1742; ODNB). Robert Boyle had endowed a lecture series in his will “for Preachers who should preach expressly against Atheists, Libertins, Socinians Jewes” (Diary V.82), and named Evelyn one of the trustees. Bentley was the first to deliver the Boyle lectures. The most important classical scholar of his generation, Bentley was also famous for his role in the ancients and moderns controversy of the 1690s. After graduating from Cambridge in 1680, he became chaplain to Bishop Stillingfleet in 1690. In that office he was noticed by Evelyn and appointed as the first Boyle lecturer. In

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St. Martines:4 I feare I shall hardly get through this Wildernesse by that time: Pray give him your Countenance if you can, and tell him how Unhapply I am Intangld here: I hope however yet to get home within a fortnight, and about the End of October to my Hyemation5 in Dover-Streete: My Son is gon with the Lord Lieutenant,6 and his new Relation Sir Cyrill Wiche7 into Ireland: I looke they should Returne mighty States-men, or else they had as good have staied at home: I am here with Boccalini8 and Erasmus’s Praise of Follie,9 and looke-down upon the world, with wondrous Indifference, when I consider for what wee keepe such a bustle: Ô Fortunate and Happy Friend! who Possesses and Injoys all that’s worth the pursuite and seeking [insert: injoying]: Let me still live among your Inclynations, and I shall be Happy too 9: September. – 1692 Wotton.

Lord N. N. Letter 675 (672) October 12, 1692 f 80v

Epistle DCLXXII To my Lord – – N. N.1

My Lord Having lost all my Patrons and Patronesses here, whilst – is absent, you must create a Merit (for I have none of my owne) which may Introduce me into the notice of your

4 5 6 7 8 9

1694 he was made keeper of the royal libraries; in 1695 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society and chaplain-in-ordinary to the king; and in 1698 he was embroiled in the controversy about Charles Boyle’s edition of The Epistles of Phalaris, about which he wrote to Evelyn on 21 April 1698 (Add 78683: f 67 [21.4.1698]). From 1700 to 1742 he was master of Trinity College, Cambridge, in spite of the attempts of the fellows to oust him. Elizabeth Packer says that Elizabeth (Berkeley) Burnet “knows him ... and esteems him much” (Add 78436: f 89 [22.2.1695]). St Martin-in-the-Fields. In the original of this letter (Particular Friends, 233) Evelyn mistakenly puts the lecture in St Mary-le-Bow. The lectures were alternately given in the two churches. over-wintering Henry Sidney, sworn in as lord lieutenant on 4 September. Cyril Wyche had been named his secretary in March (Diary V.101 and n. 1). Evelyn notes John Jr’s departure on 11 August (113). Cyril Wyche had just married Evelyn’s niece, Mary. See Letter 669. Trajano Boccalini, I Ragguagli di Parnasso: or, Advertisements from Parnassus in two centuries. With the Politick touchstone ... Put into English by ... Henry Earl of Monmouth (London, 1656; Evelyn Library, no 184). The 1687 library catalogue also records the 1615 Italian edition. A book written “ex rure” (Erasmus Thomae Moro s.d. ), and appropriate reading for Wotton. The 1687 library catalogue lists Moriae Encomium (Amsterdam, 1629).

1 A letter so thoroughly encoded is difficult to unravel. It seems possible, however, that it is addressed to James Lane, 2nd Viscount Lanesborough (1650–1724; Diary), who was distantly related to the Evelyns.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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honorable Unkle: I have ben to waite on him, as is my duty to one so Conspicuous, and so neerely related; but cannot pretend to favours without your Lordship smooth the way: Your Lordship has had some experience of the Gentlemans Qualification for buisinesse: And ’tis natural for him to seeke all honest Advantages, that may employ him: He has Talents which realy deserve Incouragement: Will your Lordship be so noble and kind as to honor him with your Recomme[n]datory Letters? He would esteeme himselfe happy in having any Imployment under so noble a Person, or any other Station under within his Influence: All which I leave to your Lordships Operation and remaine My Lord Your Wo 12 October. 1692.

Thomas Tenison Letter 676 (673) October 15, 1692#1 ff 80v–2

Epistle DCLXXIII To my Lord Bishop of Lincoln:

My Lord, Whatsoever my opinion had been concerning the Cause of Earthquakes,2 I am sure it had become me to have Submitted to your Lordships better Judgement:3 But indeede I have long had no other Sentiments of them it,4 than what I find confirm’d by your Lordship with so greate Reason, by so many Experiments, and pregnant Instances of the irresistible Effects of Niter,5 which no Chaines can bind: An experiment which was long since made at Gressham Colledge, were enough to Convince one: They prepar’d a Ball of solid Yron, about the thicknesse of a pretty Cannon Ballet, which was hammerd both hot and cold, to The “honourable Unkle” could then be Sir Cyril Wyche, whose sister, Jane, was married to the earl of Bath. The unnamed patron is probably Sidney Godolphin, and the letter was probably seeking support for John Evelyn Jr then in Dublin. 1 Evelyn’s reference to the earthquake of 9 January 1693 in Catania suggests that the letter was revised. See note 14. 2 On 15 September, Evelyn notes: “Happn’d an Earthquake, which though not so greate as to do any harme in England, was yet universal in all these parts of Europe” (Diary V.115). This followed very soon upon “the sad newes of the Hurocan & Earthquake” in Jamaica which had occurred at Port Royal on 7 June (113) and which he describes as having “destroyed a world of people & almost ruin’d the whole Iland” (115). He probably derived much of the information in this discussion from Robert Hooke’s Discourse on Earthquakes, written in 1681 and delivered to the Royal Society. Evelyn mentions hearing one of these papers on 30 July 1690 (30). This letter responds to Tenison’s conjectures on earthquakes in a letter of 3 October (Diary [1887], III, 323–35). 3 Tenison had some interest in science, having studied medicine and published Baconiana in 1674. 4 Evelyn is probably familiar with a considerable body of literature, beginning with Book 6 of Seneca’s Naturales Quæstiones. 5 potassium nitrate or saltpetre

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render it as hard and tough as possible. In this they drill’d a small hole to the center, and after having dropp’d in a few graines of Gunpowder, and stopping them up by forcing in a Screw, exceedingly well riveted at the top: They set it on a pan of Coales Char-Coale in a large quadrangle of the Colledge: Which no sooner throly heated; but with a tirrible Explosion, it brake the Ball into a thousand Pieces: Now though this was common Gunpowder;6 yet ’tis not the Sulphur, but the Niter which operates with this pernicity, and breakes all bands whatsoever: The Sulphur and Coale which enter into the Composition, and blacken the Cornes, are onely (your Lordship knows) in order to its speedily kindling, adding little else to its force: The Consideration whereof frees me from all Questionings of the Being, and power of Spirits: (I meane Intellectual ones) and of Creatures and Beings Invisible: The dire Effects of Compress’d, and Aer Incarcerated Aer, when the Turnkey Fire (Sulpur) unlocks the Prison-dore, are not to be express’d but with Astonishment: Nor passe I by a Wind-Mill without wonder, to see a Stone of that Magnitude, and so ponderous, and of so many Tuns weight, whirl’d about with that Swiftnesse by something which we do not see, and sometimes hardly feele, for a very little breach will set it going: Indeede it was to this pent-up Vapour, which the antient Meteorologists attributed those Coliques, and Convulsions of the Earth; but they did not dreame of Niter; which though no more than Aer Contracted, has so much the more violent operation when expanded, as inclines me to think it may have raised all the famous Picas7 we meete with, and not onely the Vulcanos at present burning (such as Hecla, Vesuvius, Ætna, Stromboli, etc.)8 but perhaps most of the Mountaines of the World, which I fancy, might have ben thrust up by the force of Subterranean fires: Powderd Alabaster, Chalke and Sand being put into a Vessell, and set on the fire, will (when hot) boile, and bubble-up to some pretty and odd Resemblances of such protuberances: Nor is it unlikely, that where the Hills are highest the Caves are as profound underneath them; and that there are vast ones under those Alpes, and Sierras from whence our Rivers derive their plentifull streames, and have their supplies, from some such Capacious Cisterne and Hydrophylatias9 as Kirkerus10 mentions: Besides these, may there not also be many dry, and empty Cryptas, sometimes above, and sometimes beneath these Water Receptacles; where the fire is stor’d Vulcan, and the Cyclops are perpetualy at Work? and that in processe of time, the Fire ariving at a bed of Niter, and Sulphur blowing up all incumbences,11 not onely cause these concussions, but frequently Spew out greate quantities of Water? ’Tis evident that the very Glebe,12 and Soile all about Naples is natural Fuel, where I have in many places taken 6 The Evelyn family held a patent (monopoly) for gunpowder. Although there is no record of this experiment in the diary, there are accounts of other experiments with explosives. “The History of the Making of Gunpowder” by Evelyn’s friend Thomas Henshaw is printed in Thomas Sprat’s History of the Royal Society (1667; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1405). 7 peaks 8 Hecla is in the Outer Hebrides. The other mountains are in Italy: Vesuvius in the Bay of Naples, Etna in Sicily, and Stromboli on an island directly north of Sicily. 9 native calcium chloride  10 Athanasius Kircher, Mundus subterraneus, in XII. libros digestus, quo divinum subterrestris mundi opificium ... universæ denique naturæ majestas et divitiæ summa rerum varietate exponuntur, etc. (Amsterdam, 1665). Evelyn’s notes from Kircher’s book are in the commonplace book Add 78329: ff: 47–8. 11 things hanging over it  12 soil of the earth

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up Sulphur Vivum, both under, and above the Surface:13 Pliny All the Ground both under that noble Citty and Country about it, sounds hollow like a Tub and the hot Bathes, and natural Stoves, and other extraordinary things of this kind thro all that Territorie, are the Effects of Subterranean fires, which feeding on the Bitumineous and other unctuous, and inflamable matter (which it copiously finds) when it comes once to meete with a Stratum of Niter, it forces up all above and about it, and makes that prodigious havoc, however thick, deepe, and heavy be the incumbent weight or matter; thus did Vesuvius Anno 1630, and now since (more tirribly) at Catanea;14 ejecting stones, and huge Rocks of monstrous bulk; belching out flames, and scattering Ashes some hundred leagues distance from the Irruption: Now when this Niter has don its Execution, and one thinks it quite at rest, for so it seem’d to be for above a thousand years, (nay I think, ever since the Elder Plinie15 perish’d *there) [RM: *for in this Confidence they built Citties and Palaces and planted Viniards and places of pleasure] emitting onely a little Smoke; whilst it was all this while, it seemes lurking, and exeding16 what it found capable to maintaine it, ’til it came to another stratum and then up went all againe, and thus ’tis evident have ben made those deeps and dreadfull Calderas,17 both of Vesuvius, and Ætna: Whither at first these fires were kindled by Lightnings from without (as your Lordship will conjecture) or from Corruscations within, or by the Collision of Pyrites and other Stones of the arched Caverns; the prepared matter soone conceives a kindling, which breaking into a flame, rarifies the stagnant Aer, which bursts those rocky barrs, and it which ’til it be breach all out and puts oftentimes a whole Country into those paroxysmes, and Ague fitts which we call Earthquakes: The noise, Explosion and inconceivable swiftnesse of its motion, effecting so distant places in the same moment almost of time, shewes thro what Recesses longextended Channels, and hollow passages (as in so many Mines) this Sulphurous Niter lies in traine, ready for the Lin-Stock:18 In These Furnaces are doubtlesse the Laboratories where Minerals are Concocted into Metals; Fluors19 Sublimated; Salts and Juices Condens’d, and precious stones, the several ferments, imparting various qualities to Earths and Waters, and promoting vegetation: Nay, who knows (and I pray God we may never know) whether local Hel be not the Central Fire: or whither this vast Terraquous Globe, may not one day breake like a Granado20 about our Eares, and Cast it selfe into another Figure, than the Deluge did, according to the ingenious Doctors Theorie?21 [LM: Dr. Burnet of the Charter-house] 13 See Evelyn’s description of his visit to the Phlegraean Fields southwest of Naples (Diary II.336–51). 14 Evelyn notes an earthquake there on 19 February 1693 (Diary V.133). He carefully annotated “A Letter from Mr. Martin Hartop at Naples, to the Publisher. Together with an Account of the Late Earthquake in Sicily,” Philosophical Transactions 17, no. 202 (July–August, 1693), 827–9. 15 the author of the Historia Naturalis, who died from suffocation as a result of getting too close to the eruption of Vesuvius 16 eating out, corroding (obs.) 17 a cavity on the summit of an extinct volcano; the OED lists 1865 as the earliest usage. 18 a fiery stick used for igniting gunpowder 19 flowings, streams (obs.) 20 grenade 21 Thomas Burnet, Telluris theoria sacra: orbis nostri originem & mutationes generales, quas aut jam subiit, aut olim subiturus est, complectens (London, 1681; Evelyn Library, no 274); The theory of the earth: containing an account of the original of the earth, and of all the general changes which it hath

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But my Lord, from Philosophising and Conjecture, I am Rambling I know not whither: When all that I would signifie, is my full Assent to your Lordships Reasoning; verily believing the Cause of Earthquakes to proceede from the Ingredient mention’d, mutualy inkindled, and then in searching vent, teares tares all up, where it finds the obstacle, and shaking all about it: ’Tis observable that Ægypt and the lower Regions seldome suffer these Concussions, whilst the Mountainous Countries are most obnoxious, as most Cavernous; especialy, in hot Climats: Sad Instances of this are the yet Ruines of old Antioch,22 and in our days Smyrna, Zathynus,23 etc. and in our days Ragusa, Benevento, Smyrna24 againe, and that tirrible one of Jamaica,25 which had its operation, and was felt as far as England but a few days since: All the mountainous Countries of Sicily and Greece and alongst Dalmatia side are hollow, perhaps for thousands of miles, even under the very sea it selfe; as I believe from Visuvius to Ætna, and thence to other farther remote Mountaines, and Vulcanos, perhaps as far as Iseland, China, and the Andes of Peru; which are full of Picos,26 whereof Potosi27 (that inexhaustible magazine of Silver and other Metalls) seemes to be no other: These furious Ravages may also probably have made so many Rugged Cliffs Rocks, Cliffs, Hiatus’s, and Peloponesus’s, and to have separated those many Ilands, and Sporados28 so scatter’d, and as it were sow’d about the Ocean, and divided from the Continent; and what if raised in the very Sea it selfe, as the Terceras29 were and Teneriff in the Grand Canaries; not to insist one the new Mountaine neere the Baiæ:30 So that (my Lord) I am in no distresse at all to solve this Phænomena, at least, to my owne Satisfaction: But when all is said, though all proceede from natural Causes; yet doubt I not of their Effects being Inflicted and Directed, by the supreme Cause of Causes, as Judgements upon a sinfull World; and for signes of greate Calamities, if they work no Reformation; if they do, of Chastizements: Upon these Accounts I looke on them as portentous, and of evil præsage, and to show us that there is no stabilitie under Heaven, where we can be Safe and Happy; but in Him alone, who laied the Foundations of the Earth, the Rock of Ages, that shall never be Removed, when Heaven and Earth shall passe away: As to our late Earth-quake here,31 I do not find it has left any considerable marks: But at Mons ’tis said, it has made some Demolitions: I happn’d to be at my Brothers at Wotton

22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

already undergone, or is to undergo, till the consummation of all things. The two first books concerning the deluge, and concerning paradise (London, 1684). See also Letter 481 to Pepys. Large earthquakes shook Antioch in 37 AD and again in 115 and 526. Zakynthos in Greece Ragusa is in Sicily south of Etna. Benevento is northeast of Naples. Smyrna is in modern Turkey. Sir Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S. Christophers, and Jamaica, with the natural history ... of the last of those islands (London, 1707) was written about his journey there in 1688 (i.e., before the earthquake of 1692 with which Evelyn begins this letter) and notes an earthquake of 19 February 1688 while there: “Earthquakes as they are too frequent in Hispaniola, where they have formerly thrown down the town of Santo Domingo, so they are too common here also” (xliv). peaks of mountains a silver-rich mining area of Bolivia, well known by the early seventeenth century the Sporades, a group of islands off the east coast of Greece Terceira is part of the Azores. Evelyn gives an account of Baia or Baiano near Naples in Diary II.348–9. Evelyn records the earthquake of 8 September 1692 in Diary V.115. He records several other earthquakes in England: see also Diary IV.550 and V.36.

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in Surry when this shaking was, and at dinner with much Companie; none of us yet at Table sensible of any Motion: But the Mayd, who was then making my Bed; and another Servant in a Garret above her felt it plainely; and so did my Wifes Laundry-Mayd here at Deptford; and generaly, where ever they were above in the upper floores they felt the trembling most sensibly, for a Reason I neede not explaine to your Lordship. In London, and particularly in Dover street (where my Sons house is) they were greately afrighted: But the Stories that go about in this Neighbourhood, by many who are lately returnd from Jamaica, are many, and very Tragical: I doubt not but at the next meeting of Gressham College32 (which will now shortly be after their usual Recesse during Summer) we shall have ample, and authentic Histories, and Discourses on this Subject from Several Places of their Correspondents: I cannot in the meane time omitt Acquainting of your Lordship with one very remarkable, which we have received here from credible hands: That during this astonishing, and tirrible Paroxysme, multitudes of People running distractedly out of their tottering houses; and seeing so many swallowd up and perishing; divers of them espying the Minister of the Towne at some distance, Ran and cumpass’d him all about, desiring him to pray for them, as immediately he did, all falling on their knees: When all the ground about them suddenly sinking, the Spot onely upon which they were at prayers remained a firme, and steady Iland, all the rest of the contiguous ground turning into a Lake, other places into Gulphs which drown’d, and buried all that stood upon them, and which were very many. And now my Lord, ’tis time to Implore your pardon, for this tedious Paper, together with your Blessing – Says Court 15 October. 1692/3

Henry Hyde Letter 677 (674) January 4, 1693 f 82

Epistle DCLXXIV 1 To the Earle of Clarendon:

My Lord, It is none of the least of my Infelicities, but (I may truely affirme) a very greate one, and far from my hope and expectations, that I should wast a whole winter in this noysietowne, without the opportunitie I flatter’d my-selfe, I should have, of waiting often upon your Lordship and my noble Lady:2 I Confesse you have both made Choyce of what I should have don my-selfe: But that Selfe, even that same Love of Selfe (why should I dissemble?) makes me still to wish you here, where severall Circumstances are like to detaine me much longer than I desire: Whilst your Lordship is so far off I can onely assure 32 i.e., of the Royal Society 1 cancelled head-note referring to one of the Evelyn family 2 Flower Hyde

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you, that you are both often in my thoughts, and prayers, with as distinguishing reguard and honour (becoming my greate Obligations) as I am Capable to Expresse. The precious *Depositum [RM: *severall Medals] your Lordship has concredited to me,3 I still reserve, in hopes of delivering them yet to the same hands I received them from, before this Season be quite spent, together with some Account of the Use I have made of them: In the meane while, That, and other of your Lordships favours to me, Incourages me to Aske once one more for a Friend of mine in a publique Concerne, as well as his owne, if the Circumstances be as he Relates, and as I believe they are: I am bold to include his owne Letter to me in this, without bespeaking your Lordship any farther in a Cause, which your Lordships Justice will soone determine, if there be Cause, and inable me to satisfie his Quærie who am My Lord etc. Dover-streete 4 January–1692/3

John Bemde1 Letter 678 (675) February 21, 1693 ff 82–3

Epistle DCLXXV To Mr. B – – y

Sir, A Letter Superscrib’d to me under a flying-seale;2 but intended for my Wife, with designe (I suppose) that I should Reade it; Reflecting upon her, as if she had Subdolously timed the Date, and delivery of one she sent my Lady (your Mother) in a Crafty, and Collusive manner, to Justifie something which had I perceive ben unkindly taken (but without any shadow of Reason) is the occasion of my present writing to you–I shall not tire you with many Sentences (though nothing were more easy, than to Repay Raillery with Raillery, with which you have mervailously addorn’d your style) but plainely, and honestly speake to what concernes my Wife, so far as I can Justifie her in what you extreamely mistake her; by believing that what was written, and sent after Sir William Turners3 death, was a subtil Contrivance betweene her, and Mrs. P–4 not to operate and take effect before: I do therefore upon the word, and Faith of a Christian, and a Gentleman (and of all that 3 Presumably these were for Evelyn’s work on Numismata (1697), which he started at this time. 1 See Letter 645. Bemde had previously courted Evelyn’s daughter Susanna, but broken off the suit. See Harris, “A Revolution Correspondence,” 168. 2 a letter with a seal attached but not closed 3 Sir William Turner (d. 6 February 1693; L). An alderman and president of the hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlehem (Bedlam), Turner was lord mayor in 1668–9. 4 Isabel Packer

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is Religious, and Valuable in one of some Reputation hitherto in the world) solemnly Affirme: That the Letter in Question, which my Wife sent your Mother, under Covert to you, and left open, (that you might see what she writ) was written, and sent to be deliverd you that very day it bare date (being Sunday the fift of February, now a fortnight since) which was, I think, foure, or five daies before we ever heard that Sir William Turner was dead, or so much as sick: What the Contents of the Letter was, so far as I remember (for I did neither Dictate, or Reade it, but as my Wife read it to me) was onely to discharge her-selfe of an Imputation of being the Authoresse of a Report (innocently, and casualy mention’d) not worth halfe this Resentment: And the Reason of my Wifes desiering Mrs. P– to deliver it, was; that having formerly written to you, her Letter had ben Intercepted, by my Lady your Mother, and conceald from you for some time, as appear’d by your taking no notice of it ’til a good-while after–This Sir, was the onely motive of its being handed to you by Mrs. P – to whom my Wife sent it, desiering she would give it to you, when next she saw you: In the meane time, so far was Mrs. P– from being in any sort an Intrigant therein (as your jealosie, but very Unjustly suggests) that she knew not one word of the Contents, and what was written; my Wife never having communicated any thing of it to her, or so much as either seene, spoken, or written to her long before, or since directly, or indirectly, ’til this very morning, that she brought your Letter; which makes us sorry, a thing of which she had not the least Intimation, or concerne in, should draw from you such bitter, and unkind Reproches: I think, that as a Christian (without the Cant you speake of ) you are obliged in Conscience, and Honor, to aske her Pardon. That it arived no sooner to your hands (upon which you raise a mighty Trophie, to shiftoff a direct Answer) was her not knowing the Letter to be of that Consequence; but that she might deliver it at her leasure, or when she should see you next; For she protests, she never heard word concerning Sir William Turner, ’til three-days after: However it fortun’d so Luckily to be the theame of your happy, and obliging Remarks, and Skill in the Laws of Comedy. Is it possible Mr. B– should believe my Wife so very shallow, as to think of imposing upon a Person of your his Sagacity; by a designe so weakely laied, and so Ridiculously? Certainely Sir, you cannot thinke it in good Earnest, and in your Heart? I againe, and againe Averr, that this is the real Truth, as to what concernes my Wife, and that Letter, and all your Refin’d Notions, and Reflections on it: But that it was contriv’d, or Adjusted by an Ante-date, to come after Sir William Tu was dead, is a False Suggestion, and unbecoming a man of honour, after what I have here attested upon my owne: I would neither do, or be Conscious of so base and meane a Practise, for all the World, or Mr. B– are worth: You must pardon, if this Truth touch me not a little: Fama, Fides, Oculus non patiuntur Ludum, which is Latine for your Station:5 The sole Inducement of my Wifes writing to my Lady, being onely in Vindication of what had pass’d, – without any Intention of Offence; though what was taken so, was neither Created, Reported, or Intended to her Prejudice, but as she had leave to name her Author. I was Sir, in hope all things past had by this, ben Laied a Sleepe: But there is a Spirit of Pride and Malice, that never keepes Holy-day, which I perceive has ben the Occasion of all this Miss-understanding: In the meane time, I think, if any have Cause to Complaine, 5 “Good reputation, faith, eyesight cannot endure deceit.” 3.Bulst.226

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it is on our part, who have ben Amus’d so long to our prejudice: And that after so many pretences, and a deale of Honor, and Inclination to make this suddaine Halt, and Cancell all your mighty Professions for Trifles, and Tattle and I know not what: A noble, and real Esteeme would have over-look’d, and laugh’d at these poore things, in which such a Libertine Age as this. But my Lady, and You are very tender of your Reputation, and so are Wee; and might (by more than whom my Wife has mention’d) vouch the Truth, even by another, and a third unexceptionble Witnesse (which is as much as any Court, or Christian can require) if you think it will beare an Action, and be worth the while to make Sport for others, which I confesse, I think it is not. – But Sir, I have don, ingenuously told you the honest, and plaine Truth, without those low, and meane subterfuges, which your fine thoughts and deeper Intuition are ready to suggest had figur’d to your selfe: If this do not satisfie, Injoy them to your selfe: We are sorry for your Mistake, and Suffer by it; but not so far as to give you or ourselves any farther Trouble in this Matter; that we also may Comply with your Prudent Resolution, To Write No More. This is Sir, In behalfe of my Wife and of Sir Your etc. Dover-streete 21: February. – 1692/3

Richard Bentley Letter 679 (676) March 3, 1693 f 83

Epistle DCLXXVI. To Mr. *Bentley, Chaplaine to the Bishop of Worcester:

[RM: *first Preacher of Mr. Boyles Lecture etc. for Settling of which I was one of the Trustees] Sir, The Circumstances1 which detain’d me from home some moneths the last summer in the Country, was depriv’d me of an Entertainement, which you (more than halfe) promis’d, you would not onely favour me; but Gratifie the publique withall; by Causing to be printed your two last discourses2 on the Subject you had so happily begun, and raised so

1 dealing with the succession of the Wotton estate after the death of his nephew 2 In his reply of 23 March, Bentley apologizes to Evelyn (and Pepys) for the delay in the appearance of his lectures (Bentley, Correspondence, 74–5). The second lecture was published on 7 April 1692. All of the lectures were published as The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism ... In eight sermons preached at the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle ... in the first year MDCXCII (London, 1693).

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solid a Superstruction on, as we must despaire of seeing Finish’d (by any thing we have hitherto found attempted) but by the same Master-Work-man who laied the Foundation: Deprive not then your Friends of what is wanting of making-up a just Treatise, Valuable above so many Volumes: It is Mr. Pepys’s, and (with him) my humble, and joynt Request; that you will oblige the World, and us with the publication, and we languish ’til you give us some Assurance of it. I am Sir, with much Respect Your etc. Dover-streete 3d March – 1692/3

George Evelyn Letter 680 (677) April 16, 1693 f 83

Epistle DCLXXVII To my Brother Evelyn etc.

My deare Brother: I think it not onely agreable to my Respect, but to the duty I owe you, to Acquaint you with a thing which so neerely concernes me (and which I am sure you will take part with our Satisfaction) as the (I hope) good Fortune of my Daughter,1 your Niepce, whom with your Approbation, I am shortly Marying to one Mr. Draper,2 Nephew of Sir Thomas Draper Baronet of Sunning hill in Berk-shire etc. In the meane time, he has (without any Expectations from that, and two other rich Unkles, who have no heire Male, and but two daughters among them) about a thousand pounds a yeare at present and after the widow his mother, about £600 a yeare more, besides a Considerable Summ of mony in purse: He makes my Daughter a joynture of £500 per Anno; is to leave his Eldest son (if any by her) £1000 per Anno: if onely a Daughter, the mothers Portion which is £4000: This is the state of the Settlement, with the good liking of all his Unkles, and Friends on his side: But for none of these Advantages am I so much pleas’d; as that the Gentleman, (upon our utmost Scrutinie) has never ben tainted with any the least Vice or Extravagance: He is neere 30, a Sober, well temper’d, yet a cherefull and good natur’d person, and one who understands the world beyond most I have known; so that if it please God it take Effect, 1 Evelyn notes in late February that Draper had made a proposal “which I embraced” (Diary V.133), on 23 April that “Writing sealed for setling my Daughter Joyntur” (138), and on 27 April, “This day my Daughter Susanna was Married to William Draper Esquire, in the Chapell of Ely-house by my Lord Bishop of Lincoln [Dr. Tenison, since Arch Bishop of Cant:]” (138). 2 William Draper (c.1665–1718; Diary) was a nephew of Sir Purbeck Temple and inherited his fortune after his aunt’s death “to the value of neere 20000 pounds” (Diary V.383), as well as a large mansion, ­Addiscombe near Croydon, which he remodelled. Before he married Susanna, his future brother-in-law, John Jr, discovered from one of his colleagues that Draper was “a very sober, honest prudent Gentleman, that knows, and has avoided the vices and tricks of the Age, and Town, and understands the world very well” (Add 78301: f 46 [27 March, 1693]).

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I hope my Daughter may be happy, which I am confident you, and all our worthy Relations do wish: I have no more to add at present, but my Wifes and Daughters most humble service to you, and my Lady Wich,3 who am Deare Brother Your etc. Dover street 16 Aprill 1693

Ann Sylvius Letter 681 (678) April 26, 1693 f 83v

Epistle DCLXXVIII. To my Lady Sylvius etc.

Madame, It is upon an Un-usual Buisines, that you are desird to honour a paire of Silly Young People,1 that have Adventurd honestly to Marry, before they Lie together; which (since you and I remember the World) grows now every day a rare thing in this Libertine Age, and therefore I Invite your Ladyship to see a fine Sight [insert: rare show] tomorrow. Dover-streete 26 May Aprill – 1693

George Evelyn Letter 682 (679) May 16, 1693 f 83v

Epistle DCLXXIX To my Brother Evelyn of Wotton.

My Deare Brother, My Late Letter to you, was to Acquaint you with the proposal of a Suitable Match with my Daughter; to which you were not onely pleas’d to wish Successe; but Advis’d me to dispatch it; and I have taken your Counsel, to the universal Satisfaction of all our Relations here, and therefore, I am Sure, it will be so to you. I am indeede every-day so aboundantly Confirmd in the agreablenesse of the Choice we have made; that I do not 3 Mary Wyche 1 Susanna Draper, William Draper. Evelyn notes on 27 April: “Much of this Weeke spent in Ceremonie, receiving Visites and Entertainments of Relations” (Diary V.138).

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know what I could farther Wish for my daughters Happinesse. The Person, Family, Estate, Good-nature, Morals, Prudence, and Understanding in Rebus agendis1 (with a very good name, and Reputation) perfectly Answering the Character has ben given of him; so as I hope Almighty God will give his Blessing to them: They were Married on Thursday, the Twenty-Seaventh of Aprill, by the Bishop of *Lincoln [LM: *Dr. Tenison] at Eliehouse Chapell,2 with all the decent Privacy we could contrive: But as it was Impossible to keepe it long so; we have ever-since had the Congratulations of (I thinke) all that know us in this Towne, and of the best quality in it: And thus I have given you an Account of that Afaire, and doubt not at all, but to have don my part according to the Wise-mans Advice – Eloca Filiam, et confeceris opus magnum; sed, viro intelligenti trade illam:3 My Son, and Daughter do both present their humble Duties to you, and Service to my Lady Niepce:4 Desiring you will both honor them with the Acceptance of a small Wedding Favour, which Mrs. Collins5 has promis’d to convey to Wotton, where I wish all Happinesse to you and yours, as becomes (my Dear Brother) Your etc. Dover streete 6: May: – 1693

Charles Spencer Letter 683 (680) [n.d.]# 1 ff 83v–4

Epistle DCLXXX To my Lord Spencer etc.

My Lord: I am now a full Moneth Indebted to your Lordship for your last favour, and must ever remaine so for all the Favours you have don me: My Ladys2 Vouchsafing to be the Deferent of this, and of my Sincere Acknowledgements to her, of my greate Obligations to you, in all that can render any Returnes from me worthy your Acceptance: But it is a greate Truth, that I most highly value the Present you have ben pleasd to honor me with; namely, those early, and yet (which is admirable) mature productions, accompany’d with 1 how to do things 2 St Etheldreda’s, Ely Place, London 3 “Marry thy daughter, and so shalt thou have performed a weighty matter: but give her to a man of understanding” Ecclesiasticus 7:25 (Theodore Beza translation). 4 Mary Wyche 5 Mrs Collins appears frequently in this period in Mary Evelyn’s correspondence and appears to have been one of the household at Sayes Court. 1 Charles Spencer had written to Evelyn on 8 May 1692 (Add 78679: f 129 [8.5.1692]). Evelyn may have misplaced this letter by a year. 2 Anne Spencer

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the Professions of a Friendship, beyond all Merits, or hopes of Retribution becoming your Acceptance. I am onely Asham’d, that my now so long desuetude from such learn’d Commerce, the frailty of my Memory, now in the 73d Yeare of my greate Age (or rather Dote-Age) renders me so wholy unfit to Correspond with so growing and Vigorous a Genius; however you are pleasd to Condescend: Happy in the meane time your Tusculanum Althorpiensi3 where you enjoy the Conversation of Excellent Books, and Learned Men, and in your Illustrious Parents alone whatever remaines to Consummate you a Noble-man indeede; which is to Dare be Vertuous, as well as knowing, and to Restore a Character so miserably Worn-out in this Nation: Perge Vir Præstantisse, et Natalis Clarissimos, Virtutis Eruditionisque Splendore in dies Illustra:4 Vale Illustrissime Domine et me ut solus Ama:5 Deptford

Mary Tuke, née Sheldon Letter 684 (681) June 10, 1693# f 84

Epistle DCLXXXI To my Lady Tuke with the Queene Dowager at Lisbon in Portugal

Madame, I am not a little divided in my selfe, concerning your Ladyships coming back into your owne Country,1 and amongst your Friends, or your staying in Portugal so remote from either: I would not wish you here to the losse of your Health, nor can I consent you should stay longer there, than ’til you have intirely recover’d it, both for your owne Sake and your Friends, and the many Reasons you give of being confin’d to the wretched’st place in the World: Jewes, Slaves, Tyrannie and Penury with Sloth and excessive Pride; one must have infinite Resignation to support for a mouth-full of good Aer, and nothing else; since I believe you serv’d Almighty God quite as well in poore England, though here be no Inquisition; fewer Monasteries, lesse Mumbling of Beades; the Roman Catholiques having never been more at Ease, and lesse disturb’d in all my observation, than here at present: I must confesse Health is an inestimable Jewel; and why may not your Ladyship hope for the continuance of it in some dry and Aerie place of England, when ’tis 3 a comparison of the Spencer’s Althorp to Cicero’s Tusculanum at Frascati 4 “Go forth, most outstanding man, and illuminate day by day your most noble origins with the brilliance of excellence and erudition.” 5 “Farewell, most illustrious Lord, and love me as you are accustomed.” 1 Mary Tuke had accompanied Catherine of Braganza when she returned to Portugal in 1692.

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once well Confirm’d in Portugal? Dr. Cradock2 (Provost of Eaton) and severall others who went hence as much Indispos’d as your Ladyship to Lisbonne, have found it so; and so I hope shall my Lady Tuke also in good time. There are other Circumstances I Acknowledge in your Case;3 But would not any pittance (with but tollerable Conveniences) almost Content one in ones owne Sweete Country, after what one sees, and feeles among Negros, Monkys, Parrots, Garlick and Swines-flesh; which yet, it seems, cannot be had without some travell and hardships insupportable? For these Reasons and prejudices, if my Kinds-Woman (your faire Daughter)4 persist in her Resolution, It is nothing but her Health certainely which can induce her; since I cannot believe it is for dried Sweetemeats, and Suggar-plums: For to see your Ladyship her Mother were to add to your both your Afflictions: To your Ladyships, by seeing her in so miserable a place, and to your daughters, by seeing what you Suffer, what she is like to undergo, and all this perhaps without Effect: Since my Cousens Infirmity is not to be heal’d by Aer or Herbs (however you celebrate them) or by Change of place; but by something more charming, and powerfull: Caelum non Animum mutat, qui trans mare currit:5 ’Twas the Observation of Seneca [sic], who was a Spaniard. Who Crosse the Seas, Repose to find, May change the Aer, but not their Mind

But I needed not Interpret it to your Ladyship: It is for this Madame, I heartily Wish for something we have heard of in Ireland, may stop her Journey; which were the farthest I should be willing she should travel out of England. Thus Madame, you have my Thoughts, freely, and sincerely as to your Ladyships Concernes: As to my owne, and little Affaires, and the Alteration6 of our Family (since your Ladyships Absence) I believe my Wife has fully acquainted you: I most heartily pray for your Ladyships happinesse, and that you’l Remember me in yours; For (what ever you are made Believe) we serve the same Mercifull God and Saviour, whose infinite Merits alone are sufficient; and to his Protection I recommend you who am Deare Madame Your etc.

Deptford St Peters day June 10 [illegible] 1693.7

2 Zachary Cradock (1632/3–95; ODNB). A distinguished preacher, he was appointed fellow of Eton in 1671 and provost from 1681 until his death. 3 She had very little money, and was dependent on the charity of friends. 4 Mary Tuke Jr (aka “Mop”). Susanna mentions her visiting frequently at Sayes Court in 1694–5 and observes “Melancholic is a great part of her distemper” (Add 78433: f 73 [25.4.1695]). 5 “They change their clime, not their mind, who rush across the sea.” Horace, Epistulae 1.11.27 (Fairclough, trans) 6 the marriage of his daughter 7 As St Peter’s Day is 29 June, the letter may be misdated.

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Henry Compton Letter 685 (682) June 23, 1693 f 84r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCLXXXII To my Lord Bishop of London:

[RM: Dr. Compton] My Lord, As it was no small Satisfaction to me, that Mr. Stringfellow,1 whom I sometime since Reccommended to Officiat in our little Chapel,2 (upon its first Opening), has ever since so Approv’d himselfe amongst us, as to merit the Suffrages of all who know, have heard him preach, and observ’d his Conversation: So dos it not a little Concerne me, who have ben the Occasion of his Removing thither (from a place,3 where had his Health encourag’d him to continue, he was in very good Circumstances, and deserv’dly Esteem’d) to find him on a suddain cast-out, by the present Incumbent, without any Cause:4 It is said, the Doctor5 tooke Offence that he gave him no Respect: ’Tis very strange, that a Person, of whom I have heard so many take particular Notice of an excesse of deference, and submissivenes to every body in general, should be Accus’d of want of giving due Reguard to his particular Superiour: Though even some Omissions perhaps in this (could it justly be laied to his charge, as I am very Confident it cannot) might, one would think, be overpass’d by one of a truely Christian temper, and not deserve so severe Animadversion, as the being remoov’d from a station wherein he gave so generall a Satisfaction by his Abillities and Constant attendance, without any diminution to the Doctor, Cause alledg’d, or notice given: My Lord, Mr. Stringfellow is a thro-pac’d Scholar, an Excellent Preacher, and a person (without Reproch to any) of unblamable Conversation: And if the Suffrages of those who have heard him there (or elsewhere) were necessary to Support his Credit, and Reputation, I think I may modestly Undertake for the most honorable, Eminent, and discerning Inhabitants of that district; however your Lordship may have ben misinform’d, I will not say, Impos’d upon: As to the puntillo of Respect, I well Remember how often coming weary to me from the Doctors Lodgings, he has complain’d of his unsuccessfull attempts to Waite upon him; and do most certainely believe, he told me truth, and wonder



1 2 3 4

William Strengfellow Evelyn recommended Strengfellow for Trinity Church, Bond St in Letters 632 and 654. St Dunstan’s in the East See Diary V.169 (18 March 1694), where Evelyn notes that Strengfellow was “restored to that place againe (after the contest twixt the Queene & Bishop of London who displaced him).” Strengfellow was ejected in 1700 (Diary V.375–6) at the instigation, Evelyn insisted, of William Lancaster. 5 William Lancaster (1649/50–1717; ODNB). Lancaster went to Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1670 and graduated BA (1675), MA (1678), BD (1690), and DD (1692). He became domestic chaplain to Henry Compton, to whom he was related by marriage. Compton tried (unsuccessfully) to present him the living of St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1692, but he was later appointed in 1694.

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the Doctor should question, or deny it: But it is pretended also that he endeavord to make a Faction, and Combination among us: which is indeede to my certaine knowledge so far from being so, as I am ready to Depose, his Refusing so much as any Mediation in his behalfe. There came severall to me in particular about it, and there had ben nothing more Easy, and just than the procuring hands of the most considerable Persons, frequenters of our Chapell; and we were indeede Addressing to your Lordship: But Mr. Stringfellow hearing of it, earnestly desired it might not proceede, least it should be taken Ill of the Doctor or appeare like a Complaint: He would modestly Acquiesce, and with much Importunity hindred us from doing our selves that Right as well as him: It must therefore certainely proceede from some more heinous Crime than any yet appeares, that this excellent Man has ben treated thus unkindly, and we depriv’d of one we were so well Satisfied in – And now my Lord, least it should be thought I make this Appeale and Apologie to your Lordship upon any the least Instigation or Complaint of Mr. Stringfellow – I solemnly protest that I have never seene, heard from him, or from any other on this account; nor knows he of my Writing to your Lordship; onely in General I understand he has lately ben vehemently charg’d before your Lordship as one who has Misbehav’d himselfe, and so rendr’d himselfe unworthy of being continu’d our Lecturer: And this indeede, Reflecting on me (as stander per alterius latus,6 who sometimes had presum’d to Recommend him to your Lordships Favour) would infinitely Afflict me, were it True: But I am so perfectly Acquainted with, and Assur’d of the Innocence and Worth of the Person, and of your Lordships Just and Generous Nature; that no Mistakes, or Infirmities of others Int’rest or Passions, shall prejudice Mr. Stringfellow, who I am perswaded, would not seeke to be Restor’d to his Lecture, against the Doctors Will, but to your Favour and Good Opinion: The same which for my selfe, I also most humbly Supplicate, together with your Lordships Pardon and Blessing, who am My Lord Yours etc. Says-Court 23: June. 1693

William Strengfellow Letter 686 (683) [n.d.] [c.23 June 1693]# f 84v

Epistle DCLXXXIII For Mr. Stringfellow etc.

Sir, Your Modesty perhaps would not indeede have permitted me to write at all, as you have heard: But, Jacta est alea:1 Justice required it, and for my owne Vindication, who have more than once 6 for the other side 1 “The die is cast.” Suetonius, Vita Caesarum, Divus Julius 32.9; see Letter 685.

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nam’d you to the Bishop,2 as you know, and as became me: The Angry Doctor3 happly may be displeas’d, the Bishop cannot, must not, and ’tis my part to see you Justified, as well as Sir Your etc.

Henri Justel Letter 687 (684) August 21, 1693 f 84v

Epistle DCLXXXIV1 A Monsieur*Justell:2

[RM: *Son of the famous and learnd Christopher Justel Author of Concil Afric and severall other works, etc.] [LM: *a most learned and curious person who was one of the Refugiés: now Keeper of St. James’s Library lately deceasd] Monsieur Je me sovien bien d’avoire vû ce que vous avez mentionè touchant le secret contre le Rouller de fer; mais aprez avoir feuilletè les Gazzets de deux Anés passéz, je n y a pas rien trouvé: Cette pour quoy, je vous Conseille de la Demander chez Monsieur Hunt3 (qui est l’Operateur manuarius, ou Curator ut vocant, Regali Societati) qui demeure toujours a Gressham Colledge, tout proche la Repositoire d’ont il est le Cimiliarchus:4 Il vous pourra trover peut estre l’homme qui pretend avoire ce Secret: Voicy Monsieur ce que Je vous en puis dire touchant ce Sujet: Au rest, avec mes tres humbles Remerciemens

2 Henry Compton 3 William Lancaster. See Letter 685. 1 In response to a letter from Justel of 18 August (Add 78318: f 76 [18.8.1693]). The verso contains a draft of Evelyn’s response. 2 Sir I remember well having seen what you have mentioned about the secret of iron-rolling, but having looked through the Transactions of the previous two years I was unable to find it. That is why I suggest that you ask Mr. Hunt (who is the manual Operator, or Curator as they call him, of the Royal Society) who is still at Gresham College near the repository of which he is the custodian [lit: treasure-keeper]. He might be able to find you the man who claims to know this secret. This, Sir, is what I had in mind to say to you on this subject. For the rest, with my humble thanks for the honour you have done me previously I recommend myself to your good grace, and am Sir Deptford 21st August 1693 3 Henry Hunt (d. 1713) succeeded Robert Shortgrave as the Royal Society’s Operator in 1676. 4 properly Cimiliarcha

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de’l’honeur que vous m’avez fait l’autre jours, Je me Recommend a vos bonnes Graces, et Suis Monsieur

Deptford Le 21e Aoust – 1693

John Churchill (publisher)1 Letter 688 (685) August 23, 1693 f 85

Epistle DCLXXXV To Mr. *Churchill: etc.

[RM: *Bookseller:] In order to what you desir’d of me (when you lately came to me at Deptford) signifying your purpose of carying on a New and Improved Edition of Camdens Britania,2 and leaving with me a paper of Inquiries; upon perusal of severall Heads: I cannot undertake to say much to any of them: But I then Acquaintd you, that Mr. Aubrie,3 whose Inquisitive Genius led him to make several Journeys into many parts of England (and being very Curious to set downe whatsoever he found Remarkable and Extraordinary) might Informe you of many Particulars worth your Notice: He did me once the favour to give me a sight of his papers, and would needes have me Insert what occurrd to me then relating to our Countrie; but which I cannot now Recollect; nor if I coud, do I indeede think them very material, being but transitorie observations onely; and all that I now pretend to send you, will perhaps be as little worth: My Advise to you is, that you would apply your selfe to Dr. Gale,4 who is the best furnish’d and able that I know, to direct you in this matter, which indeede dos require a greate deale of Application, and judgement what to add, and what to reject of such Materials as are brought in to you; and so grave an Author as Mr. Camden (whose Reputation is so deservedly universal) will well deserve your uttmost care, to which I therefore recommend these papers and am Sir Your Says Court 23 August – 1693

1 John Churchill (c.1695–c.1714; ODNB, I). In partnership with his brother Awnsham (1658–1728), Churchill was a publisher at the “Black Swan” in Paternoster Row from 1665. With A. Swale they published the 1695 edition of Camden’s Britannia, edited by Edmund Gibson, to which Evelyn contributed. 2 In the 1695 edition of Camden, Camden’s Britannia, newly translated into English: with large additions and improvements, “Additions to Suth-rey” (cols 161–6) are attributed to Evelyn, though this letter suggests they may have come intermediately through Aubrey. 3 John Aubrey 4 Thomas Gale

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Robert Plot Letter 689 (686) August 27, 1693 f 85

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCLXXXVI. To Dr. Plot:

Worthy Doctor Our Common and excellent Friend Mr. Pepys, Acquaints me, that you would be glad to know upon what I am at present engaged relating to Coines:1 There being (it seemes) a designe of publishing some thing about that Subject as they concerne the Monys of this Nation: It is true indeede (and as I remember to have told you) that I had blotted some sheetes upon an Argument of that Nature; but without the least referrence to Current Mony, Antient, or Modern; but on such Medals as Relate onely purely to something Historical, which dos not at all Interferr with other Coines; unlesse it be such as our Spur-Royal 2 as they call it, being a single stamp of Gold, and, as you know, suggesting something of our Storie here in England, beside its intrinsique Value; upon which account I may have occasion to mention it: For the rest, I meddle not with them: But this prompts me to Renew my Request to you, for the Assistance you promisd me, by imparting to me what you had of this kind, which might contribute to what I am now preparing, and by which you will very much oblige Sir Your S. Court 27 August. – 1693

Charles Spencer Letter 690 (687) September 4, 1693 f 85

Epistle DCLXXXVII To my Lord Spencer:

My Lord, Though I have not the opportunitie of waiting on your Lordship so often as I ought, and should do, were I perfectly at my owne disposure (which by reason of many Impediments in my Circumstances of late, I neither have ben, nor as yet am) yet my worthyest Thoughts, and Inclinations are never absent from you; and I often Revive my-selfe with the Meditation of your Virtues; and some very few noble young persons more, when that of the sad Decadence of the age we live and converse in Interposes its melancholy Prospects: I am was with greate Appetite coming to take a Repast in the noble Library which I heare you have lately purchas’d (and by the Catalogue I have seene, must needes be a 1 Evelyn’s Numismata was printed by Benjamin Tooke in 1697. Plot replied to Evelyn’s request on 2 ­October (see Diary [1887] III.337). 2 probably the “rial,” a gold coin first issued in the reign of Edward IV in 1565 and worth ten shillings

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very choice Collection)1 when at the same time I understand you are taking a Journey, with Resolution of making a Toure about England; thereby Joyning to Books and paper descriptions, Experience; and to speculation, the seeing of the things themselves: It has certainely ben a greate Mistake and very præpostrous in our Education, the usualy sending our Young Gentlemen to Travell abroad,2 and see Forrain Countries; before they have seene, or know any thing of their owne: Your Lordship remembers who says it Ne sis peregrinus domi;3 and therefore worthily don, and memorable in my Lord Treasurer Burleigh,4 to hinder the Council, who in those days it seemes us ’d to give Passes to Travell, from granting them to any, who had not first seene and could give a good Account of their owne Countrie:5 Your Lordship therefore has taken the best and most natural Method; and I know not what can now be added to the rest of your Accomplishments, but the Continuance of your Health which I shall pray may attend all your motions, who am My Lord your etc. Deptford 4: September. – 1693

Thomas Tenison Letter 691 (688) October 24, 1693 f 85v

Epistle DCLXXXVIII. To the Bishop of Lincolne

My Lord, Had I ben in Condition to stir abroad, I should not have deferrd thus long in paying my Duty to your Lordship whom by this time, the publique Concernes of the Nation, I concluded would soone hasten to these parts: But indeede I have ben so severely treated with the new Distemper (which they calle a Cold, but such as I never had before) that for these 3 weekes, I have hardly ben out of dores; but which I [words deleted] thankfully Support, for the Health of above Thirty-Yeares, during which I think I have not ben so 1 Charles Spencer had become an assiduous book-collector, and went on to build one of the most important private libraries in Europe. However, it is not clear to which collection or catalogue Evelyn refers here. Spencer purchased the library of Sir Charles Scarburgh, who died in February 1694, which Evelyn described in 1695 as “the very best collection especialy of Mathematical books that was I believe in all Europe” (Diary V.206; see Bibliotheca mathematica & medica Scarburghiana; Or, the mathematical and physical parts of the famous library of Sir Charles Scarburgh, Kn, M.D. [1695]). Evelyn noted Spencer’s acquisition of another collection, consisting largely of classical texts, in 1699 (Diary V.322). The catalogue of Spencer’s library is in the John Rylands Library (GB 133 Eng Ms 62). It was sold at auction in 1881–3. 2 Largely because of the Civil War, Evelyn’s own experience contradicts this. He did not make a tour of England until 1654 after his return from the continent. 3 “lest you be a stranger in your own home”; a paraphrase of Cicero, De Oratore 1.58.249. 4 William Cecil, Lord Burleigh (1521–98) 5 The number of itineraries of England only began to increase in the late seventeenth century. Travel diaries about journeys within the country were not common until after the Restoration when, thanks to Ogilby in part, the roads were improved enough both for coaches and individual travel. Not until Defoe’s Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (London, 1724–7) did such domestic travel acquire a vogue.

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long Confin’d to my Bed and House, as upon this occasion: It is now I blesse God, so much abated, that I hope e’re many days be over, to be able to waite upon your Lordship, whom I long to see: I doubt not but Mr. Bently1 has e’re this, presented you with his last Sermons;2 and that with others you Regret the Occasion which has Interrupted the Consequence of that excellent Beginning:3 Has not your Lordship thoughts of Endeavoring to make way for his Resuming that which was so unseasonably (I had almost said Impertinently) taken out of his hands? It is that I confesse which I greately desire; having as yet neither seene, nor heard of any thing by which the publique are oblig’d to his Successor, so as was to be expected after Mr. Bently had lead the Way, and that so prosperously as I was heartily sorry, to see him stop’d in that manner: But I hope my Lord we shall prevent it hereafter, and remember that the next turne is ours: Mr. Stringfellows Sermon before my Lord Maior, I dare say, will not lessen your Lordships good Opinion of that humble, learned honest man: I confesse; his being put out of that decent station4 so unhandsomely, makes me so little fond of Dover-Streete; that I am thinking of parting with it for altogether;5 resolving to winter in this Solitude; if that may be cald a Solitude where we have good Books, and a luculent fire, and not seldome my Son and Daughters6 Company; for whom your Lordships Blessing7 has procur’d that of the Womb (a greate Belly) to the no smale Joy of the Family: Thus having given your Lordship an Account of our little Oeconomie and Concernes (since the tedious Visitation of your ample Province) it is time to beg both your pardon and Blessing to my Lord Your etc. Says-Court 24: October. 1693

Susanna Draper Letter 692 (689) [between September 30 and October 4, 1693]# f 85v

Epistle DCLXXXIX To my Daughter Draper:

My deare Child: I give you many thanks for your kind, and constant Correspondence with your Mother,1 who continualy languishes after you, as I my selfe do also not a little: It is a greate 1 Richard Bentley 2 The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism (the Boyle Lectures for 1692) was published in 1693. 3 Against Evelyn’s wishes, Sir John Rotherham, one of the trustees for the Boyle lectures, insisted that Richard Kidder be the lecturer for 1693 (Diary V.123) 4 lecturer at Holy Trinity, Bond St; see Letter 685. 5 Evelyn went to London to dispose of the house in November of this year (Diary V.159) but appears not to have done so as he died there. 6 Susanna and William Draper 7 Tenison conducted the marriage. 1 After their marriage (on 27 May) Susanna and her husband went to visit his relations near Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire (Diary V.288). She gives an unfavorable account of the house and grounds in

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Happines (and for which I am sure you give God Almighty thanks) that you have two of the best Mothers, and worthiest Husband in the world; and have now the Opportunity of making good, and Answering all the Care, and Kindnes of your Parents, becoming your Education, your Family and your owne Virtue: I am exceedingly pleas’d with your description of the Place you are in: Could you not excercise your Tallent, by taking a Landskip2 of it before you come away? Mithinks you say nothing Magnificently of Oxford 3 (the finest University in the World) but indeede the extreame ill Season in which you tell me you happn’d to be there, must needes alay your pleasure and Satisfaction of that most charming place: As to matters here, your Mother leaves me no roome for any additions, but that of my best Blessing to my best Daughter etc. Dover street

Isabella Fitzroy Letter 693 (690) November 28, 1693 f 85v

Epistle DCXC To the Dutchesse of Grafton:

May it please your Grace, Happning to be in Conversation among divers honorable and greate Lords, where your Graces Cause1 was mention’d with much Respect: My Lord Warrington2 seem’d to imply, that you had not thought fit to take the least notice of him, in doing him the honor, which the Rest Accknowledg’d they had receiv’d; by your Graces particularly Acquainting them with your Buisines: I neede not informe your Grace how considerable the Suffrage of this Lords may be, and his party to your Advantage: My most humble Advice is therefore, that your Grace Condescend to give him a Visite at his owne house, but without the least owning any thing of this Advertisement: Let him know how assured you are your assurance that his Lordship would do you all the Favour that was Consistent with Justice Add 78433: f 22 (22.7.1693). Her letters cover the summer and autumn of 1693 and include a visit to Althorp where she admired “the parke and the plantation” but not the house (Add 78433: f 32 [11.9.1693]). 2 i.e., a picture. On 12 October, Susanna replied that although she would “Endeavour to obey your Commands in the Landship I feare I shant come off very well my schill [skill] in yt being but little and the want of your invention to contract the obiect into a compass of the Eye will make it difficult to keep a proportion the extent of it being large” (Add 78300: f 96 [12.10.1693]). Her description of the landscape at Henley (Add 78433: f 37 [4.10.1693]), however, reveals her eye for landscape. Her husband’s letters of the 22 August and 27 September reveal that they were to go on a tour “to see what Seates are worth seeing” (Add 78300: f 91 [22.8.1693]) first to Sir Kenelm Digby’s former house Gothurst (“now running to decay”) and then to stay with his uncle Roger Draper, first in Oxford and then at Rousham. 3 Susanna was in Oxford by the end of September (Add 78433: f 35 [30.9.1693]). 1 After the death of her husband at Kinsale in Ireland in 1690, the duchess claimed the reversion of the chief clerkship of the court of King’s Bench, a claim disputed by the judges in an answer that gave offence to the House of Lords (Diary V.161, n. 4). The duchess withdrew her claim on 22 December. 2 Henry Booth, 1st earl of Warrington (1652–94; ODNB), had been one of the commissioners of the Treasury. It may have been in this capacity that Evelyn thought he might be useful to Lady Grafton.

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and Honor; you did not apply your Selfe Indifferently to him without a distinguishing Reguard; not at all to bespeake him to your Cause, (the Merits of which must be your best Advocate) but to intreate his Lordship would be present at the Hearing of it; since it was from the Justice and Countenance of Such as his Lordship that you should judge of the Event; and if he were not favourable to it, you should your-selfe suspect the Merits of it, and Acquiesce: Let your Grace pardon this presumption that offers to put words into your Graces mouth, who speake so incomparably your selfe, and have so many Charmes to Conciliate Favour by so much better expressions of your owne more noble thoughts: But if by this notice your Grace receives the least Assistance; it is by one, who whilst others celebrate your Beauty (as it deserves) above all Admires, and Celebrates your Virtue. Dover-streete 28 November. – 1693

Thomas Tenison Letter 694 (691) February 23, 1694* f 86

Epistle DCXCI To the Bishop of Lincoln

My Lord, I am obliged to make a Journey into the Country to my Brother1 where some Concernes of mine may I feare, oblige me to stay some time before I returne, and so hinder me from waiting on you with Mr. Bently,2 who[se] Request, with mine also is; that you would propose to the rest of our Brother Trustees, the Changing of our Monedays monethly sermons, into an Afternoones Sundays Lecture, not onely as the most likely meanes to perpetuate it; but to procure a more numerous Auditorie, becoming the subject, and the paines he takes: And this I doubt not but is in the power of the Trustees; and consistent with the Intention of the pious Founder; all which I submitt to your Lordship who am My Lord Your etc. Dover Streete 23 February. – 1693

My Lady Jane Lucan3 has ben this morning most importunate with me to bespeake your Lordships Suffrage in his greate Cause before your House: [RM: In the Greate Cause betweene my Lord of Bath and Duchesse of Albemarle] I told her I was assur’d your Lordship needed not be spoken to, for that you would certainely do what was just and became you, without any Recommendation of mine: I heare she was not so well satisfied 1 George Evelyn at Wotton; see Diary V.167. 2 Richard Bentley; Evelyn is referring to the Boyle Lectures, delivered by Bentley. 3 probably Jane Lewknor. Evelyn refers to a case currently before the House of Lords (see Diary V.167, n. 1). John Grenville, 1st earl of Bath claimed the inheritance of the 2nd duke of Albemarle, who had died in 1688. In 1692, it was also claimed by Ralph Montagu who had married the widowed duchess of Albemarle. The case continued until 1702. See Letter 663, note 1.

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with this Reply; but would needes have me write to you, which I pray your Lordship let her know I did:

George Evelyn Letter 695 (692) March 28, 1694 f 86

Epistle DCXCII To my Brother George Evelyn

Deare Brother: After my first attempt, on my second I found his Grace1 just at his Rising (which indeede was not very Early)[.] Within a while that I had ben attending, who should come but Sir Richard Onslow?2 who suspecting perhaps what my Errand was, shewd me a Letter newly receiv’d from you, desiring his Intercession both for the Superseeding your Commission in reguard of your Age and Infirmities; and in behalfe of our Kindsman of Nutfield 3 to succeede in your stead: By what I gatherd from his discourses to me, I did not find him so much dispos’d to gratifie our Cousen, as to keepe you in place; though he said he should not be any obstacle to our Cousen: But as to you, that though you might not be so able to Act, as you had don, in person; yet the Reputation you had deserv’dly acquir’d in the Country, and the publique etc. would upon any occasion Influence th your Commands sufficiently: Besides the Respect he had in particular to his worthy Neighbour would not suffer him to perswade the Duke to deprive his Countrie, and the rest of the Deputy-Lieutennants of so worthy a Collegue: To which high Complement, I reply’d that my Brother would receive it for a much greater favour, to be discharg’d of an Office, how honorable soever, in which you could do the publique no Service: By this time, the Duke sending for us to go come up, I follow’d Sir Richard so close, that his Grace espying me at the dore of his Bed chamber (before Sir Richard, had ended his Addresses) left him, and ran to me, and with wonderfull kindnes expressing how glad he was to see me, and enquiring for his play-fellow my Son4 etc. I thought I would improve the opportunity, before I was prevented: I made your Complement and Request to him; inform’d him the Abillities and fitnesse of our Kindsman to succeed you; which without any difficulty he with greate kindnesse and readinesse assented to; onely, that as to your laying downe, he should by no meanes part with you, using almost the same Arguments Sir Richard had don to me before: Upon this Sir Richard came interpos’d, and told the Duke, that indeede he also came upon the 1 Henry Howard, 7th duke. On 28 March, Evelyn visited the duke of Norfolk “to desire him to make my Co: Evelyn of Nutfield one of the Dep: Lieutennants of Surrey, & intreate him to dismisse my old Bro, now not able by reason of age and Infirmity to serve: The Duke granted the one, but would not suffer my Brother to resigne his Commission; but keepe the honor of it during his life, though he could not act &c: professing very greate kindnesse to our Family &c.” (Diary V.169–70). 2 See Letter 666, note 1. 3 George Evelyn, of Nutfield; see Letter 700. 4 John Evelyn Jr had been educated with Henry Howard. He is recorded as being “in perfect health” in a letter to Evelyn from William Glanville who had heard this through his son, and records John’s having sent him salmon (Add 78305: f 80 [12.6.1694]).

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same Account, but with different Intentions: For that though he should be very Sorry ready to do our Cousen Evelyn any service; yet he could not concurr with what I had bespoken him in, and my brother had desir’d by a letter newly receiv’d from you but concerning the devesting your selfe of the honor conferr’d upon You, but to keepe it as long as you liv’d: My Lord Reply’d, that so it should by all meanes be; and that he would gratifie my Cousen likewise upon that Condition: Sir Richard seemed not averse to this, but asked my Lord, if it might not first be convenient to looke over the List of the Deputy Lieutenants, and then consider, whether his Grace had made no promise to any other: My Lord Reply’d, he knew of none, and that howsoever, he believd there were so few in the East Division of Surrey, that there would be roome for more: I cannot tell, upon what account, Sir Richard interjected this Scrupule; but not leaving the Duke, ’til he had promis’d my Kindsman should be one, I tooke my Leave of his Grace, who (mentioning you with greate Respect) would needes bring me to the outward doore of his Ante-Chamber, with his Breeches in his hand; he being onely in his shirt, under his Night-Gowne: Were it not Convenient my Cousen Evelyn did himselfe waite upon his Grace and take notice of his intended favour etc.? I Suppose, also, there is some thing to be don with his Secretary also etc. All which I referr to your Informing of him: I am Deare Brother Your etc. Dover-street 28: March. – 1694

Samuel Pepys Letter 696 (693) April 2, 1694 f 86

Epistle DCXCIII To Mr. Pepys:1

Sir, I am ready for your quæries about the Dimensions of Eaton Schole,2 number of scholars etc. Dr. Godolphin3 the (Sub Warden) would be a proper person you could discourse the matter with, unlesse you made a step to Sir Christopher Wren, who built the new schole (for so he did some yeares since) from the foundation;4 the old one being quite abandon’d, and run to decay: I Returne your Itinerary, and am Your etc. Dover Streete 2 Aprill – 1694

1 Particular Friends, D19, 240. This is the only text of this letter. 2 Although Evelyn persuaded his parents not to send him to Eton, his grandson and Francis Godolphin went there. 3 Henry Godolphin was vice-provost of Eton (1683–95). 4 Although there is no evidence that Wren worked at Eton, his master carpenter, Matthew Baker, who had worked with Wren at Whitehall, worked there. Evelyn may be thinking of Windsor Guildhall, which Wren completed in 1689.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Gale Letter 697 (694) April 4, 1694 f 86v

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Epistle DCXCIV To Dr. Gale etc.

Worthy Sir, I send you the two Letters of Dr. Meric Casaubon, you lately told me you should gladly peruse;1 when also casualy mentioning Dr. Taylor2 (late Bishop of Downe and Connor in Ireland ) with whom I had a friendly and indeede intimate Correspondence; you added, that you would willingly see what he had written to me concerning that greate point, we were discoursing of: In the meane time, I cannot with any modesty, owne halfe the Civilities you will find in any of the letters of those Two Learned persons; but you will easily distinguish betweene real merit, and the Courtship of two of the most obliging men in the World: Pardon the Impudence of the trouble I gave you the other day: Though I cannot but wish, they were worth your Animadversions: I have lately seene a learned Manuscript of Observations upon Mr. Obadiah Walkers Booke of Medals3 and Mr. Dodwells Prælectiones Camdeni4 etc. which I feare it will be somewhat difficult to cleare, as to that part of Erudition: In the meane while, (absit jactantia)5 I am not a little Encourag’d, that my Institutions6 may find some favour, in having by good fortune prevented some Considerable exception I meete with: I am worthy Doctor Your etc. Dover streete 4: Aprill: 1694

1 probably Casaubon’s responses to Letters 324 and 325 (Add 78683: f 17 and 118). 2 Jeremy Taylor 3 The Greek and Roman history illustrated by coins & medals. Representing their religions, rites, manners, customs, games, feasts, arts and sciences (London, 1692) 4 Henry Dodwell (the elder), Prælectiones academicæ in Schola Historices Camdeniana (Oxford, 1692). 5 without boasting 6 presumably an early draught of Numismata. Thomas Gale wrote to Evelyn in 1698 to congratulate him on Numismata as “a mighty stock of arcana historia” (Add 78680: f 32 [19.1.1698]). Gale had published Historiæ Anglicanæ scriptores (Oxford, 1687 & 1691).

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William Blathwayt1 Letter 698 (695) April 4, 1694 f 86v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXCV To Mr. *Blatwhaite

[LM: *Commissary General of the Kings Forces and Cleark of the Council, and Secretary of the forrain Plantations] Sir, I have ben to waite on you at your House (though without the good fortune to find you there) to bespeake you favour in behalfe of a Friend and Kindsman of mine, whose name is Park;2 Born in Virginia, and there Married to a daughter of the Widdow of Sir William Berkeley, who was many yeares Governor of that Colonie: My humble Request to you is, that you would do him the Honor of naming him one of the Privy Council there: He is a Person who besids that he has one of the fairest, and most Considerable Plantations and Estates in the Country, is as understanding, Sober, Industrious, and fortunate young Gentleman as any I know: Having had his Education here in England; and he has since applied himselfe to such Improvements where he resides, as will Justifie the Character I presume to give of him, and render him worthy the Honour which he seeks, and which it is so much in your power to gratifie him in, and thereby extreamely oblige both my Kindsman to Acknowledge your Favor, and be my selfe for this in particular who am Sir etc. Your Dover-streete 4: Aprill: – 1694

1 William Blathwayt (1650–1717; ODNB, H). He was first associated with the Council of Trade and ­Plantations in 1675 and its secretary from c.1679 to 1696, and a commissioner of trade thereafter. See Letter 620 and Letter 705. 2 Daniel Parke (1669–1710). He was a distant cousin of Evelyn’s who, while living in Virginia, corresponded with him about plants. Susanna Draper mentions meeting him (“a very sivill pretty man”) in Tunbridge Wells in 1679 where he had “not been above a month.” He told her that he had “been bred in England” (Add 78433: f 18 [26.8.1689]). Parke was also the first to take the news to Queen Anne of the victory at Blenheim, and was subsequently appointed governor of the Leeward Islands, where he was murdered in 1710. See Bourne, “John Evelyn, the Diarist, and His Cousin Daniel Parke II.”

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Tenison Letter 699 (696) April 12, 1694 f 86v

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Epistle DCXCVI To the Bishop of Lincoln:

[LM: This Meteor was seene comming out of the Sea in Montgomery Shire, spread­ ing 2 furlongs in length bredth and travelling forewards during 2 Moneths; firing Straw and Thatch onely, and infecting the pastures with a poisonous quality which killed much Catell: And comes attested by the Earle of Pembrock, and severall Expe[rt] Wittnesses to the Royal Society:] My Lord, The a[m]bulatorie Meteor1 which your Lordship describes, is as new and surprizing to me, in reguard of its breadth, Effects and Continuance: But that it should not fire or kindle any Solid substance (as it seemes it dos, Straw, Thatch and other such light Combustibles) may possibly proceed from its dilatation, and dilution rather, for you know, Spirits of Wind Wine and other Ardent if no Liquors, if not doubly Rectifid, though they take fire and flame, will not consume a linnen or other clowth dip’d in them; and fainter yet are those Lambent Flames,2 which we find do sometimes appeare, and vanish without doing any mischiefe: This is certainely very extraordinary, and deserves to be farther inquir’d into; and whether it dos yet continue (as your Lordship seemes to affirme) or but at certaine times, by day, as well as night: I send your Lordship the Receipt you desir’d of my Wife3 from whose dictate I write it, and who with my Daughter, and Son Draper begs your Lordships Blessing: I am my Lord Your etc. 12: Aprill: Sayes Court 1694

1 Tenison describes the meteor to Evelyn in a letter of 5 April (Diary [1887], III, 339). Evelyn gives an almost identical account of it in his diary on 22 April (Diary V.174). 2 playing lightly upon or gliding over a surface without burning it 3 Mary Evelyn, like her husband, kept books of receipts (recipes). See Add 78337 and 78338 and John Evelyn, Cook, Driver, ed.

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George Evelyn (of Nutfield) Letter 700 (697) April 13, 1694 f 86v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXCVII To my Cousin George Evelyn of Nutfield in Surrey:1

Sir, You have no Cause to Regret those happy Circumstances which hitherto have preserv’d you from having had any Occasion to honour your Friends with your Commands; though there’s none who should embrace them with more alacrity than my selfe: I cannot therefore Receive the least Recognition for so small a piece of Service,2 as you are pleas’d to take notice of: But should be glad to find the Effects of his Graces3 promise, which though I do not question; yet the possession of it, would better Countenance the Satisfaction I should receive, in being any way Serviceable to you who am Dear Sir Your etc. Says Court 13 Aprill: 1694

Richard Waller1 Letter 701 (698) May 8, 1694 f 87

Epistle DCXCVIII To Richard *Waller Esquire2

[RM: *Secretary to the Royal Society] Sir, I ought to Acknowledge the Favour of your late kind Visite, and your giving me the opportunitie of Diverting you among the Gardens, and my selfe with a Conversation so 1 in response to a letter of 8 April (Add 78318: f 88 [8.4.1694]) 2 George Evelyn had been appointed deputy lieutenant of Surrey (see Letter 695). 3 Henry Howard, 7th duke 1 Richard Waller (c.1660–1715; ODNB). A fellow of the Royal Society (1681), Waller became its secretary (1687–1709, 1710–14), and was instrumental in the Society’s move to Crane Court (towards which he gave £400) where he oversaw the placing of the Society’s curiosities, and edited Philosophical Transactions (1691–4). As Hooke’s closest friend in later life, Waller also edited Hooke’s Posthumous Works (1705) and wrote his biography. 2 The original of this letter is Royal Society EL/E/5. Most of the text of this letter is also transcribed in Royal Society, Letter-Book, Supplement III, 135–6.

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agreable to my Genius:3 I assure you Sir I often times Reproch my selfe (and now too late deplore it) that I had not cultivated the Advantages I might have reap’d, by an earlier Acquaintance with you; and now much more, that my Residence in these parts, is like to deprive me of waiting on you (whom I looke on as the Flower of our Society) so often as I should do for the future: I am here among the Woods, and Waters, Hills, and barren Solitudes, that afford nothing worthy Communicating to you, nor know I well, whether what I sent you from my House at Deptford be at all new to you, who have Such an Insight into Colours and their Causes: A day or two the last Weeke (before I came hither) the season being very cold, we made wood-fires both in the Parler, and Chamber; which the next morning, I perceiv’d had left a sort of Ashes impalpably fine, of a bright Saffron, or rather Aurora Colour, covering the rest of the ordinary Ashes: This, upon Examination of a Brand (not yet quite consum’d) I perceivd to be some piece of a ship-plank, that it seemes happn’d to be brought among the rest of the Billets: The oddnes of the Colour made me take up a little of it, and temper it with water, which giving the very same Colour upon the paper, both Wet, and Dry; caus’d me to gather up some more: There was a brighter, and a darker, of both which sorts I send you a Sample, together with a Morsel of the Wood, which I take to be nothing save good heart Oake: Whether it still retaines its Colour I cannot tell, it being a weeke-since: To this I add, a Copy of Sir Dudly Colums4 Letter to my giving me an Account of the stove,5 you were pleas’d to say you thought might be acceptable to those, whom I had (but conjecturaly) encourag’d to make trial of it, for the introducing a fresh warme and natural light Aire into the Conservatory of the tendrest plants during Winter; instead of the now close and stagna[n]t warmth, which is fo[u]nd to prejudice those nice curiosities in this Climate: This Sir, is yours, to Publish, if you think it worth the while. If not, excuse the Impertinences of Worthy Sir Your etc. Wotton 8: May. – 1694.

3 Evelyn records this as occurring on 24 April (Diary V.176). They had gone to see Brompton Nursery (owned by George London and Henry Wise) “where he was in admiration at the store of rare plants & method he found in that noble nursery, & how well cultivated &c.” (176). Evelyn records his departure for Wotton on 4 May (Diary V.179). 4 Sir Dudley Cullum; see Letter 667 5 This letter is also reprinted in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions 18, no 212 (July–August 1694), 191. See also Letter 667 and Chambers, “John Evelyn and the Invention of the Heated Greenhouse.”

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Anne Spencer Letter 702 (699) May 8, 1694 f 87

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCXCIX To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame: The growing Infirmities of my Brother and other Circumstances, being likely to require our being much in this desart place (however not altogether unpleasant) renders the Memorie of the Friends we leave behind, and politer Conversations neerer the Court to come oftner into our thoughts: I beseech you Madame to believe, that there is none before you in mine, none who has equal title to them: Whither my Wife (who most humbly kisses your Ladyship and my Lady Clancarties1 hands) will be able to support the Winter here, I much question: We have in the meane time left a Remnant of our little Family2 at SaysCourt, where your Ladyship will allways find an humble Servant: I suppose by this time, my Lord Spencer3 may have made some Progresse in his intended home ambulatory Peregrination:4 I am sure, whereever he gos, he will still returne with Improvements: My Prayers shall be for the Continuance of your Ladyships Health and Prosperity, and that I may stil live under the Influence of your Favour, who am, Madame Your etc. Wotton 8 May – 1694

Edmund Gibson1 Letter 703 (700) May 8, 1694 f 87

Epistle DCC To Mr. *Gibson etc.

[RM: *The learn’d person who publishd the Saxon Chronicle and was now setting forth a new Edition of Camden with additions]



1 2 3 4

Elizabeth MacCarty Susanna and William Draper Charles Spencer See Letter 690.

1 Edmund Gibson (1669–1748; ODNB). Gibson was known to Evelyn chiefly as the editor of the Chronicum Saxonicum (Oxford, 1692; in the 1687 library catalogue) and of a re-edition of the translation of

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Sir, To the notes and papers you desired of me,2 I have since endeavord to informe my selfe in those particulars you mention, and which I presume are now come to you: And now by this Letter from a Friend of mine, well acquainted with the Trustees of Dog [sic] Smith (as he is cald)3 sent you the particulars of that Extraordinary Benefactor to this County: You may please to take notice, that besides what I writ to you, of George Abbot: Archbishop of Canterbery, and his Brother Robert Bishop of Salisbery; he had at the same time Moris another Brother who was Lord Major of London, all of them Sons of the Same Cloathier, and natives of Guildford:4 Also that Hammond5 whom I mention’d, was not onely a Benefactor to the Schole there, but founder of a Felowship at Balliol College Oxford: John de la Haye died about 500 years since about whom, and other particulars expect in my next; for I would not retard the Printer longer than is necessary: who remain Sir Your etc. Wotton 8: May 1694

John Walker Letter 704 (701) May 12, 1694 f 87v

Epistle DCCI. To Mr. Walker, etc.

[LM: In Answer to one he sent me from Virginia]1 Sir, I esteeme my Selfe oblig’d both to my Cousen Parke for the Favour of his mentioning me to you, and for the product of it; the greate Civilitie of your Letter: I am onely unhappy

2 3 4 5

Camden’s Britannia (1695), works to which Evelyn contributed. Gibson studied at Oxford (BA 1691, MA 1694) and a fellow of Queen’s College (1696). He became librarian at Lambeth (1696) and chaplain to Archbishop Tenison (1698), and later bishop of Lincoln and bishop of London. Gibson asked Evelyn to do the notes for Surrey for the edition of Camden’s Britannia published in 1695; see Letter 688 and 725. Thomas Smith (1638–1710), a vice provost of Magdalen College, Oxford, was known as “Tograi” or “Tog” Smith because of his interest in Near Eastern learning. He was in charge of the Cottonian library in the 1690s and refused to lend Humphrey Wanley the volume of Saxon characters at that time. George Abbot (1562–1633; ODNB) ; Robert Abbot (fl. c.1589–1652; ODNB); Sir Maurice Abbot (1565–1642; ODNB) William Hammond (d. 1575). Mayor of Guildford and a benefactor of Balliol College (after whom ­Hammond’s Buildings there are named), Hammond left £1000 and lands worth £100 per annum.

1 Walker had written Evelyn on 20 December 1693 at Daniel Parke’s instigation, addressing his desire to obtain “some Rareitis of our Country” and offering to provide “a Draught of dryed plants to show what

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in my not being in Capacity of Answering it as becomes me; having of late chang’d my Usual Habitation to a place where I have not so frequent opportunities of Corresponding with my Friends, as when I was neerer to, and more conversant in London:2 The Sassafras Oyle,3 you are pleas’d to present me with (though not yet Receiv’d) I gratefully thank you for; it being, I question not, Indu’d with the many Virtues of that Sovraine plant: Whatever else you are pleas’d to Mention design’d for me, will be best convey’d to me by Mr. London4 (his Majesties Gardner here) who has an ingenious Servant of his, in Virginia, not unknown I presume to you by this time;5 being sent thither on purpose, to Make, and Plant the Garden, design’d for the College,6 newly built in your Country; and likewise to enquire out, what Plants, rare in this Kingdome, may be transported hither: The Possom you mention is indede a very extraordinary Creature; for though I have seene one alive here, with her young, running in and out, of the bag, under their Mothers belly; yet do I not remember to have read any so full and accurate a description as yours: ’Tis pitty that so happy and firtile a Country should want Encouragments to proceede promote the Endeavors of such Industrious, and capable Persons as you are, and which your Example, I doubt not, but will soone Excite: In the meane time, you could not have apply’d your selfe for the best directions concerning the Virtue of the Extracts you mention, than to the Learned Doctors Persons you name: Dr. Lyster7 and Tyson,8 both my Worthy Friends; the Catalogue of Plants you set downe, are many of the Rare with us; but through this your generous Comunication, we may hope to be further Inrich’d: I thinke, (if God continue an old mans life so long) to spend part of the next winter at in London, where I shall be glad to receive any of your Commands to Sir Your etc. Wotton neer Dorking in Surrey 12 May 1694

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

is in our American parts with some sorts of trees and plants” (Add 78318: f 71 [20.12.1693] and f 83 [26.12.1693]). Evelyn’s move from Sayes Court, Deptford, to Wotton in Surrey (see Diary V.179), which he records on 4 May Sassafras officinale produces an oil said to have medicinal qualities. George London; see Letter 541, note 10. James Road, who worked under George London at Hampton Court, was allotted £234 “for going to Virginia to make a collection of fforeign Plants” in 1694. See Kornwolf, Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America, II, 541. the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. See Martin, The Pleasure Gardens of ­Virginia, 18–27. The royal charter for the college was granted in 1693. Martin Lister (1639–1712; ODNB). He travelled on the continent with John Ray and was made fellow of the Royal Society in 1671 and fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1687. He published widely on natural history, including several books on shells. See Roos, Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639–1712). Edward Tyson (1651–1708; ODNB). He studied with Robert Plot at Oxford (BA 1670, MA 1673, MB 1677) and moved to London, becoming a fellow of the Royal Society in 1679. He was awarded an MD (Cambridge, 1680) and became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1683. He published ­extensively on anatomy and natural history.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Daniel Parke Letter 705 (702) May 12, 1694 f 87v

1021

Epistle DCCII To my Cousin Park:

[LM: In Answer to his dated in Virginia 16: December –93] Sir, The Letter which came to me with Mr. Walkers1 shew how extreamely I think myselfe am oblig’d for your Remembrance of me, by the Civilities I receiv’d from him, and other Expressions of your intended Favours in contributing to my Hortulan Inclination; but to which in no sort justly Intitle my selfe, upon the Score of any other service, that I have ben able to do you here: ’Til you confirme it to me under your owne hand, that Mr. Blatwhaite [LM: Se letter p. 174]2 has effectualy perform’d what he lately assurd me he had don, in nominating you to be one of the Counsel of Virginia,3 according to your desire and desert: My hopes that this is don, makes me the more Confident, that the Lady your Sister (who came to my House on purpose to Renew your Concerne about it, and thereby then deliverd me your Commands) will pardon my reception of her in no better manner, considering the Circumstances I then was under: The Sassafras Oyle, though not come to hand, nor indeede knowing where to calle for, it is neverthelesse an obligation to Mr. Walker;4 and the further Favours you intend me among other your Friends, will come most wellcome to me with your selfe, which you make us hope may be the next yeare: In the meane time, having dispos’d of my Daughter (of whose Marriage you are pleas’d to take notice) to a very worthy Gentleman and my good Brothers Infirmities Indisposing him, requiring my being much at Wotton with him (as you will find, I at present am) is like to make me much a stranger at Deptford; which for this Summer I have intirely left to the young Couple and Family: From Ireland5 I often heare and I think seldome without their kind Remembrance of their Cousen Park: I have not seene Captain Nicholson,6 nor am I further knowne to him than by the Report and Character you and others give of him: I can

1 John Walker; see Letter 704. 2 Letter 698 to William Blathwayt 3 Parke was a member of the House of Burgesses in Virginia in 1688, 1693, and 1695. See Diary V.574, n. 2. Evelyn was apparently successful, as Parke served on the Council of State from 1695 until his departure for England in 1697. See also Letter 698, note 2. 4 See Letter 704. 5 presumably from Evelyn’s son John Evelyn Jr and his wife, whom Susanna had been accompanying at Bath (see Letter 620) when they had met Parke in 1689. 6 probably Sir Francis Nicholson (1655–1728; ODNB), who had served as lieutenant governor of Virginia from 1690 to 1692, until replaced by Edward Andros, and who then served as governor of Maryland from 1694 to 1698. He was active in London at this time in lobbying in support of the foundation of the College of William and Mary.

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say nothing to his Addresses to Mr. Blathwaite, but esteeme my selfe very fortunate, if I have succeeded better, as I doubt not but I have, and therefore long to Congratulate on your behalfe who am Sir Your etc. Wotton: 12: May: – 1694

Thomas Tenison Letter 706 (703) May 29, 1694 f 88

Epistle DCCIII To the Bishop of Lincoln:

My Lord It is none of the least Mortifications, that besides other Circumstances, obliging me to be at this distance from my old Abode; I cannot have the opportunitie of waiting on your Lordship, and Receiving those Advantages and Improvements, which I allways return’d with when ever I came from my Lord of Lincolne: We are here in no unpleasant Solitude: some good Books which I find here, with a Cart-load which I brought along with me, serve to aleviate the tediousnes of sitting still: But we know nothing of New, but what our Friends from your side impart to us. Mr. Pepys se[n]t me the last Weeke the Journal of Sir John Narbrough and Captain Wood;1 together with Mr. Whartons Præface to his Intended History of the Life of ArchBishop Laude:2 I do not know whether I might do the Learned Editor (for it seemes he onely publishes a Manuscript written by that greate Prelate of his owne life) any Service, by acquainting him of a passage relating to [word deleted] that person, namely the Jubile, which the Sacrifice of that the Bishop caus’d among some at Rome; it being my hap, to be in that Citty, and in Company of divers of the English Fathers (as they call them) when the Newes of his Suffering and the Sermon he made upon the Scaffold arrived there; which I well Remember they Read, and Commented on, with no small Satisfaction, and (as I thought) contempt, as of one taken off, who was an Enemy to them, and stood in their Way; whilst one of the Blackest Crimes imputed to him, was (we may well calle to mind) his being popishly Affected: I know not (I say) whether this Memoire may be of any Import to Mr. Wharton, with whom I have no Acquaintance: I therefore acquaint your Lordship with it, and in the Termes almost, that I have mention’d and subjoyn’d it to my Discourse of Medals3 under that of this Arch-Bishops Figure; 1 An Account of several late Voyages and Discoveries to the South and North towards the Streights of Magellan, the South Seas ... also towards Nova Zembla, Greenland or Spitsberg ... By Sir J. Narborough, Captain J. Tasman, Captain J. Wood, and F. Marten of Hamburgh (London, 1694) 2 The History of the Troubles and Tryal of the Most Reverend Father in God, and Blessed Martyr, William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. Henry Wharton (London, 1695; Eve.b.45) 3 Numismata (1697), 114. In his response of 19 June, Tenison says, “That passage of your relating to Bishop Laud is very remarkable, and touches the main point” (Diary [1887], III, 343).

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which together with my that Copy, I have now sent Ben Tooke to Print,4 (as he desires) if it be worth his while: I add nothing more, but that of my Wifes humble Service to you and my Lady; and that there is still a part of our Smalle Family at Says-Court, where my Daughter Draper and Husband5 are the Young Oeconomists, and all of us Concern’d to beg your Lordships Blessing and Prayers, especialy Your etc. I should rejoice to heare how Mr. Bently proceedes with the Library at White-hall;6 I hope your Lordship will mind him of the Sermons he owes us and the publique: I heare nothing of the Bishop of Chichester, who is likewise in our Debt:7

Wotton 29: May – 1694

Samuel Pepys Letter 707 (704) May 30, 1694 f 88

Epistle DCCIV To Samuel Pepys Esquire1

Sir, Mithinks Want, Wish, and Pray is like Caesars Veni, Vidi, Vici: more could not be express’d in so few Words; more needed not: But the Want is on my part, the Wish, and Prayer common and reciprocal to both: I have now in prospect of my exalted Studiolum here, Water, Woods, Meadow and other Circumstances of Solitude: I have also a pretty Collection of Books, which I brought along with me: But there is no such thing as a Mr. Pepys nor Dr. Gale within 20 Miles north of me, nor within a Thousand to the Antipodes of any other point of the Compas: For I have sail’d and travelld to the Antipodes with the best pilots and Navigators in the World, by the Pilots you *sent me, [RM: *Sir J. Narbroughs and Captain Woods Discoveries which he sent me.]2 for which I Returne you a thousand Acknowledgements; and for the *two other pieces [RM: *Mr. Wharton Præface to the ArchBishop Lauds life]3 which have Entertain’d me with greate Satisfaction: Who ever 4 See Letter 708. 5 Susanna and William Draper were the occupants of Sayes Court. On 21 May, Draper wrote to Evelyn about his problems with the gardener there and saying that he himself spent “some houres every day in the Garden ... to keepe the hedges and Groves in tollerable order” (Add 78300: f 98 [21.5.1694]). 6 Richard Bentley was appointed keeper of the king’s libraries in December 1693. 7 Robert Grove (c. 1634–96; ODNB); probably a reference to Grove’s Profitable Charity (London, 1695) 1 Particular Friends, D21, 243–4. The original is Princeton Library (Robert T. Taylor Collection). 2 An Account of several late Voyages and Discoveries to the South and North ... By Sir J. Narborough, Captain J. Tasman, Captain J. Wood (London, 1694). 3 The History of the Troubles and Tryal of ... William Laud, ed. Henry Wharton (London, 1694; Eve.b.45)

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has compild the first is more than a Tarpaulin: I wish we had more such Relations and as faithfully as I am perswaded these are don, to continue our Purchas:4 The Dedica[to]ry Plate (which is yours) is very finely grav’n, and the Rest (besides the Maps) Tollerably, which makes me long to see some of your pretty Boys of Christ-Church-Hospital5 come home with their Draughts. I do not guesse at the Author of the new Model:6 The Man is very brisk, I believe confident of his owne Parts, and somewhat Conceited, cutts a feather in the conclusion very neately: Form [From] the third, Mr. Wharton, I expect greate things and Usefull: You see what Time and the Providence of God brings every-day to light, and ’tis that we are to waite [word deleted] on for more discoveries: Thus you see how I live upon the Provision you have made me; and how little I am able to Returne you from the Desart I am in; Wanting in every thing, but a most gratefull Heart for these, and all your other Favours to Your etc. Wotton: 30: May: – 1694

Benjamin Tooke Letter 708 (705) June 2, 1694 f 88v

Epistle DCCV To Mr. Tooke.

Mr. Tooke: Tarde, sed Tandem:1 At last I send you the Copy2 you have so long expected, never the worse I hope for coming no sooner: I wish it may answer the paines I have taken in compiling; for it would amount to the Value of many Medals: I was indeede unwilling it should scape from me, without something more than an ordinary Treatise: It will therefore require a more than ordinary Supervisor: You tell me, such a one you have; if not, pray make use of the poore man I directed to you, who is also acquainted with my hand, and will be ready to assist you:3 There being aboundance of Writers on this Subject, in all

4 Samuel Purchas, Purchase his Pilgrimes (London, 1625; in the 1687 library catalogue) 5 In the original (Particular Friends, 243) Evelyn has written “Alumni of Christ-Church,” but as Pepys’s connections were with the London school (Christ’s Hospital) not the Oxford college, Evelyn has emended it here. 6 [George Savile, Marquis of Halifax], A Rough Draught of a New Model at Sea (London, 1694). The work contained Savile’s advice to the English to trust to the sea as the necessary moat for the country’s protection. 1 late but nonetheless 2 for Numismata 3 probably Edward Phillips, who reported to Evelyn on the progress of the printing on 7 August (Add 78318: f 86 [7.8.1694]). Tooke notes in a letter of 24 August that “Mr. Phillips promises all his skill and care, and as often as the Press requires gives his attendance” (Add 78314: f 96 [24.8.1694]).

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other polite European Languages; and but one very short and partial one in ours;4 will I hope render this the more acceptable, and give ferment to the Curious: I expect Attaque from some peevish quarter, in this angry Age; but so it make for your Interest, and satisfie æquitable Judges, I shall not be much concern’d: The Medals which are here sent you, pray take care of, and deliver but one by one to your Graver;5 nor supply him with any other, ’til he returnes you that he is graving with the Plate: You’l find I have mark’d the paper, wherein you must keepe the plates, and apply to the pages as directed; by which you’l avoyd mistakes, easily fall’n into without some such method: Such as you are to have out of Luchius,6 from the Earle of Clarendon, Dr. Plot7 etc. I will take care to procure you by that time these are dispatch’d: As for the Graving, so the Contours and out lines be well design’d, I am not solicitous for the hatching (as they call it) since we have laudable examples of the other in Greater Spanheim8 and other excellent Authors: Mr. White if he have leasure, will be your best man: And for the Volume, I should think a thin moderat folio, with a faire letter most desierable: As for the Fortspice,9 Epistle and Præface, I shall provide you in good time, and as I see Cause; onely, I pray take special care of the Insertions, and Paragraphs which I have marked I: When all this is finish’d, I purpose a very accurate Index: This being all at present I wish you good Successe, and am Your etc. Wotton: 2: June : – 1694

Commissioners of the Navy1 Letter 709 (706) June 17, 1694 f 88v

Epistle DCCVI 2 To the Commissioners of the Navy:

Gentlemen, Though I am very sensible of the many Inconveniences of having an Ankerforge so plac’d as may possibly render my poore dwelling not onely unpleasant, but (as it may happ’n) 4 Evelyn probably refers to Obadiah Walker, The Greek and Roman history illustrated by coins & medals (London, 1692). 5 Robert White (1645–1703; ODNB) 6 Johann Jacob Luckh, Sylloge numismatum elegantiorum (Strasburg, 1620; in the 1687 library catalogue) is cited in Numismata (1694), 244. 7 Henry Hyde (see Letter 677), Robert Plot (see Letter 689) 8 Ezechiel Spanheim, Dissertationes de praestantia et usu numismatum antiquorum, etc. (Amsterdam, 1671; Eve.a.121) 9 frontispiece 1 Edward Russell (later earl of Oxford), Sir John Lowther, Henry Priestman, Robert Austen, Sir Robert Rich, Sir George Rooke, Sir John Houblon 2 This letter seems to be in response to one from William Draper of 12 June informing Evelyn of the navy’s intentions (Add 78300: f 99 [12.6.1694]). A letter from Draper of 22 June reports the navy’s responses

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almost uninhabitable, yet as the publique service is to take place before all private Interests, and that you judge it so absolutely necessary to the service of the Fleete, I am to Acquiesce: I would yet humbly desire, that it may so be plac’d and contriv’d, as may be least noxious to my Grounds and Dwelling: That there may likewise be erected a substantial Wall or Fence, at the foote of the Mast-dock-bank, contiguous to the Field, to hinder the perpetual Excursions of Idle, and Pilf’ring people from traversing my Grounds upon all Occasions and Seasons, as hitherto they have don: That a Row of Elme-Trees may be planted (at competent distances) and maintaind neere the Fence: which must be the onely, and best Expedient, I can fore-see, that may in few yeares intercept the Smoke from infecting all that lies behind it: Lastly, that upon in Consideration of the Inconvenience I am so long to Adventure; their Majesties will not think a Fine of £250 too much for Adding to your present Terme so many Years, as will make it 41; together with the continuance of the current present Rent to Sir Denys Gaudens Executors;3 and (after the expiration of his Terme) to me and mine during the Residue of the 41 Yeares: As to the Infirmities of the Wharfs next the Thames (which you are pleas’d to signifie in your last) what Covenants there may have ben betweene Sir Denys and the Board, are unknown to me: But as to my Concernes, it is intirely Sir Denys’s part to take care of that, and to preserve me harmlesse: I take this occasion likewise to Acquaint you, that the Ground you would build thus upon, is no part of my lease from the Crowne, but Land of Inheritance, which has ben long in our Family:4 As was also that on which the Hospitals of the poore Widdows of Sea-men is built on;5 and that it was given the Trinity Corporation by my late Father in Law Sir Richard Browne, and by my Wife who pass’d a fine (the Title being in her after her father) as the sole Benefactors to the Charity: There is a White Marble Inscription long since expressing this, which ought to be plac’d (as was promis’d) by the Masters of the Company, not yet perform’d; but which I desire may be don: The Fence separating my stable Court from the Saile-field6 is a party wall, and was built at halfe Charges by me, with his Majestie7 wherefore I desire you will permit no Chimneys opposite to my Dwelling: This is all from Gentlemen Your etc. Wotton 17 June. – 1694

3 4 5

6 7

to Evelyn’s riposte (Add 78300: f 100 [22.6.1694]). John Strickland also wrote on 22 June concerning Draper’s discussions with the navy (Add 78318: f 86 [22.6.1694]). Sir Dennis Gauden died in 1688. Part of the land at Sayes Court was a lease from the Crown and part Evelyn’s freehold inheritance from Sir Richard Browne. This was Trinity Hospital, a building of thirty-eight almshouses for seamens’ widows (now demolished), administered by the Trinity Company. Evelyn thought they might better have been given to “the poore of the Parish, than on the seamens Widdows, the Trinity Company being very rich, & the rest of the poore of the Parish exceedingly Indigent” (Diary III.577, and n. 6). The Saile-field was in the southeast corner of the dockyard adjacent to the wall (King’s Ms 43, f 66). Charles II

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys Letter 710 (707) July 7, 1694 f 89

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Epistle DCCVII To Mr. Pepys: etc.1

Sir, It’s now high time for me to make some Apologie (if I had any besides your wonted Indulgence) for the Trouble I lately gave you of a pond’rous Packet;2 and (after I have enquir’d of your good health, with the rest of our Saturdays Academists)3 to Reiterate my Thanks for the Booke you sent me: You will not be Inquisitive what I am doing whilst there is so much Hay abroad, and the Sunn shining so bright: at least here is work enough for those who have leasure: This is the Language of the Place, the season and my buisinesse, and must have ben for ought I know my onely Employment, if some kind Genius had not in pitty directed the most learned Mr. Wotton,4 to give me a Visite, and an inestimable Present too, his Reflexions upon the Antient and Modern Learning;5 which, in Accknowledgement of yours I would certainely have sent you; but that I am Confident you must e’re this have seen it and ben Entertain’d with as much Delight and Satisfaction as an universaly learnd, and indeede extraordinary Person is able to give the most refined Tast: This is He, whom I have sometimes mention’d to you for one of the Miracles of this Age, for his Early, and Vast Comprehension: Set him down then in your Albo6 amongst the Gales and the Bentlies,7 as you will be sure to certainly to do so soone as you know him: I assure you, he is no lesse in his choicest Conversation [3 words deleted] in his Booke than in his in the Pulpit and Conversation; than in his Booke and Writing; and hath with greate Modesty: Judge you then, what an unexpected Accident Blessing is befal’n me in the Wildernes, and with what Manna I am fed, when ever he dos me the kindnes to come

1 Particular Friends, D22, 245–6. The original is printed in Pepys, Private Correspondence, no 62. 2 In a letter to Pepys of 30 May 1694 (Particular Friends, 244) Evelyn refers to “my knowne and unknowne Friends in Virginia” to whom this packet was sent. These would have included Daniel Parke and John Walker. 3 Evelyn records one of these Saturday meetings – with Capt Dampier and a native of Mindinao – on 6 August 1694 (Diary V.295). 4 William Wotton (1666–1727; ODNB). Wotton was a child prodigy who was a BA at Cambridge at the age of 13 and became a fellow of St John’s in 1683 and a BD in 1691. Much encouraged and promoted by Evelyn, he was made fellow of the Royal Society (1687) and later a prebendary of Salisbury (1705–26). 5 Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (London, 1694; Evelyn Library, no 1597). This is the central work in the ancients and moderns controversy. Wotton, whom Evelyn had first encountered as a child in 1679 (Diary IV.172–3) and heard preach on 13 June, 1694 (Diary V.184) was currently the tutor to the son of Heneage Finch, 1st earl of Aylesford at nearby Albury. 6 album 7 Thomas Gale, Richard Bentley

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from Albery (where he has the care of an hopefull young Son of Mr. Finches)8 to Wotton his Namesake [word deleted] as he calls it: You may well think I talke as famish’d-men and halfe sterv’d are said to do Eate, when they come to provisions; for so indeede I do, for I have not had so such a Regale, since I went from York-buildings:9 and nor should I have known what to have Written from this Place had not this Gentleman furnish’d me: I am told that our Friend Dr. Lock10 has made Additions to his excellent Essays, which may be had without the necessity of pruchasing the whole Book: And a Letter just now sent me from the Bishop of Lincoln11 acquaints me that there is a little Booke in 12o, cal’d Religion and Reason12 which will give one an hours good Diversion; for both which I am sending: That Mr. Whartons Life of ArchBishop Laude13 (the Præface of which you lately sent me) is by this time printed: This is better Newes, than what we heare from Brest,14 which I am astonish’d to find Publish’d, for the same Reason, that I would not all the World should Reproch our want of Conduct, as well as Misfortun: My most humble Service to the most obliging Dr. Gale: Receive you my Wifes, who is at present a Water-biber here, though we fetch it from Lingford,15 almost 20 miles distance at the Edge of Sussex, and is stronger than that of Tunbridge: If you or the Doctor come neere Epsum this Summer, I flatter my selfe you will make an Eight or nine miles step farther South to both Your most humble Servant Wotton 7 July – 1694

We drinke Mr. Bentlys health, and wish his Library finish’d, that we may have the Sermons he owes us.16

8 Heneage Finch 9 the winter lodgings that Evelyn took just off the Strand at Charing Cross 10 Locke had sheets containing “large additions” for inclusion with the first edition of his Human Understanding (1690) printed separately with the second edition (1694). See Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography, 333. 11 Thomas Tenison 12 John Locke, Reason and religion: in some useful reflections on the most eminent hypotheses concerning the first principles, and nature of things [London, 1694] (printed anonymously). 13 The History of the Troubles and Tryal ... of William Laud (London, 1694; Eve.b.45). 14 Evelyn records the failure of the military campaign at Brest on 17 June 1694 (Diary V.184). It was reported in the London Gazette no. 2985, for 18 June. 15 Mary Evelyn, who had been drinking medicinal water for her health since 1661 (Diary III.292), is having water fetched from Linford on the border of Hertfordshire. Tunbridge Wells, Kent, was the closest source of this water (and medicinal bathing) when the family lived in Deptford. Epsom in Surrey was originally famed for its medicinal wells (Diary III.544 and n. 1). 16 Richard Bentley had been appointed keeper of the king’s libraries on 23 December 1693 and assumed custody of the library at St James’s in May 1694. He was the Boyle Lecturer in 1692 and 1694. The lectures for 1692 had been published as The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism ... In eight sermons preached at the lecture founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle ... in the first year MDCXCII in 1693. The 1694 lectures were not published.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Charles Spencer Letter 711 (708) July 6, 1694 f 89

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Epistle DCCVIII To my Lord Spencer:

My Lord, I should ill merite the honor you do me, should I forget the least of your Favours; if any thing proceeding from your Lordship did admitt of the least diminution. I assure you my Lord, to have a place in your Thought (as by your obliging letter I find I still have) is to be set amongst the Virtues I most value in the World: I did not certainely know whether your Lordship was at Althorp,1 or in your design’d Perambulation,2 which was the Cause of my Writing doubtfully to my Lady;3 and now I do know where you be are, I am sure you are in Place, and Conversations, to which my the Company of an Obsolete and Worn-out old-man, could contribute nothing worth your kind and generous Invitation:4 Where my station may be in Winter (if I live to it) is uncertaine; but I am sure if at London, or whereever else; your Lordship will have a most humble Servant. It is true, that about four yeares since (and in this very Recesse) I had blotted some paper upon the subject of Medals;5 but which (upon Mr. Walkers Booke,6 coming forth) I had quite lay’d-by; had not some who had seen the copy (and considered how much was printed publish’d in other countries, and the popular language, and how very little in ours) prevaild with me to bestow it upon one7 to whom I ow’d (and who needes would accept of this for) a kindnesse, that I would let [insert: suffer] it be printed: How it will Succeede in an Age so critical, knowing and polite, I have reason to apprehend; and my absence from the Presse, redoubles my Concerne: But, the Die is Cast: If when it comes abroade it receives Influence from your Lordships Approbation, I shall not regret the Adventure of my Lord Your etc. Wotton 6 July – 1694

1 Charles Spencer had written from the family house in Northamptonshire on 20 June 1694 (Add 78679: f 131 [20.6.1694]) asking Evelyn to visit and mentioning the forthcoming Numismata. 2 Spencer’s proposed tour of Britain is referred to in Letters 690 and 702. 3 Anne Spencer 4 As Charles Spencer was to marry Arabella Cavendish in the following January, this may have been an occasion to celebrate the engagement. 5 See perhaps Add 78350: ff 1–73. 6 The Greek and Roman history illustrated by coins & medals 7 Benjamin Tooke

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William Wotton Letter 712 (709) July 11, 1694 f 89v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCIX To Mr. William Wotton.

Sir With my most humble Thanks for your excellent Company, your Learned *Present [LM: his Reflection upon in Answer to Sir William Temple Essay etc.]1 and what you now Superadd: The Bearer brings you Mr. Hooks Micrography:2 I think the Publishing that Romance of Sir Kenelme Digby for the Reasons you alledge (and which are very Considerable) may be Suspended:3 In the meane while the Key you annexe to open the Names must needes render it much more Diverting and Instructive; for both which, and your greate Civility, my Wife is Obliged, as well as Sir, Your etc. Wotton 11 July – 1694

Edmund Gibson Letter 713 (710) July 15, 1694 f 89v

Epistle DCCX To Mr. Gibson etc.

Sir, I thankfully receive your civile Excuse for not writing to me, though I should gladly have heard you had receiv’d my last,1 wherein I inclos’d something of more particular concerning the persons formerly mention’d,2 which yet I doubt not but is come to your hands

1 Wotton’s Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (London, 1694) was published in reply to Temple’s Upon Ancient and Modern Learning, published in the second part of his Miscellanea (London, 1690). 2 Robert Hooke, Micrographia (London, 1665; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 775) 3 Digby’s Private Memoirs were first published in 1827 and Loose Fantasies in 1968. Evelyn thought of him as “a teller of strange things” (Diary III.550). 1 At some time before this Gibson had lost Evelyn’s letter containing this information, as he explains to Evelyn in a letter of 31 May 1694 (Add 4275: f 231 [31.4.1694]). 2 See Letters 688, 703.

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long ere this; and that you have had the Contributions of other Persons relating to your noble work,3 by which to Reforme, and perfect whatsoever I may have faild in: As to what you mention concerning Medals (with the obliging offer of your Service and interest with that Gentleman, who furnishes you for Mr. Camden) I do not take any notice of any pieces that have ben stamp’d for Coine and current Mony; or any other, than what were struck upon some Historical account: There is of this sort (as I am inform’d) a Medal of Gold, bearing the Head of King Henry VII and his Queene, with their hands joyn’d wth this Verse Jungimus optatas sub amico fœdere dextras4 (with what Reverse I know not) which I should be glad to peruse, or any other either before, or since that Princes reigne, relating to Births, Mariages, Inaugurations, Armies, Conventions, Expeditions, Seiges etc. for with others I meddle not. I am extreamely glad (as by the Inclos’d you sent me) to find at last, so laudable and desiderate a piece in hand, and in such a progresse as I perceive it is by the Industry of Dr. Bernard:5 There being so many rare and usefull Manuscripts in the private studies of many Gentlemen in this nation (both learned and unlearned) which we should otherwise never have come to the knowledge of: Certainely, those who perhaps may not be so willing to give them to the University Library,6 will not be averse to the presenting you with a Catalogue of what they have; I am onely unhappy that my slender stock of such Jewels, is so thinn, that the little I am able to contribute, will not be worth the acceptance; most of my poore Collection chiefely relating to Matters, and Transactions of state, happning within these two last Centuries,7 of which many are already in print; with very little of Antient Authors, Critics, etc., which indeede are the onely valuable to the Republic of Learning: I shall however make it my endeavor to Enquire what Gentlemen of this County may have any laying by them, and thereof give you an Account according to your desire, and that of Dr. Bernards, to Sir Your etc. Wotton 15. July – 1694

3 His edition of Camden’s Britannia was published in 1695. 4 “We join our dear hands in a friendly pact.” Derived from l.91–2 of “Book XIII” of the Aeneid by Maffeo Vegio: “et optatam Latia cum gente quietem / iungemus.” (“With the Latin race we will establish the peace for which we have yearned” [Putnam, trans; Vegio, Short Epics]). The inscription imagines the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York as like the marriage of Aeneas and Lavinia. 5 Edward Bernard (1638–97; ODNB), who was preparing his Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (Oxford, 1697) 6 the Bodleian Library 7 many of these came into Evelyn’s hands through his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne. Bernard catalogues Evelyn’s manuscripts in Catalogus, II, I, 93–5. See Add 78168–88.

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Thomas Tenison Letter 714 (711) August 5, 1694 f 90

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXI To the Bishop of Lincoln:

My Lord, By the Conversation which I now and then have with Mr. Wotton who you know is in the family of Mr. Finch1 (our Neighhour, here at Albery) I understand that Mr. Bently has not onely Thoughts, but a Resolution of proceeding no farther in the Boilean Lecturs (I suppose he meanes after this yeares Curriculum) for which I am very sorry: I Confesse the Attendance he is obliged to by the Bishop of Worcester2 his Patron, together with the Charge and Buisines of putting the Library of St. James’s into order, and transfering it to White-Hall, which he has it seemes undertaken, must for a time require an extraordinary Undertaking Application: But if so it should be, upon the tast I have of the very greate Abillities of Mr. Wotton, I can think of none better able to succeede him; and some modest hints, incline me to believe he would not refuse the offer of it, and supply the next yeares turne: But That I take this Occasion of mentioning Mr. Wotton is not all my Lord: But to Acquainte you that the Indisposition of my poore Wife, of late labouring under cruel Conflicts of the stone, requires your Lordships Prayers: This (together with my worthy Brothers lying under the same Affliction) exceedingly adds to my disquiet here in this (otherwise) quiet and agreable Recesse: I beg your Lordships Blessings and remaine Your Lordships etc. Wotton: 5: August. – 1694

Anne Spencer Letter 715 (712) August 5, 1694 f 90

Epistle DCCXII To the Countesse of Sunderland.

Madame, By a Letter from Mrs. Soulemont1 to my daughter, I heare there is a Complaint of my not having Written to your Ladyship since I came to this place and by which I find I have

1 Heneage Finch 2 Edward Stillingfleet 1 See Letter 626, note 3.

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not ben fairely dealt with some where;2 For that indeede your Ladyship was the very first to whom I writ, within foure days after my Arival here; which was not til May: as by a Note, which I allways keepe of such obliging persons as your Ladyship, I am assur’d: Not that I neede a Remembrancer to mind me of my Duty; but as a gratefull Record of the honor I receive when ever your Ladyship is pleasd to think of your humble Servant: Since that, I confesse, the noble *Present [RM: *Venison] you were lately pleas’d to send my Daughter, requires a double and reiterated Acknowledgement, not from me onely, but from my Wife and Daughter which I beseech your Ladyship to Accept, being all that our weake poore Abillities are able to Returne: – I am here under no meane Affliction concernment for my poore Wife, of late in dolorous paine of the stone, equaly, if not in worse Condition with my Brother; so as your Ladyship will believe, my distractions have not ben ordinary, whilst two such old and Constant Friends, are so uneasy ill Afflicted: What may be the Event, God he knows, who onely can give Ease: This Accident, so much more grievous to my Wife, as that (if it continue) it may hinder her from being with her Daughter, sometime before her Lying-in, which is now approaching:3 Such Physitians and Helps as we have Consulted, pronounce it to be a stone some where lodg’d above the neck of the Bladder, which upon any motion, and especialy after meales, puts her to greate torment, and then giving some Relaxation for a while, but never without paine: This Madame, is the History of our Condition here, which takes off all the quiet and repose this Retreate would otherwise afford; and which I am sure will suspend your Ladyships future Censure of my failing in my Duty, whilst I forbeare to disturb your Ladyship with such Melancholy Accounts: My Wife humbly presents her Service to your Ladyship, and begs your Prayers, as dos also Madame Your etc. Wotton 5. August. – 1694

Susanna Draper Letter 716 (713) August, 1694 f 90v

Epistle DCCXIII To my Daughter Draper:

My deare Child, I have given as ample a Charge to my Son your Husband, about our little Concerns at Deptford,1 as any Justice of Peace neede to do at a Country Sessions, and have therefore 2 See Letter 702. Evelyn had relocated to Wotton at the beginning of May (Diary V.179). 3 On 13 September, Evelyn and his wife left Wotton for Deptford to attend Susanna Draper, “But were met upon the way about Meecham, with the good newes of her being delivered of a Boy the night before” ­(Diary V.190). Thomas Draper died on 23 July 1695. 1 perhaps alluding in part to the ongoing negotiations with the commissioners of the navy (see Letter 709)

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the lesse to trouble you with: In the meane time, the Religion you have ben principl’d in, and the progresse, I am sure you have made in being constant in the practice of; will furnish you with better Advise, than any I can add, in order to your new Oeconomie:2 Onely (next the care of your Health) take order that some of your Servants looke to the shutters of the Windows, especialy in the lower roomes, and the doore of the Myrtil Greene house,3 which has sometimes ben left open all night after strangers have ben to Visi[t]e the Gardens: I still recommend to you the Copying of Mrs. Godolphins Picture;4 ’tis all I will impose upon you for this Summer of that kind; my intention being to make a present of it to my Lord,5 being unwilling to part with the Original, unlesse it be for another of your hand, because I know you will equal, if not exceede it: I tooke with me hither the two Copper Boys,6 and some productions of your pencils, to play with all here, and refresh us in this Solitude; where yet we have Company, and buisinesse enough, as I suppose your Mother has acquainted you: Let us heare from you as often as you can, how you are, and how employ’d, that we may be the lesse sensible of our Distance: So God Almighty blesse you: The Key of the Library I have left with my Son,7 and impower’d him to make what Lawes and Ord’nances he pleases; onely that he take care his faire Coadjutrix do not Over-study herselfe, to the impairing of her health, and the danger of becoming too learned for any husband: Present my humble service to her, and to my Sister8 with the rest of the good Company: I do not thinke there will be found any vacuities in the shelves, for since the two Cartloades I brought from thence hither, may be supplied out of the Presses in the little Chamber: I have indeede ben forc’d to take the Catalogue9 with me, not knowing what occasion I may have to send for some particular Booke: Againe God Blesse my deare Child:

2 As recently as 26 July, Susanna had written to her mother about arrangements at Sayes Court so that she could stay for the birth of Susanna’s first child (Add 78433: f 60 [26.7.1694]). In addition, through the death of his aunt, Lady Temple, William Draper had inherited her fortune and the house Addiscombe, near Croydon in Surrey to which the couple had now moved. 3 A “new Greenhouse and Portico” is listed in an inventory of Wotton for 1702 (Add 78403) but none is listed for Sayes Court. Evelyn gives instructions about the cultivation of myrtles (of which he had six kinds at Sayes Court) in his Directions for the Gardiner at Says-Court, 39. See also Letter 474 to Francis Aston. 4 The original (now at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University) is by Matthew Dixon (Diary IV.13, n. 7). 5 Sidney Godolphin 6 probably Bartolo Murillo’s Boys with Pelota (c.1670), now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery. At the auction of the painting of John Drummond, Lord Melfort, held at the Whitehall banqueting house in June 1693, Godolphin “bought the boyes of Morella the Spaniard for 80 ginnies” (Diary V.145). See Brooks and Cherry, Murillo Scenes of Childhood, 126. 7 i.e., William Draper 8 Mrs Draper, William’s mother 9 probably the 1687 catalogue now with Evelyn’s papers in the British Library (Add 78632). On 4 May, when he noted their move to Wotton, Evelyn also recorded “removing much furniture of all sorts, books, Pictures, Hangings, bedding &c: to furnish the Appartment my Brother assig’d to me” (Diary V.179).

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We long to know what the Goships think of the time you have to go;10 young Married Women often making greate mistakes in their Reck’nings: Your mother makes account to be with you about the middle of September: Wotton August. 1694

Charles Spencer Letter 717 (714) August 2, 1694 f 90v

Epistle DCCXIV To my Lord Spencer:

My Lord, There are so many things crowding into my Thoughts, together with after the reading of your most obliging letter that I know not where to begin, that I may expresse the infinite sense I have of your continud Kindnesses: That I yet live, and retaine any place in your Esteeme, that you dignifie me by so distinguishing a Character; that you Invite me to participate of the Happiest Condition, in the most delicious Place,1 the noblest Conversation, which I think is any-where to be found on this side Paradise (the Althorpian Tempe)2 where the Muses, and the Graces, and the Celestial Urania,3 and all that’s charming (and that above all things I love, and honour and would cultivate) have taken up their Abodes[,] in a Word, where my Lord Spencer lives, and delights to be, and to make others happy with him: Do you not think my Lord, that my Mortification is excessive, whilst Ingag’d in other mens Affaires, I fore-see the Blessing I flatterd my Selfe with, postpon’d? and for how long I know not? Be assur’d my Lord that where ever I am, and what ever I do, your Lordship is the darling of my Thoughts; and were I worth the Grace you do me, I am totaly acquir’d by your generous Expressions, and the Conceptions I have of your Merites and Singular Virtues; nor do I Complement: Your Lordship and one more (the sweete Godolphin)4 emulous of your Example, refresh me with the very Contemplation; that after all these Confusions Revolutions, and decadence of Virtue and true Honour; they are Emerging, and will shortly create a new and better World: In this delightsome Vision and hopefull Augurie, I remaine intirely My Lord Your etc. Wotton: 2 August – 1694

10 Evelyn notes the birth of her son on 13 September (Diary V.190); see also Evelyn’s letter to Jael Boscawen of 21 September (Add 78309: f 119 [21.9.1694—misdated 21.7.1694]).

1 2 3 4

See Letter 711. Virgil’s ideal country in Georgics, Book 4 probably a reference to the learned Anne Spencer Francis Godolphin

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Samuel Pepys Letter 718 (715) September 2, 1694 f 91r–v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXV To Mr. Pepys etc.1

Ecce iterum provocas me Beneficiis, neque habeo ullum ἀντίδωρον2 which plunges me more and more into Debt; this last Packet of yours coming fraited with so many Favours at once, that I know not which first to give you thanks for; All of them deserving my particular Acknowledgements: I am strangely Pleas’d with these Valesianus’s;3 they are to me like those Inter-messes,4 which are plac’d betweene the larger Dishes, not to make a Meale upon; but fill up Vacuities: I wish we had more of these Attic Nights,5 and glad I am to find they are come into fashion; nor do I looke on them as Scraps; but as Bellaria, and Cupediæ,6 which exceedingly refresh with their pretty Varietie, when one has ben Tir’d with moyling, and turning over the Rubbish you justly Complaine of; and which after all the Toile, and Time, repaies one with so little Solid Advantage: With you therefore I have a thousand times deplor’d, that there has as yet ben so little don towards the Ridding us of this monstrous and unprofitable Lumber: Indeede honest Gesner7 has don his part, and by his Example shew’d what others might do; and such as of late have taken paines in the Histories of Animals and Plants:8 Dr. Pell 9 left a Scheme of Diatyposis10 of what he pretended to have don in the Mathematic Cycle; and the late Bishop of Chester11 (our never to be forgotten Friend) in the prælimina[r]ie to his Essay of the Real Character,12 1 Particular Friends, D24, 250–2. The original version is printed in Pepys, Private Correspondence, no. 64. The original is endorsed “[Mr Evelyn to Mr Pepys] upon a late reflection of his upon the excessive number of books mankind is unnecessarily burthened with for the short time he has to worke therewith]” (Particular Friends, 250 n. 1). 2 “Look, you are challenging me again with favours, and I do not have any gift in return.” A reply to Pepys’s letter of 14 August 1694 (Particular Friends, 247–9) 3 Adrien de Valois, Valesiana, ou les pensées critiques ... et les poesies Latines de Monsieur de Valois (Paris, 1694). 4 between courses. Evelyn’s use of the word in The French Gardiner (London, 1658) is the first citation in OED. 5 nights devoted to scholarly conversation; see Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae. 6 sweetmeats and delicacies 7 Conrad Gesner; probably his Bibliotheca Universalis, sive Catalogus omnium Scriptoum locupletissimus, in tribus linguis, Latina, Graeca, & Hebraica (Zurich, 1545). 8 also building on Gesner’s Historia Animalium (Zurich, 1551–8) and Catalogus Plantarum (Zurich, 1542). 9 John Pell wrote an Idea of Mathematics (1639) which was published in 1650 in John Dury, The reformed librarie-keeper with a supplement to the reformed-school, as subordinate to colleges in universities ... Whereunto is added, I. An idea of mathematicks. II. The description of one of the chiefest libraries which is in Germanie, erected and ordere by one of the most learned princes in Europe and reprinted in Philosophical Collections (London, 1679). 10 i.e., διατύπωσις: a description 11 John Wilkins 12 An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (London, 1668; Eve.b.37)

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scor’d-out many most usefull Tables, preparatory to such a Work: I meane not to the Knowledge of Words and Language onely, but of real Things, greately conducing to such an undertaking: Here must not be forgotten my Lord Bacon with his Caution concerning Epitomies;13 and yet I pray, what would be the Losse if some of our Voluminous Historians were Contracted to so little detriment, as Dio has sufferd by John Xiphilinus?14 Most of the Fathers of the Church by Du Pin:15 I have some yeares since read Clemens Alexandrinus,16 with no small application, which is you know a booke of no small Variety; and sinc had occasion to refresh my Selfe in Pin, without missing of any thing material; nor is this the single Author among them whom I have collated with him: Take Justine, Irenæus, Tertullian any of the Ecclesiastical Writers before or following after Eusebius,17 and one must think a good while, what one would wish were added, or had ben left out: Of this Classe are the Prolegomæna to the Polyglotta Bibles18 etc. In the meane while, what a Benefactor would he be, who were able, and willing to give us such a Catalogue of Authors, as were onely, and absolutely, and fully Effectual to the attainement of such a Competency of Practical, Usefull, and Speculative knowledge too, as one might hope to be Master of, within the ordinary Circle of ones life, without being bewilder’d, and quite out of the way when we should be at our Journeys-End!19 Truely, I am perswaded it were not an impossible thing; and that lesse than an hundred Volumes, studied with proper Method, would go a greate way towards this End: I do not meane, by Exclusion of any of the Classic Authors, which with all the good Historians, Greeke and Latine beginning at Herodotus and Caesar20 downe-wards, which may in a very few Yeares be read over with pleasure: But I speake of the Subsidiary Arts, and other Faculties, as far as might Accomplish one who did not intend some particular Profession; or if he did, might find the rest no burden to him: God be thanked, the Jargon of the Scholes and a world of unprofitable Philosophie I think have seen their best daies: I know you have read Grolda’s [sic] Advice to Monsieur Maurieos (the French Ambassador, well advanc’d in Age) it is in his first

13 Francis Bacon criticized epitomes in both his essay “Of Studies” and in Book V, ch.3 of The Advancement of Learning. 14 Dio Cassius, Romanarum historiarum libri XXV, ex Guilielmi Xylandri interpretatione (Geneva, 1591) with E Dione Excerptae Historiae ab Joanne Xiphilino ([Paris], 1592) was in Evelyn’s 1687 Library Catalogue and is Eve.c.7 (1–2). 15 Louis Ellies Du Pin, A new history of ecclesiastical Writers (London, 1693) 16 Clement of Alexandria, Opera græce et latine quæ exstant (Cologne, 1688; Eve.c.9). 17 Justin Martyr (c.100–c.165), Tertullian (c.160–c.220), Irenaeus (c.130–c.200), Eusebius (c.260–c.340): all Fathers of the Church 18 Evelyn’s copy of Brian Walton’s Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1657) is the first item in his 1687 Library Catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 145. Mandelbrote notes, however, that Evelyn donated a copy to the parish library in Reigate which had been set up by Andrew Cranston. That copy remains in situ. See Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and His Books, in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 75. If Evelyn had subscribed to “that greate Work” (Diary III.78) in 1652, when his support had been solicited, it is possible he owned more than one copy. 19 See the discussion of early modern information management and reference tools in Blair, Too Much to Know, 117–72. 20 See Letter 248 to Henry Hyde, which outlines a program for reading the classical historians; Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists seven copies of Caesar and two of Herodotus.

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle ad Gallos:21 What then would a Younger Man, who sets out Early, have attaind by such a Course! But, I forget, I am writing to one who knows all this much better than my selfe, but to one who would promote the Common good of all Man-kind, and therefore Concurr in all you say and think of Mr. Wotton upon this Chapter:22 But it is now almost three-weekes since I saw him, about which time he went, I heare, to London, and whether he be yet returnd againe I do not know; onely a little before he went, he shew’d me a Letter from Mr. Bently, Acquainting him, that since the Care of the Library at White-hall (to which that of St. James’s is to be translated) lies wholy upon him, together with his other Attendances; it will not be possible for him to continue our Lecture; and therefore earnestly conjures Mr. Wotton to take his place; there being none so well furnish’d for it, withall giving him an Account after what Method, he thought to proceede: Since this I have lately receiv’d a Letter from the Bishop of Lincoln,23 intimating as much; and that if we must loose Mr. Bently, none would be more fiting to supply his roome: But this will be reserved to our meeting in the Terme: As touching the Manuscripts: I pray when you write to Dr. Charlett,24 acquaint him and Dr. Barnard,25 what they may expect from this barren County. And now let me not forget to Congratulate the Health, which I hope is by this time Confirm’d to you, and Yours; with my hearty Prayers for the perfection and continuance of it: My Wife (who humbly kisses your hands) is after all her Water-Ordeal,26 in perpetual apprehension of something which makes her very Un-easy: For the rest, I thank God I beare-up as yet pretty tollerably, and whilst I do so and forever I am, Deare Sir Your etc. I humbly thanke you for The Epitaph of that excellent Prelate;27 there is nothing but what he merites aboundantly: I wonder yet there was no mention of St. Cyprian:28 By the Specimen of Cicero, and the other list of Books now printed and printing in Oxford,29 I find they begin to make a better Choice, than hitherto they have don: I am not a little obliged to you for my Virginia Correspondents:30

21 a mistranscription of “Grotius’s advice to Monsieur Maurerius” (Private Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, ed. J.R. Tanner) I.101. Evelyn had a copy of Grotius’s Epistolæ ad Gallos (Leiden, 1650) in his 1687 library catalogue and cited it frequently. 22 Wotton, like Grotius, had been a celebrated child prodigy. 23 Thomas Tenison (see Letter 714) 24 Arthur Charlett (1655–1722; ODNB), master of University College, Oxford (1692–1722). Charlett was active in the promotion of manuscript and Anglo-Saxon studies, and as a delegate of the university press. 25 Edward Bernard published his Catalogi manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in 1697. 26 Mary Evelyn’s course of medicine is dealt with in Letter 710. 27 John Fell (d. 1686) 28 Fell’s edition of Cyprian, Opera (Oxford, 1682; Eve.c.17). 29 Thomas Cockman’s edition of Cicero, De Officiis (Oxford, 1695) contains a list of recent Oxford imprints. 30 See Letters 698, 704, 705.

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Pray present my most humble Service to our Doctor, I say, to our Doctor;31 there be you know many Doctors, but they are none so ours: Adieu my worthy Friend. Wotton: 2d: September – 1694.

Thomas Tenison Letter 719 (716) January 7, 1695 ff 91v–2

Epistle DCCXVI To the Archbishop of Canterbery:1

[LM: Dr. Tenison] My Lord, This comes both to aske acknowledge your Graces favour to Mr. Wells,2 and to beg your Pardon, that I should desire so unreasonable a thing as your Graces interposition for him, before we knew how it might consist with your Graces Circumstances in these matters, with my Lord Keeper:3 Upon this Surprisal, I would willingly have excus’d my writing to you at that time, had not his Importunity, fortified with a Letter from my Brother, prevail’d;4 though I was not to expresse so much in a Letter I was to shew him before I seald it: Indeede I should gladly have given him all the furtherance I could for his merites; however I thought his present Request not so seasonable, for the Reasons I find your Grace also mention’d: The favourable Notice yet you tooke of him for my Sake, as it did absolutely recompence his Journey; so it lays a double Obligation on me to be tender of presuming upon the Freedome your Grace Indulges me upon all occasions: There being one onely that I Implore your Graces leave I may Recommend to your kind Thoughts

31 Thomas Gale 1 John Tillotson had died on 22 November 1694. Tenison was appointed archbishop on 6 December, and formally elected on 15 January. 2 William Wells (c.1669–95; Diary). An MA from Cambridge (1692) and fellow of King’s, Wells became curate of Abinger and was recommended by Evelyn (who thought him “a sweete natured well-tempered man,” Diary V.208) to Archbishop Tenison in December 1694 for the living of Guildford. He died of pleurisy, however, in 1695. 3 John Somers, Baron Somers (1651–1716; ODNB, H). Somers was knighted in 1689 and created Baron Somers of Evesham in 1697. He had been made successively solicitor-general in 1689, attorney-general in 1692, lord keeper of the great seal and privy councillor in 1693, and lord chancellor in 1697. In 1698 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and its president (1698–1703). Evelyn dedicated Acetaria (1699) to him. 4 Evelyn and his wife should have been living with George at Wotton by this time but her severe illness in December had prevented their moving (Diary V.198; Add 78304: f 105 [4.12.1694]).

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and Remembrance at your Graces owne time, for some suitable Preferment; and that is Dr. Bohune of New-College in Oxford, formerly my Sons Tutor; whose pious Conversation, and more than ordinary Abillities, I am wittnesse of for almost Thirty Yeares that he lived in my house or was Conversant in my Family, as recommended to me by Dr. Bathurst President of Trinity College who is his Unkle: I do not Aske any thing at present for him; but that he may be in your Graces memory, as one in all the Capacities for which your Grace esteemes persons worthy of your Favours: I should now Condole with your Grace, and indeede with all the Nation for the Breach which it has pleased God to make by taking away a Princesse5 so universaly beloved; and more particularly, considering how neerely the losse must needes touch your Grace, upon many Serious and weighty accounts, as it concernes the Church of England: But the same Almighty God, who has hitherto brought such greate, and unexpected things to passe, for its preservation; will I hope through your Prayers, and prudent Management Government of the greate Province commited to you in this Difficult Conjuncture; still support, and prosper it to his Glory: I do againe Implore your Graces pardon and Blessing as becomes my Lord your Graces etc. I stay’d neere a full Weeke at my House at Deptford after I had taken my leave of your Grace ’til my Wife, having (I thank God) hapily overcome her late6 Indisposition;7 we adventur’d hither under the favour of the very first calme and warme day, we had seene in a moneth before; but follow’d since with the bitterst cold here, that I think in my life I ever felt. I pray God keepe your Grace in Health; for you are now the publique Care – Cura ut Valeas.8 Wotton: 7 January. – 169[4/5]

Richard Bentley Letter 720 (717) January 7, 1695 f 92

Epistle DCCXVII To Mr. Bently etc.

My worthy Friend, I purposely loiter’d my Journey to this place, ’til Saturday last was Sennight, not without hopes that the Frost (which according to my wish hardn’d the ways) would have brought me a certaine person who was wont to value himselfe for his Walking abillities: Or did

5 6 7 8

Mary II, who died 28 December 1694 at the top of the page a previous heading: “To Electra” about Mary Evelyn’s indisposition, see Letters 710 and 718. “take care that you keep well”

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you not receive a Letter from me of this tenor? or have you ever since ben Indispos’d in your health? In a Word valde haveo scire quod agas:1 and what our Arch Bishop2 said to you, concerning what he promis’d me, that he would make a further Inquire concerning the utmost latitude of his Faculty to Create Doctors?3 Not that I expect any Account from you of these matters; But to Assure you how much I am was concern’d for you, and now you may imagine much more; since the losse of your excellent and desierable Princesse,4 who was so much your Patronesse in particular, and so nobly inclin’d to have promoted such publique and glorious Works, as render her Losse the more grievous and deplorable: In compassion then to me therefore, let me heare how you do, how the World now looks, and what your thoughts are: I assure you I it will be no small Charity, if you would now and then refresh us in this Solitude here with what will be New to us, and allwayes most acceptable to Sir Your etc. Wotton 7: January – 1694/5

Samuel Pepys Letter 721 (718) January 7, 1695 f 92

Epistle DCCXVIII To Mr. Pepys etc.1

My Friend, The desire I had that my Wife should be perfectly recover’d of her late and long Indisposition, hindred my motion from Says-Court til a very fine warme day tempted us abroad; but since which here has fall’n so deepe a snow, accompanied with so severe a season of

1 “I am very anxious to know how you are getting on.” Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 1.15 (Bailey, trans). Bentley wrote Evelyn on 29 January, apologizing for not having replied to two letters, and mentioning having seen a few sheets of Numismata and offering suggestions for corrections (Add 78318: f 92 [29.1.1694]; Bentley, Correspondence, 92–5). 2 Thomas Tenison 3 Bentley was created DD in 1696. A letter from William Glanville Jr to Evelyn suggests that he had also petitioned for payment of his salary as library keeper at St James’s and would be paid £150 “and find his salary better paid for the future” (Add 78305: f 85 [15.5.1695]). 4 Mary II. On 10 March, writing about the dispersal of the library of Sir Charles Scarburgh (see Letter 690, note 1), Evelyn noted that the books were “once designed for the Kings library of St. James but the Queene dying (who was the greate patronesse of that designe &c) it was let fall, and so miserably dissipated” (Diary V.206). 1 Particular Friends, D27, 256. This is the only text of this letter. De la Bédoyère doubts that it was ever sent, possibly because of the severe weather (256, n. 1).

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Frost2 and cold, that I hardly think has happnd in many yeares, unlesse that when a Citty was built upon the Thames, and we both rod over it in our Coaches:3 You will yet wonder when I tell you for truth that it has ben no Impediment from bringing to this hospitable place, neere upon 300 people of all the adjacent Parishes, to devowre plum-pie, pottage, and Brawne all the Holy-days, without the least diminution of the antient and laudable Custome of preparing and qualifying Suffrages for the Election of Knights of the Shire, Parliament-men, and Legislators: Though we have very sorry Conversation among the Bumkins, we have yet luculent Fires in most of the Roomes, which is no cold Comfort: For the rest, we live in HeathenDarknesse, and unlesse you, the Doctor,4 and Mr. Bently send us Missioners (Missives) your kind and frequent Letters now and then, that may informe us how the learn’d and more civiliz’d World gos, we shall become Barbares in a short time: The very Scraps of your Saturdays Deipsonophists5 would be delicious Cates to Sir Your etc. Wotton 7: January: – 169[4/5]

Charles Spencer Letter 722 (719) January 28, 1695 f 92

Epistle DCCXIX To my Lord Spencer

[RM: married to a Daughter of the Duke of New-Castle1 portion £2500] My Lord, Every thing looses its Grace, that comes not in Season: But indeede it was not ’til very Late the last weeke, that the most acceptable Assurance of your Lordships being Married, came to us heere in a Letter from my Daughter: The deepe Snow and extreame Sharpnesse of the Weather, having I think, not onely frozen-up, and made the ways unpassable,

2 On 20 January 1695 Evelyn noted that “the frost & continual snows has now lasted neere than 5 weekes” (Diary V.201). 3 The very cold winter of 1683–4 (see Letter 474), and the famous Frost Fair of that year, are described by Evelyn in Diary IV.361–3. 4 Thomas Gale 5 dining philosophers, as in Athenaeus 1 Lady Arabella Cavendish (1673–98), daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle upon Tyne. A letter from Anne Spencer announcing this wedding in the previous October is Add 15889: f 117 (15.10.1694). Spencer was married on 12 January; Evelyn records the news in the week of 3 February (Diary V.202).

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but the Inke and penns of our Friends too: I should else certainely have Congratulated your Lordship not onely the Hapinesse you are in Possession of; but the continuance of it, which I take to be the perfection of Joy: I beseech your Lordship to believe, that I speake from my Heart, and that I looke upon whatsoever God Good and Satisfaction your Lordship receives as an Accomplishment, and a Qualification too, of what I allways promis’d my selfe; that the early, and Constant progresse you made in the nobler pathes of Virtue and piety, would be Rewarded, and Honor’d from Heaven; where onely such matches are made, which as proove the most happy on Earth. And if I were to Judge of the future likely prosperity of the person I valued; it should be from the Discretion of his Choice in order to Marriage, in which your Lordship meetes with all the Transcendences of that agreable State: Greate Vertue, Greate Honor, Riches and Beauty, and there is not a Fift, for it is the Summ of all: What shall I say? Your Lordship is now ariv’d at the first station of ent’ring into the World in good earnest: The next is the giving faire and noble Hostages to it, which may persue the Same Course, and imitate their Progenitors as your Lordship has yours; which though the Common Subject of Epithalamium,2 is likewise the most proper, and the best: Others may strew more Flowers, and consume more Incense; but whilst they fade, and are spent in Smoke; may my Prayers for the Continuance and Increase of your present Happinesse, with all the Blessings of the Fortunate, remaine a lasting Testimonie how Infinitely I honor your Lordship, and how intirely I am, my Lord Your etc. May I presume to kisse the hands of your Illustrous Lady: Wotton: 28: January. – 1694/5.

Sidney Godolphin Letter 723 (720) February 13, 1695* f 92v

Epistle DCCXX To my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, and noblest Friend, I could never yet believe, that my being out of sight, would ever banish one whom once you honor’d with solemn Friendship, out of Mind, as it dos (and in some cases ought perhaps) many things and persons also: This, a Letter from my Nephew Glanville1 just now receiv’d comes to assure me of; and has the same effect and Influence on me, as the 2 marriage song or hymn 1 A letter from William Glanville Jr of 9 February, 1695 had informed Evelyn that Sidney Godolphin had spoken to William III about appointing Evelyn as treasurer of Greenwich Hospital at a salary of £300 (Add 78305: f 83 [9.2.1695]). A subsequent letter in May from him confirmed this commission (Add 78305: f 85 [15.5.1695]). Evelyn notes on 17 February: “Cald to Lond by Lord Godolphin ... offering me the Kings making me Treasurer of the Hospital designed to be for emerited sea-men &c: to be built at Greenewich, which I deliberated about &c” (Diary V.203). See also SP 32/14: f 160.

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Sunn beames would have, should they breake forth, and at once Dissolve this Snow for an immediate Spring: Indeed my lord, plainely, and without Metaphor, there never came any thing more seasonably, more to my Contentment, as it may (besides the doing all the faithfull Service, and good I can) bring me neerer my Benefactor, and the opportunity, of more personally Acknowledging his favours: In order to this, I am preparing to come up and kisse your Lordships hands (if God continue health) by on Friday next, unlesse your Lordship assigne any other day or time, by signifying it to my Nephew: I am with all imaginable Recognitions My Lord, Your etc. Wotton 13. February:2 – 1694

William Lloyd Letter 724 (721) February 5, 1695 ff 92v–3

Epistle DCCXXI To my Lord Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield.

[LM: Dr. Lloyd. Almoner to the King] It is not without extreamest Griefe and Affliction, that the daily, and Universal Reports of the truly Christian and Royal Vertues and Endowments of that Incomparable Princesse,1 redouble upon me, as oft as I think upon the losse: A Losse (I feare) irreparable! But your Lordship Preaches Submission, with Endeavors to profit by it; which is the onely thing I most apprehend, a Succession of so much perfection rarely happning in the World. As to what your Lordship Writes, touching the desire of that worthy and learned Person you mention, and your Lordships Opinion of my Opinion Abillity to direct him: I do Acknowledge that (among other Impertinences of my Life) I have heretofore ben a Sedulous Collector of what ever Prints of that Nature I could meete with; especialy, whilst I was at Rome and Abroad: But as it is now neere fourty Yeares past, since I made any considerable Addition to them; so there must needes have ben a greate many more publish’d in so long an Interval;2 though I believe hardly any more perfect, than the first; by reason 2 Evelyn first dates the letter 13 February, then crosses out the first digit. In view of the date of Glanville’s letter, and his summons to Godolphin, the first date is almost certainly correct. 1 Queen Mary II 2 Evelyn catalogues his prints in his 1687 library catalogue (Add 78632: ff 121–3). For his activity as a print collector, see Griffiths, “John Evelyn and the Print,” in John Evelyn and His Milieu, 95–113, who also prints the relevant pages from Evelyn’s library catalogue. The collection was dispersed at auction in 1977.

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of the continual Dilapidations which those Ruines and Antiquities daily suffer (as do all things else by Time) from which most of these Sculps and Prints were originaly drawn and design’d: Nor was I onely curious of Antiquities, but of all modern Edifices, Gardens, Fountaines, Prospects of Cities, Countries, Sieges, Battels, Triumphs, Publique and famous Solemnities, Sports, Executions, Cavalcades; the Effigies, and Portraits of greate Persons; Habits, Machines, Inventions, Emblems, Devises; Animals, Pictuers Charts and Maps Innumerable etc. which I ranged in several Classes:3 But as it tooke up a greatedeale of Time, and no little Mony; and that the Thirst of still Augmenting grew upon me; I at last gave it over, contenting my selfe with a competent number, and very seldome since enquiring after more of any Sort, excepting some which my Son brought me out of France of the pompous Buildings,4 Palaces and other new things, don by the present Monarch. It is I confesse my Lord, a very tempting thing diversion; so many rare Sculptors every day setting out something or other remarkable of those kinds: But, Est modus in Rebus,5 as the Abbot de Villaine6 it seemes found at last; who after he had gather’d an hundred thousand, was necessitated to part with most of them to the French King for some thousands of Crownes; and yet after all this; fell to Collecting afresh to his dying day; so greate was his delight in Taille-douces: Your Lordship, perhaps would not be displeas’d to reade the life of this honest Abbot (written by himselfe) wherein he shews, that though he was far from being Superstitious, and which he confirmes with a Story of a Discovery of he made of a pretended Miracle of a bleeding Image of Christ, that Alarm’d all Paris, and the good bigotted Queene Regent,7 and whole Court, that ran to see it, and Reproch’d his Infidelity, ’til he perfectly convinc’d them: I have read in a little Book (publish’d I thinke by Monsieur Alix) that this Church-man when he lay dying, calling his Friends and Cleargy about him; openly declar’d his disbeliefe of Transubstantiation:8 And now perhaps, I tell your Lordship, nothing but what you knew before and wide of the Purpose of your learned Friend, who would be directed how to procure Prints and Cutts of Antiquities proper for his Library. My Lord, though I am not Acquainted with any one Print-Seller; yet there being now more than Ten for one of that Trade, than when I was a young Traveller Gatherer: I do not question, but a very handsome Collection might be

3 4 5 6

Most of these categories occur in Evelyn’s catalogue. See Griffiths, 109–12. in 1676, when he returned from his sojourn in the household of John Berkeley “there is measure in things” Michel de Marolles, abbé de Villeloin (1600–81). The first catalogue of Marolles’s collection, bought by Colbert for Louis XIV and now in the Bibliothèque Nationale is Catalogue de Livres d’Estampes et de figures en Taille Douce (Paris, 1666). The second is Catalogue de Livres d’Estampes et de Figures en Tailledouce ... avec un denombrement des pieces qui y sont contenuës (Paris, 1672). Evelyn had used ­Marolles’s translation of Lucretius (Le poete Lucrece, latin et françois, de la traduction de M. D. M [Paris, 1650]). 7 Anne of Austria; Evelyn refers to this episode in Sculptura (London, 1662), 135, and goes on to translate Marolles’s account of his collecting, taken from his Mémoires (Paris, 1656). 8 William Wake, A collection of several discourses against popery (London, 1687), xvii, claims: “A little before his death, which happen’d about the beginning of the Year 1681. being desirous to free his Conscience as to the point of the Holy Eucharist, in which he supposed their Church to have many ways departed from the right Faith, he caused a Paper to be Printed, in which he declares his thoughts concerning it; and sent it to several of his most learned Acquaintance, the better to undeceive them in this matter.”

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made by his giving Commission to some Ingenious Man amongst them, who might bring to your Lordship (who is able to Distinguish what were fit for the Gentlemans Designe) what he brings of Antiquities in stampi; there being also now and then, very many to be met-with at the daily Auctions; which I think were the very best expedient to furnish one, and other and upon the easiest termes at once: He may among other things of this nature, enquire for Trajans Pillar, design’d by Julio Romano, and Graven by Villamena, with the learned Notes of Giaconus,9 well known, I am sure, by your Lordship: There was another who publish’d a Copy of it, wrought with a finer burine;10 but the Designe is not so accurate; nor is has that of the late Fabrettis11 (who made another attempt to reforme it) added any thing material: Ralph Sadelers Vestigia in 50 Plates,12 is certainely one of the best for the Ruines: and Francis Perrier for the Statues, Segmenta, and Bass-Relievs, explain’d by Peter Bellorius, full of Erudition:13 Things worth the collecting are also:14 Thomas Burlarcolli, Antonio Lanfreri, Giovanni Maggi, Branchievols Anticalia and those of Baptista della Marca for Armes, shields, Trophies etc. The Antient Vasas of Cherubin Alberti: Philippus Thomasinus statues; Andrea Mantegna Triumphs, Maggis Old Rome: Tempestas both old and New Citty:15 But there is one since, in a most ample Chartoone of Battista Falda worth all the rest: Francis Perell has likewise a Book of all the Ruines: The Swisses booke in 4 Languages is necessary:16 The Campo Vaccina and a Profile of the Citty by Linclaire: The Antiquities of Panvine:17 The Tabulae Issæci of Pignorius: Justinianus Gallerie: Lucas Orpheii De Characterum et Literarum Inventoribus ex picturis Bibliotheca Vaticana:18 Domincus Fontanus Erection of the Obeliscs, with many others whom I remember not at present, having left all my small store at Deptford; besides such as have ben published by later Gravers; but of which I can give little account; and of other

9 Historia utriusque belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti, ex simulachris quæ in columna eiusdem Romae visuntur collecta (a series of engravings reproducing the carvings on Trajan’s Pillar in Rome) with engravings by Francesco Villamena. Originally illustrated by Giovanni Battista de’ Cavalieri in an edition of 1576, the plates were “reworked” by Villamena, had notes by Alfonso Ciaconne (Chacón), and were produced by Giacomo Mascardi and published in Rome in 1616 (Evelyn Library, no 363). See Bury, The Print in Italy, 63–5. 10 the tool used by an engraver 11 Rafaello Fabretti, De columna Traiani syntagma. Accesserunt Explicatio veteris tabellae anaglyphae Homeri Iliadem atque ex Stesichoro Arctino et Lesche ilii excidium continentis, & Emissarii lacus Fucini descriptio was published in Rome in 1683. A more accurate account is in Bury, The Print in Italy, cat. 40. 12 Egidio Sadeler, Vestigi delle antichità di Roma (Rome, 1606) 13 See Icones et segmenta illustrium e marmore tabularum quæ Romæ adhuc extant a Francisco Perrier ­delineata incisa et ... restituta. (Figuris his omnibus suppositas notas ad explicationem adiunxit Jo. Petrus Bellorius.) (Rome & Paris, 1645). In the 1687 catalogue Evelyn Evelyn also notes “The Antient Statues of Rome delineated and graven” (121v) which refers to Perrier’s Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum (Rome & Paris, 1638). The former had 55 numbered plates of bas-reliefs; the latter 100 numbered plates of statues. Evelyn’s copies are is now Eve.c.26 and Eve.c.27. 14 Most of the following list repeats material from chapter 4 of Sculptura, 35–103. 15 in the 1687 library catalogue 16 in the 1687 library catalogue 17 The edition of 1681 is listed in Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue. 18 in the 1687 library catalogue.

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Prints and Sculpts, your Lordship is silent, and so ought I to be, and to Supplicate your Lordships Pardon for detaining you so long from so much better Conversation, who am My Lord: Your etc.

Wotton: 5. February. – 1694/5

Edmund Gibson Letter 725 (722) February 6, 1695* f 93r–v

Epistle DCCXXII To Mr. Gibson etc.

Sir, I presume mine of the first, is (in Reply to yours of the day before) come by this time to your hands, but as I told you, I should be tempted to continue this Commerce and trouble,1 ’til you bad me hold my hand: I now as to Aquaint you what I have since receiv’d from Guilford “Here lies the Body of William Hammond Esquire, sometimes Major2 of this Towne of Guilford, one of the chiefe Founders of the Free-Schole of the Same, and a liberal ­Benefactor to Balliol Coledge in Oxford; The memory of whose Good-deedes, God grant may move others to do the like: He departed out of this World 10: April 1575”3 There is in the Free-Schole plac’d a Table,4 mentioning his Gift of the Advowson5 of Stoke Parsonage: I do not mention this Epitaph as a thing fit to cumber your Additions, but to shew how it agrees with what I lately sent you: However, I know not why you might not aptly enough, make some short mention of such Abbys and Foundations as Camden has not taken such notice of, as Sir William Dugdal6 has don by a more accurate research, since that Antiquary writ; and well, and very much Contracted by his late Epitomizer, together with their Annual Valuation. There was at Bermundsy a new foundation of an Hospital raisd, which they call’d Hospitale Conversorum Puerorum in Honor of St. Thomas the Martyr: The Manor of 1 These notes on Surrey were for the edition of Camden’s Britannia, edited by Gibson, published on 7 April 1695 (see Diary V.206 for 10 March). See Letters 688, 703, and 713. Evelyn’s son complained that “the Editor has much fail’d in his Maps” because the plates were worn and attributed this to “the sordid Bookseller” (A. Swalle and A&J Churchill). (Add 78301: f 61 [22.4.1695]). Evelyn’s interest in hospitals would have been augmented by his being treasurer of the new Greenwich Hospital. 2 mayor 3 See Letter 703. 4 tablet 5 the right to present a nominee for a vacant benefice 6 Sir William Dugdale (1605–86; ODNB). An epitome of Dugdale’s Monasticon by James Wright was published in 1693 (Evelyn Library, no 497).

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Bermundsy was it selfe Antiente Demesne of the Crowne, and all belonging to it impleadable7 in the Court, by the Kings Writ of Right, according to Custome etc., and not at Common Law. Value £474–14–4–ob per Annum: At Sheere8 Henry V founded three Monasteres: One of 60 Nuns: 13 Priests, and 8 Lay Brothers. The Men and Women had Separate Convents, but one Church, in which the Women kept above in Galeries; the Men below; and so greate the Endowment of these Religious Houses that they had granted to them power of life and death within their ­Jurisdiction: Newsted (omitted by Camden) founded by Ruabætus de Calve and Beatrix his Wife; confirm’d by Henry III and Edward IId. John de la Waren Earle of Surrey, Released to the Canons of the Monastery of Rygate, a Rent of 29s 4d, one plow share: 4. Horse shoos, and Nailes usualy payd yearely to his Ancestors: And granted them 46s 11d per Annum for the celebrating one daily Masse in his Castle of Rygate forever. Tanregge9 (not mention’d by Camden) Odo Dammartio founded an hospital for the poore, and Travellers–Valud £78–8s–10d–0b–per Annum Sandown (omitted also) Hospital, endow’d by William de Perci, afterwards annex’d to Sir Thomas Hospital in Southwark, by King Henry VI. There are several other particulars of donations, not mention’d, which you may find in that Epitomie, if you judge them worth your notice: What I have formerly written and sent you of Bermundsy and St. Thomas, you will Collate and Examine with Camden, where he speaks of London and its Suburbs and accordingly Contrast them: I having mention’d them as being in Surry (and as they are) Camden as annext to the Citty: About the Hills neere Fa[r]nham are found Snake-Stones:10 Bourns and Waters11 about Cashalton have ben observ’d to presage Malignant Sicknesses, or Plagues; and the rising of them in Places where they do not allways run; causd by two successive wet yeares are generaly the most sickly, especialy if the Season be hot, as disposing to putrifaction: Hippocrates himselfe long since observd it, and is therefore no Wonder: I remaine Sir Your etc. Wotton: VI February – 1694

7 8 9 10 11

not to be litigated a village just west of Wotton probably Tandridge ammonites streams that usually appear only in winter

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

James Chadwick1 Letter 726 (723) February 8, 1695 f 93v

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Epistle DCCXXIII To Chadwick Esquire

[LM: Son in Law *Nephew to the Arch Bishop Tillotson, upon whose decease he remov’d from Lambeth] Sir, In Answer to Mr. Londons,2 and my Obligations to him for Mentioning to me so worthy a Person to be my Tennant at Says-Court;3 and upon your Vieu and liking thereof, your desire by my Servant to know whether I would let it from yeare to yeare, or rather one yeare onely of Probation, as Suspecting it may it may prove unhealthy; I confesse, putts me upon a very Unwellcome necessity of rather keeping it as it is, in reguard of the Charge and Trouble of removing my Goods for so short and uncertaine a time: And in the interim, I should be very Injurious, and not deale like an honnest man, to Recommend a dwelling to any man, much more to your selfe, which I knew to be more Un-healthy, than I know any place of England, upon the experience of my owne Family, consisting of seldome fewer than 18 or 20, for now above 40 Yeares: The Soile being rather on the Gravell and Sand, without any Marish Earth; The Meadows and Pastures never overflow’d; and in our esteeme and observation is much Wholesomer Aer than Greenewich, where the Vapors and Clowds rising from the low grounds of Plumsted,4 are hindred by the imminent Hills on the South, from being so timely dispersd, as in our more perflatile5 Levell: This for the nature of the Place in respect of Aer: As to other Circumstances, we have never found any less Obnoxious in reguard of Sicknesse Extraordinary, but what happs generaly in all Places, at one time or other. ’Tis true that in respect of the number of Nurse-Children (among which I have now a Grand-Son,6 who is very precious to us,

1 James Chadwick (d. 1697; Diary). Chadwick married Mary (d. 1687), the daughter of Archbishop Tillotson, and was proposed as a tenant of Sayes Court by George London who noted that he “will build a Green house having all those Greens which were in Lambeth Garden” (Add 78305: f 82 [26.1.1695]). A letter from William Glanville Jr of January 1695 states that London proposed Chadwick as a tenant because he is “so great a Lover of Gardens that ... he would Cultivate and improve yours” (Add 78305: f 82 [26.1.1695]). Chadwick wrote to Evelyn proposing to rent the house on 8 February 1695 and “Promising to take care of all things both within and without” (Add 78305: f 83 [9.2.1695]). The house was eventually let to Admiral Benbow (who sublet it to Peter the Great, with unfortunate results) in June 1696 (Diary V.244). 2 George London 3 Evelyn had removed many of his belongings the previous May (Diary V.179). 4 about two and a half miles northeast of Sayes Court 5 well ventilated 6 Evelyn records the death of this grandson, Thomas Draper, on 23 July 1695.

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nursd in the midst of the Towne) many die; and the Towne consisting of 2000 families of people coming from all parts to Work at the Ship yards; it is not possible, but there must needes be more die, than in some other remoter and lesse-populous places: But as my Dwelling is not neere the Towne, and my Acquaintance and Commerce very very Small among them; I never yet received the least prejudice by it my selfe; all my whole Family (excepting my Wife then with-child, and neere her time) continuing there all the time of the greate Contagion,7 without the sicknesse or losse of any one of them: There has indeede died in my house my owne beloved Daughter8 of the Smale-pox, which she brought from London, whilst she was to to visite my Lady Falkland9 there, now twelve yeares since, and not one before, that I well remember, but one or two of my servants who disorder’d themselves, and the last was above 80 yeares old: This is what I can honestly attest; and if it should now prove other wise (as who can promise for the future how it may please God to dispose of me us) and my Dwelling left upon the account of being Unhealthfull, it would be a greate prejudice to its its reputation, as you will easily Imagine, than to keepe it in my hands: Upon these Considerations Sir, you will not judge it unreasonable, that I find it necessary to let it (if at all) for some longer time, though I waite for the opportunity, it being not yet a full yeare, since I removed from it, upon the earnest Invitation of my Brother, in the Place where I now am and was Borne, and have a better Interest:10 Nor should any thing else have tempted me from Deptford, where I had all Conveniences, much more to my fancy, and greately to my Satisfaction, as having planted all that is about it etc. If therefore you think fit to make trial of it for 3. 4. or 7 Yeares, it shall be at your Service, and I will then think of disposing of my Goods and furniture: But for a yeare or two onely, it will neither be worth my While, to nor my the Troubles it may give you upon the same account: I think my selfe however greatly Oblig’d to you, and to Mr. London for both your kind Intentions and shall ever remaine Sir Your etc. Wotton 8 February. 1694/5

7 8 9 10

the plague of 1665; in fact, he sent most of the household to Wotton (see Letter 252, note 3). Mary Evelyn Jr; her sister Elizabeth also died of small-pox, but not in her family’s home. Rebecca Carey, née Lytton, Viscountess Falkland (1662–1709; Diary). George Evelyn was at this point negotiating with Evelyn about the transference of the title of Wotton to Evelyn and his heirs. This would necessitate Evelyn’s recouping the money by selling the trees at Wotton, a prospect which his son, John, viewed with equanimity in a letter of 26 March 1694, reflecting that some of these woods were responsible for the bad air there: “If the Great Elms before the house, and Chapmans Grove over the mount be spared, there will be some shelter and shade enough to read and meditate in, with which and a good Kitchin Garden (and Orchard yet wanting) one may live there very contentedly” (Add 78301: f 53 [26.3.1694]).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Pepys Letter 727 (724) March 25, 1695 ff 93v–4

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Epistle DCCXXIV To Mr. Pepys:1

’Tis a very pretty, as well as a very kind and wellcome Revenge, that for my not waiting on you to my Lord of Canterbery,2 you should send his Grace to reproch and waite on me, whom in all his pontificalibus,3 I receiv’d on Saturday: as I still do a world of other things from my most Obliging Benefactor: I assure you Mr. White4 has shew’d himselfe a Master, it is so very like the Original, and so tenderly ingrav’n, as he seemes to me, not onely to have express’d the Image of his Countenance, but the very Icon Animorum5 of our Bishop[.] And now that I am upon my Chapter of Heads; I am vex’d at heart with my Negligence; that when I was lately with you, I did not beg a sight of that noble Assembly of them, which I am sure you have by this time gotten together. As to Archbishops of Canterbery, the antienst which I remember to have seene in Stamp6 (that one may relie on for true resemblance) is the Effigies of St. Thomas Becket, graven by Hollar7 from an Original of the greate Earle of Arundel,8 representing his Murder, by a Sword struck into his Scull: Cranmers is vulgar,9 and I believe most of the rest of the Archbishops and Bishops too; especialy, since the Reformation, and of late with more Certainty (as to the Effigies) by the laudable Industry of Mr. White, who has indeede given us the Icons of most of the famous Persons in Church and State of our Country, a Collection of which, I doubt not but you have more Compleate, than any one else in England: I am for this, and infinite other Civilities Deare Sir Your etc. Wotton 25. March 1695

1 Particular Friends, D29, 258. This is the only text of this letter. 2 Thomas Tenison, elected 15 January, 1695 3 Pepys sends Robert White’s portrait engraving of Tenison in his bishop’s robes; see British Museum P,7.208 4 Robert White; see Letter 708. 5 picture of the soul 6 in a print 7 engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar in 1647 8 Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel 9 i.e., common; Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556)

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Ann Sylvius Letter 728 (725) April 7, 1695 f 94

Epistle DCCXXV To my Lady Sylvius

Madame, What discourse my Lady Wyche1 has had with the Young-man, he himselfe will best acquaint your Ladyship, I happning to be absent at his being here: But as I know of no Dislike at all of either part, so I find a Letter which she daily expects from her Lord2 out of Ireland, is to resolve the whole matter; which I hope, and should be glad may be to the persons advantage: In the meane time I am in her Name (with her very humble Service) to returne your Ladyship humble Thanks for the paines you have taken in it, and to your noble Brother Mr. Howard,3 whose Testimonial I have given to my Lady for Sir Cyrill: To have been the meanest retainer in the Windsorian Visite [insert: traine] to so excellent a Friend, and with so Illustrious a Company, had ben an happinesse, and an honor I should have ben ambitious of, as this Desolate Place (were it worthy) and would be of my Lady Sylvius,4 who has a most faithfull Servant where ever Mrs. Evelyn or her Husband is Then let not faire Windam, or Mother so Jollie Create in Playfellow such deepe Melancholie: For by Ale, Cake and Gamon: I sweare there is no man So Constant, as Ile be to Nancy: In Love and Goodwill, To the best of my Skill, What ever some people may fancy:

I will be upon you if you do not burn this, the minute you have read it.





1 2 3 4

Answer

I’le not burne one line Of ought that is thine, And for which you do keepe such a stir:

Mary Wyche Sir Cyril Wyche Craven Howard She would write to Evelyn in September about the ill health of Susanna Draper after the birth of a daughter who did not live (Add 78309: f 40 [21.9.1695]).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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But your Verse and your Prose, Shall Sleepe in Repose, In Spight of Di’ele and Dorchester.5

Prince Arthyr6 is rather a Sermon, than a Satyr, and certainely an incomparable Poeme; which since the Profane Witts, know neither how justly to Reproch, nor arive to; they whet their Spitefull Darts; but in vaine to decry it, among better Judges than themselves. Wotton: 7. April: 1695

Edward Strong1 Letter 729 (726) [n.d.] [1695]# f 94

Epistle DCCXXVI To Mr. Strange:

Sir, I should be very glad to promote any Proposal tending to so Charitable and noble a Work, as is now before the Commissioners;2 and in Answer to what you write, and so generously offer your Assistance in; I can onely promise you not to discover what you shall please to Intrust me withall, without your permission: I have ben of late something Indispos’d here in the Country; so as I could not be at the meeting of the Comissioners on Wednesday last;3 but I hope in few days more to be in Town, and attend that Concerne as becomes me: In the meane what ever you direct to me, will come safely from Deptford: I remaine Sir Your etc. Wotton

5 “in spite of the devil and Dorchester”: a reference to Catherine Sedley (1657–1717) the daughter of the dramatist, Sir Charles Sedley, a famous debauchee. She was the former mistress of James II who created her countess of Dorchester in 1686. Evelyn described her in 1673 as “none of the most virtuous, but a Witt” (Diary IV.13). 6 Sir Richard Blackmore, Prince Arthur: an heroic poem (London, 1695; Evelyn Library, no 175). 1 This identification is conjectural. Edward Strong was a master mason in Greenwich whom Mary Evelyn reported as involved in building a new house for William Draper in 1702–3. See Darley, John Evelyn, 301. 2 The commissioners for Greenwich Hospital are listed on Diary V.210. Several of Evelyn’s acquaintance, including Charles Mordaunt, Archbishop Thomas Tenison, and Sir Christopher Wren, were among them. Evelyn’s son-in-law William Draper was also a later commissioner (1703–15). Evelyn was not a member of the Commission but was appointed “Treasurer and Receiver Generall of all the Monies and other Profitte which shall be subscribed.” He himself subscribed £2000. 3 Evelyn missed a meeting on 29 October (Diary V.219).

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Thomas Tenison Letter 730 (727) April 15, 1695 f 94v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXXVII. To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbery:

My Lord, Had your Grace ben come to Lambeth, I could not but have thought my selfe obliged both in Duty, and good manners to have long ere this presented my most humble Service to your Grace, and to Wellcome you into our County, wherein as you have two Palaces;1 so we Challenge a double Interest in your Grace as now a Surry man, which is no little honor to our Country. If your Grace chance at any time to cast your Eye upon some Additions, which I sent Mr. Gibson, and printed at the end of his description of Surrey Camden Britannia p. 162. 163.2 you will find what neede we have of your Graces Power and Assistance in behalf of the Chapell at Oake-wood:3 The Revenue whereof, upon what false Suggestion diverted, you will there see, and how unworthily and unduely retain’d by the present Lady Harvey (wife to the late John Harvey4 Tresurer to Queen Dowager) allowing nothing to Support, the now ready to drop downe building for want of Repair; nor to the poore Itinerant Scotch-man,5 who now and then says Prayers there; but would be utterly deserted but for the benevolence of my Brother and some few others, borduring on five large Parishes, little better than meere Pagans for want of due care and Instruction, whilst this opulent but covetous Lady, enjoys above £200 a yeare about it, of which £70 per Annum which lies neere the Chapell, or Church rather, for ’tis larger than many churches in that part of the County, shews sufficiently for what pious intent it was built and founded for the ease of no lesse than 5 Parishes adjacent. With what Conscience or right, this Lady with-holds a competency to maintaine both the Repairs and Minister, upon due Inquiry into particulars, I doubt not but your Grace will think fit to be Inform’d. I should not so soone have fall’n upon this matter, as a decent Wellcome into our County; but were I not assur’d, that you are never better pleas’d, than with any occasion

1 Lambeth and Croydon 2 Camden, Britannia (1695) 3 The church was originally built c.1220 with fifteenth-century additions. This letter was probably a request for support for the addition of buttresses which were added in 1709 (Diary V.603, n. 1; and Letter 357) 4 John Hervey (1616–80; ODNB, H) was treasurer of the household and receiver general to the queen in 1662. 5 This is possibly “Mr. Alexander once Minister of Oakwood Chapel” whose register of baptisms (from 1700 onwards) is reproduced in The Parish Registers of Abinger, Wotton and Oakwood Chapel, 222–3. On 20 September 1696, Evelyn notes again that a “Scotch-man preacher” was at Oakwood, and he displayed “much action, vehement voice, much repetition in the Presbyterian way, yet the parson is Episcoparian, & the doctrine plaine and honest” (Diary V.259).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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of doing all the good you can, which induces me to Inclose this Request of my Brother Glanvil for a Person of Merit,6 recommended to your Grace by my Lord Your Graces etc.

Wotton 15. April. 1695

William Glanville Letter 731 (728) [n.d.] [c. April 15, 1695]# f 94v

Epistle DCCXXVIII To my Brother Glanville

Dear Brother You put me upon a difficulty, Injoyning me to Write both to my Lord Sunderland1 and my Lord Godolphin:2 – But you do not perhaps consider, that the First owning yet no state or publique Character, would I am sure send me any Addresses of this nature from me to the Lords of the Treasury,3 as by long experience I have found upon the like Occasion; and then how my Lord Godolphin may take it, in whose Province alone I suppose it lies (for I am certaine it would be told him) I am very jealous; which makes me suspend writing to my Lord Sunderland. I concurr with you, as to his Interest in Court to do such jobbs, were it worth his while: For I doubt not but you know what expedients there are of facilitating such matters in that family: Which if but touched by me, would certainely be rejected, upon a pretended Principle of Generosity and friendship, as I have sufficiently experienc’d: And with this obliging and Indearing language: Mr. Evelyn you know never meddles with no publique Affaires (though I know the Contrary) you must apply your selfe to your Friend my Lord Godolphin etc. This is the Answer, and would never advance your affaire a step: I have therefore inclosed another Method, which you may more probably work by, and wherein I heartily wish my kinds-man all Successe: I am Dear Brother etc. your

6 See Letter 731 1 Robert Spencer; Evelyn dined with Sunderland in the week of 1 December, and said of him at this point “now the great favorite, & underhand politician, but not adventuring on any Character, as obnoxious to the people, his having changed his religion twise &c.” (Diary V.226). 2 Sidney Godolphin; see Letter 734. 3 Sidney Godolphin; Charles Montagu; Sir Stephen Fox; John Smith

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Henry Capel Letter 732 (729) July 4, 1695 ff 94v–5

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXXIX To my Lord Capel: Lord Lieutenant of Ireland1

My Lord, The many noble favours and signal Friendship, with which your Incomparable Brother2 (the Earle of Essex) and your Selfe have honord me as they must ever challenge the most gratefull Recognition; so upon this Occasion of your Excellencys being declared Lord Lieutennant of Ireland, I should highly be wanting to a duty, as well as to the greate Reguard I must ever pay my Lord Capel; not to Congratulate the Royal Character his Majestie has Impress’d upon him, and singl’d-out a Person who skills as well to Cultivate a Kingdome, as a Garden, and indeede the Flower of his dominions Sic parvis componere 3 My Lord, on my waiting upon you at your going out of England you were pleas’d to assure me you would receive my Son4 into your favourable notice, for your old Friends Sake, my Brother (whom you were pleas’d to honor by the name of Governor) the same favour and protection, I cannot but still promise from your Excellencys generous nature; both my Son, and Family, being by Gods Providence, and his Unkles kindnesse, to support a Name in our common County of Surrey,5 which has ever serv’d it and the publique Interest with that honest Reputation, which I am sure you value: And as my Son has both Abillities, and an Inclynation to Employ himselfe, that he may pursue the steps of those of his Relations, who have not ben unserviceable to the publique, before him; so I am assur’d, your Excellency will both Cherish, and Encourage him to persist, and thereby fix a perpetual Obligation on our Family, and an Indelible Sense of it in my Lord Your Excellencys etc. Dover-streete: 4. July 1695

1 Henry Capel, Baron Capel of Tewkesbury (1638–96; ODNB, H). He was MP for Tewkesbury (1660–81), knighted in 1661, and made Baron Capel in 1692. He was named lord chief justice of Ireland in 1693, and lord lieutenant in 1695, replacing Henry Sidney. His garden at Kew became the nucleus of the Royal Botanical Gardens, and contained “the choicest fruite of any plantation in England” (Diary IV.144). 2 Arthur Capel, 1st earl of Essex (1631–83; ODNB) 3 “thus to compare with small things” Virgil, Eclogues 1.23 (“sic parvis componere magna solebam”). 4 John Evelyn Jr was already in Ireland as a commissioner of the Irish treasury where his salary was £360 p.a. (Add 78432: f 81 [9.9.1695]). He left Ireland in May 1696 (Diary V.240). 5 Capel’s house at Kew.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mrs Draper1 Letter 733 (730) July 23, 1695 f 95

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Epistle DCCXXX To my Sister Draper etc.

Deare Sister: We were equaly here surpriz’d, with the sad occasion of my Servants comming so unexpectedly hither, so soone after us; and the more for the Impression, which the losse of so sweete a Babe2 must needes make in those who are so neerely concern’d; especialy in my Son and Daughter; who have never as yet had the Experience of what others have ben exercis’d in; and of which my Wife and I have had our shares in this World;3 if the losse of Children, taken away in their most hopefull bloome, be an Affliction far exceeding that of this little-one, who was but a blossom, falling before the fruite was knit: But as this and all other external Blessings, are but lent us, to be return’d at pleasure when ever they are call’d-for: So should we allways be as ready to Resigne them: Nor are we to Esteeme that a losse singular, which thousands are every day ore’whelm’d in, and lamenting under: Deare Sister, I doubt not but your owne experience of the Vicissitudes and Uncertainties of all things here below, suggest to you all that can be expected from your greate Prudence, and resignation to him, who best knows, what, and when to give, and take away. The Infant is certainely in the boosome of one a thousand-times more tender than its parents; and if we believe this, and yet mourn Immoderately, it shewes we Grieve not so much for what we loose in them, as for that selfe-love and Indulgence to our owne satisfaction, which I confesse is so hard to Mortifie. To have every thing successful in this life, is an Ominous signe, that there is a lesse Reward to be expected hereafter: Let not therefore this, or any losse deprive us of the Advantage we may derive by these Surprises; especialy, since God has bless’d my Daughter with pregnant hopes of being Repaid this losse, in his good time;4 resigning the First-Fruits to him who has just Right to all we have from him: Indeavor then Deare Sister to charm and 1 Mrs Draper (d. 1701; Diary). The mother of Evelyn’s son-in-law, William Draper. In a letter of 12 June 1693 (Add 78432: f 43 [12.6.1693]), John Evelyn Jr says of his mother’s account: “the character of my Brother Draper and his Mother, gives a double value to all the other happy circumstances of my sisters marriage.” Like her daughter-in-law, she was a painter (Add 78433: f 28 [21.8.1693]). 2 The death of Thomas Draper on 23 July 1695 (Diary V.215) was not unexpected in that his mother, Susanna, wrote to her mother about his “looseness” and vomiting on 12 June (Add 78433: f 78 [12.6.1695]). Draper’s life was to be further clouded in the wake of the death of his uncle, Sir Purbeck Temple, in September and the attempts of his aunt, Lady Temple, to frustrate his inheritance by playing (in John Evelyn Jr’s words) “the Character of a part of Volpone, who love to feed many with the hopes of succeeding” (Add 78432: f 87 [4.12.1695]). 3 Four of Evelyn’s children died in infancy, and his two daughters Mary and Elizabeth died as young women. 4 Susanna Draper gave birth to a daughter on 10 September (Diary V.217). This child seems to have died quickly.

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alay your sorrow with these Consolations, not onely upon the losse of this little Infant; but upon all other Afflictions, as oft as they Occurr, and whilst in the meane time, and for the pass’d you pay your Resent’ments in a natural and becoming Sort; poure out your Complaints into the ocean of Compassion, who can, and will give us intire Comforte, and restore to us outward also. I confesse I were sometimes my selfe unable to support the Affliction I have often suffer’d, and yet lie Under, not of little Children onely, but of the greatest hopes, and of Friends (un-valuable Friends) whom as my life I loved: But thus it pleases God, the wise disposer, to exercise a necessary Grace: Patience, and Resignation: And now Deare Sister I take this occasion (sad as it is) to pay you my most humble Acknowledgements for your greate Civilities and Kindnesses to me, whilst I was so long your Guest, and to Assure you, that I beare as deepe and real a Sense of my many Obligations to you and my Son, as I can, and would expresse were it in my Power in more than Words, and as becomes Dear Sister Your etc. Wotton 23 July. 1695

Sidney Godolphin Letter 734 (831)1 August 1695 f 95v

Epistle DCCCXXXI To my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, Understanding that there is a Victualers Place to the Navy now Vacant;2 I am not more solicited for a Relation of mine to succeede in it, than realy (I confesse) dispos’d to Recommend Captain Hales3 to your Lordships favour and kindnesse therein: Not, my Lord, because he is my Kinsman; but for his fitnesse for the Employment, both in reguard of his Industry and honesty; but for his extra-ordinary Inspection into it, through his now many yeares application to Understand all Matters relating to that particular Office: I have ben told that there is a late Act of Parliaments prohibiting any Member of the House to have that place; If so, it may I presume the better Justifie his being an humble Suitor for it. Upon these Considerations, and his known Qualifications for it, I make bold to mention him to your Lordships favourable Recommendation to his Majestie beging pardon for the boldnesse of my Lord Your etc. Wotton August: 1695

1 From this point to the end of the second letterbook, Evelyn’s numbering is wrong by a factor of 100. 2 The Board of Victuallers supplied the Navy. The “Relation” is probably William Glanville (see Letter 731). 3 Evelyn’s nephew, William Glanville Jr, was married to Frances Hales, the daughter and co-heiress of Edward Hales of Chilston and Elizabeth, the daughter of Evelyn’s cousin, Sir John Evelyn of Godstone. She was thus twice related to Evelyn apart from being married to his nephew.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Anne Spencer Letter 735 (832) September 1695 f 95v

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Epistle DCCCXXXII To the Countess of Sunderland.

Madame, When I have quite put off all good manners, all good Nature, and all the Sense of Gratitude; your Ladyship may with Justice condemne me for a very unworthy Creature, and of the Continuance of your Ladyships Favours: But certainely ’til I become so universaly deprav’d, I can never forget them, or your Ladyship believe it possible: I am very sensible of your Ladyships Compassion upon the losse of our little Grandson,1 and indeede it is the more grievous, to a Family, which wants a stock of Sons: But God, who best knows why he deprives us of these, and other Comforts, and that we enjoy them upon Condition; sends supplies in his best time and now gives us fresh hopes of it. My Wife being gon this very day to London to Assist my Daughter, now drawing neere her houre,2 I know your Ladyship wishes her a good one, and will help her in your Prayers; which together with so many other accumulations of your Ladyships kindnesse to us (for my Daughter writs word, how noble a present of Venison you lately sent her) still adds to the heape of our Obligations, and consequently, that I shall never forget them, how long, or far soever other Circumstances may separate Madame Your etc. Wotton September –1695

Thomas Tenison Letter 736 (833) September 17, 1695 f 95v

Epistle DCCCXXXIII To the ArchBishop of Canterbery:

My Lord Your Grace will find by this Inclos’d, how hard it would appeare in me, to deney the Recommendation of this Bearer to your Grace Mr. Dunstan1 having long ben Curate to 1 Thomas Draper. Anne Spencer’s letter of condolence is Add 15889: f 120 (26.8.1695). 2 Susanna Draper had a daughter, Mary, on 10 September 1695 (Diary V.217). 1 Since Holden held St Nicholas Deptford in plurality with St Dunstan in the East in London, Evelyn has probably confused the church of the curate (Thomas(?) Dolby [b. c.1660; MA Oxford 1681]), with the

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Mr.  Holden our worthy and learned Viccar at Deptford, and also Schole Master there without Reproch: I doubt not at all, but he brings with him such other Testimonials, as may fully assure your Grace that he is not unworthy the good Word of your Grace, upon which his Successe so much depends; and that you will likewise pardon this Confidence of Your Graces etc. Wotton 17 September 1695

Samuel Morland1 Letter 737 (834) September 18, 1695 ff 95v–6

Epistle DCCCXXXIV To Sir Samuel Moreland:

Sir, Having written some Sheetes (which I intend to publish)2 wherein I have occasion to ­exhibite such historical Medals, as have ben stamp’d since the Reigne of Henry VIIth, to the late Revolution here (somewhat like Bizots Hollandia Metalica)3 there comes one to my hands of Charles the Second with this Epigraph: CAROLO II. REGI INSTITUTORI. AUG.

and on the Table of the Reverse. IN. ADVERSIS SUMMO VITAE. PERICULO. IN. PROSPERIS. FELICI INGENIO FREQUENS ADFUIT.4

I have some Reason to think you may lay best claime to it, because you deserve it; and (if I well Remember) you sometime told me, that you had a Medal of his Majestie in name of Holden’s other church. In 1681 Evelyn described Dolby as “a pretty hopefull young man, yet somewhat raw, & newly come from the Colledge, full of latine sentences” (Diary IV.247). 1 Sir Samuel Morland, 1st baronet (1625–95; ODNB). He was a mathematician and writer on cryptography, and an expert on hydrostatics and hydraulics. Evelyn and Thomas Tenison visited him on 25 October 1695. He reports that Morland “was start-blind & could not see at all” and that the visitors were shown “the Pump he has erected that serves water to his Garden & to passengers, with an Inscription, & brings from a filthy part of the Thames, neere it, a most perfect & pure water” (Diary V.221–2). 2 Numismata (1697) reproduces this medal (Fig. LXXIV, p.141). 3 Pierre Bizot, Histoire metallique de la republique de Hollande (Paris & Amsterdam, 1687–8) 4 “King Charles II, revered founder.” “In adverse circumstances, [he often experienced] the greatest danger to life; in prosperous circumstances, he abounded in fruitful talent.” See Letter 738, note 3.

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Recognition of your signal Services: My humble Request to you is; that if you have any Such; you would give the Bearer Mr. Took,5 leave for his Graver to take a Copy of it: And that you will also let me know, what you will allow me to say upon it; that the Honor which all the World knows you Merited (both of that Prince, and of the Publique) may be pay’d you by Sir Your etc. Wotton: 18: September –1695

William Courten Letter 738 (835) September 18, 1695 f 96

Epistle DCCCXXXV To Mr. Charlton etc.

Sir, There was (as I think I have some-where read) a Medal struck by Francis the Second1 and Mary, the unfortunate Queen of Scots wherein are quarter’d the Armes of England, with those of France and Scotland, Arrogating the Title to the Crown of England: Camden indeede L: 1. Annal 2 makes the being of it upon plate, and other furniture, to have ben objected as part of her Charge, but that is nothing to this; and therefore if there be any other, I know none more likely than your selfe, to have it in your glorious and ample Collection, and to which I am already so much Oblig’d for your so generously Imparting to me, the Assistance I have received, who am Sir, Your etc.3 Wotton 18 September 1695

5 Benjamin Tooke wrote to Evelyn on 10 September 1695 (Add 78314: f 100 [10.9.1695]) about the continuing problems in the engraving of these medals, a process that is recorded in a series of letters beginning 26 June 1694 (Add 78314: f 92 [26.6.1694]), with reference to both a “Mr. Edwards” who “has made some draughts” (17 August 1694) (Add 78314: f 94 [17.8.1694]) and a “Mr. Izzard” who has offered to procure medals (10 September 1695). Tooke also refers to a promise from “Mr. Phillips” (presumably Edward Phillips) to give him “all the Assistance in his power” and to the assistance of Robert Plot (17 August 1694). 1 François II, king of France (1559–60) 2 William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha, ad annum salutis M.D.LXXXIX (London, 1615), 42. Both the 1627 and the 1651 editions of this work appear in Evelyn’s 1687 Library Catalogue. 3 The original letter (Ms Sloane 3962: f 282) continues:

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John Williams1 Letter 739 (836) September 1695 f 96

Epistle DCCCXXXVI To Dr. Williams

[RM: Dedicating to me his first Sermons at Mr. Boyles Lectures]2 Reverend Sir, I must needs be look’d upon, as a Person very Unworthy of this, as well as of your former Present, to have ben so long in paying my humble Acknowledgements (for those excellent discourses you have ben pleasd to send me) had I nothing to Answer (and that truely) in extenuation of so greate a rudenesse: But so it happn’d, that your Sermon, though sent, and directed to me, by to my Nephew Glanvill,3 where it lay when I was last in Towne (now more than two-moneths since) where he says he had no timely notice of it, or knowledge not from whom it came [(]and so forgot it) nor came it to my hands ’til Saturday night last: It had not else ben possible for me to have read two such excellent discourses, without expressing how much I had ben Improv’d my selfe by them; and how successfully you have discharg’d the Province you have Undertaken; and convincingly clear’d a Subject now so highly necessary, in this unhappy and depraved Age, and so fully Answr’d the honorable and pious intention of the Founder: Be pleas’d therefore Worthy Sir, to Accept of this real Apologie for a seeming Neglect; together with this Recognition from Sir Your etc. Wotton September 1695

Sir, You were among other Medals pleasd to help Mr. Tooke to one of King Charles II with this description. Carolo II Regi Institutori Aug. and on the Table of the Reverse In Adversis summo vitae periculo In prosperis felice ingenio frequens adfuit. I would be glad to know whom this concerns. This medal, celebrating the services of Sir Samuel Morland to the king “during the late Usurpers Power, by the faithful Intelligence he gave him,” is Fig. LXXIV in Numismata, 141. See Letter 737. 1 John Williams (1633x6–1709; ODNB). He received his BA (1655) and MA (1658) from Oxford, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1660, and created DD there in 1690. He became chaplain-in-ordinary to William III in 1689, and a prebendary of Canterbury Cathedral. Williams delivered the lectures in 1695 and 1696, but was then named bishop of Chichester. 2 The published version of Williams’s first Boyle Lecture, The possibility, expediency, and necessity of divine revelation. A sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Jan. 7. 1694/5 (London, 1695) was dedicated to the four trustees by name. 3 William Glanville Jr

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Edward Strong Letter 740 (837) October 8, 1695 f 96

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Epistle DCCCXXXVII To Mr. Strange

Sir, In Reply to yours of the 10th (receiv’d since my coming out of the Country)1 I must acknowledge that your Request of my permission to Impart your designe to one Gentleman onely, appear’d as if I thought you Oblig’d to make it a seacret alone to me: I am sure I have more no Reason in the least, to think so, or desire it, but on the Contrary, believe, that you shall do your selfe and your Designe a greate deale of Right, to Consult, and take in, not onely any Single Person; but as many as you Conceive may any ways be Assistant to the Effectualy carrying-on what you are proposing: Let not therefore, I beseech you, anything in my Consideration, hinder your fore Communication of what you have in Prospect for so publique a Good, towards which you shall allways find me ready to Contribute what ever is in the power of Sir Your etc. London 8 October. –1695

John Chardin1 Letter 741 (838) October 9, 1695 f 96v

Epistle DCCCXXXVIII To Sir John Chardine Lieutenant

[LM: The greate Traveler:] Sir, I have ben but two or 3 days in Towne, and there has nothing ben more welcome to me, than to heare of your health, and that of your Virtuous Family, which I pray God to

1 This identification is conjectural. See Letter 729 which alludes to a proposal apparently pertaining to Greenwich Hospital which Evelyn undertook not to make public. 1 Sir John Chardin (1643–1712; ODNB); see Letter 611, note 5.

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Continue. Concerning the Recommendation of the Gentleman2 you are pleas’d to make Use of my Assistance for; you may be sure I shall not omitt the doing him all the Service I am able: But as there is (as yet) no progresse made touching any thing of other nature or Employments, than the Building (which I feare will prove a tedious work) so when there is; the Choice of all necessary Officers, will be referr’d to a Committee design’d for that purpose, which is not yet so much as nam’d:3 But when it is, I shall use the smalle Interest I have to Recommend this worthy Person; though I foresee, that the Choice will chiefely be referr’d to the Physitians, who are not (that I know of ) so much as named: The King has indeede ben pleas’d to make me Treasurer, an honor I am not at all worthy of, but I shall endeavor to discharge the Trust as becomes me, which will allways be to receive and preferr the Recommendations of Such as Sir John Chardin thinks I may serve [in] that Province; and of this I will shortly Assure him in Person at Turham-Greene,4 who remaine, with all Respect Sir Your etc. With my Wifes most humble service to you, I send my Blessing to my hopefull ­God-son:5

Surrey-Streete6 9: October –1695

Ralph Bohun Letter 742 (839) October 11, 1695 f 96v

Epistle DCCCXXXIX To Dr. Bohune

Worthy Doctor I pray you not to believe it any sort of Neglect, or least Unmindfullnesse of you, that I have not been all this while able to do you that Service, which I promis’d my-selfe I might obtaine of Dr. Tenison, now Arch Bishop of Canterbery: It neither was, nor is want of perpetualy mentioning of you to him; and sometimes earnestly writing, and as oft receiving 2 This letter is in answer to one from Chardin of the same date (Add 78683: f 126 [8.10.1695]). Chardin’s letter names him as “Mr. Angibaud Apothecary, born French but naturalised English who is famous for the Juice of liquorish ... a good counsill in diseases and good Arthist in Chirurgy but chiefly in chemistry.” Chardin says that Boyle honoured him and that Charles II appointed him as apothecary at Chelsea, and hopes that he may be appointed at Greenwich Hospital. 3 Evelyn does, however, record a meeting of the commissioners for the hospital at this time, which he did not attend (Diary V.219). 4 Chardin’s house was in the street now called Bolton Gardens in Turnham Green, west London. His letter expresses regret that Evelyn did not visit him there in the summer. 5 Sir John Chardin (1687–1755), his son and Evelyn’s god-son 6 William Draper had taken a house in Surrey Street (Diary V.219, n. 6) where Evelyn was now staying.

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assurances from him, whilst he was at Lincoln,1 and since his late Translation: But still one or other Steps into the Poole before:2 I do not by this, compare you to that Impotent Man; but Metaschematise and transferr it to my selfe in your behalfe; being I assure you in paine, ’til something be don for you, who am with greate Sincerity Worthy Doctor Your etc. Surrey-streete 11. October. –1695

Jael Boscawen Letter 743 (840) November 25, 1695 f 96v

Epistle DCCCXL To Mrs. Boscawen etc.

[LM: *Sister to my Lord Godolphin] Deare Madame* And my excellent Friend; for– As There is none for whom I have a greater Esteeme, and to whose Relations I am more deepely oblig’d; so neither is there any, whom I would serve with more cherefullnesse; if the proposal I am to make you, were agreable to the greate Reguard and Value I have for her; whom I would have very happy: But as the World now goes; the maine, and almost onely qualification towards that, is not in our owne power and choice: This is the present Case, or else I should with more Assurance, name the Young Gentleman Mr. Golding,1 whom my Wife had sometime sinc recommended to you, for your Son-in-Law, because as he is the onely Son of very worthy Parents, and without exception; so he is a very Vertuous, well-principl’d, untainted sober and discreete Young Man[.] But whether all this Character, with the Fortune he is heire to, become me to propose, for one I so exceedingly Value, as I do your Daughter,2 were not a question, if I had the best, and noblest person in

1 Evelyn again records his speaking to Tenison “for Dr. Bohune for a preferment promised me for him” in August, 1696 (Diary V.256) but he credits his wife for procuring Bohun a prebendary of Salisbury in 1701 (Diary V.473). 2 John 5:4–7 1 Mary Evelyn identifies him as a relation by marriage of her daughter Susanna Draper and “the only son of a Gentleman who Married the sister of Sir Thomas Draper ... [and whose] Estate is in Suffolk within tenne Milles of Berry [Bury St. Edmunds].” John Evelyn Jr and his wife “see him dayly when in towne” and John believes him “as well a disposed young man as any he knows.” What is more, “he has 700 pounds a year in land and is prepared to make a generous settlement on Dorothy” (Add 78531: 18.12.94). 2 Dorothy Boscawen

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England to dispose of: I am here therefore the Deferent onely for worthy Relations, who request me to do this Office, and to Report the Effect of it to them, as you shall direct me: This in short, is what I should yesterday have said to you, if it had ben seasonable; and you will furnish me with what I am to Answer, when I waite on you, at my Lady Wyndams on Tuesday; ’Til then, and forever I am Dear Madame Your etc. Surrey streete 25. November –1695.

Henry Capel Letter 744 (841) December 6, 1695 f 96v

Epistle DCCCXLI To my Lord Capel: Lord Lieutenant etc.

My Lord, It being here reported, that there is in your Excellencys Family a Chaplaines place to be supplied; I cannot but approve of the great Inclynation and earnest desire of one Mr. Bradly,1 to serve your Excellency in that function; being a person of such Piety, Gravity, Learning, and every-way eminently qualified, as in particular, he will come Recommended to your Excellency by his Grace my Lord Archbishop of York2 his d[i]ocesan, from whom, and many others, he has the Character of one extreamely worthy of your Excellencys favour: I did promise his Grace to signifie this Request of his to your Excellency. And my Son, who waites on your Excellency with this, and prompts me to Acknowledge (as I ought) your continu’d favour towards him, will receive, and acquaint me with your Excellencys Commands concerning Mr. Bradly, who remains My noble Lord Your etc. Surry street VI December. –1695

1 John Bradley (1660–1742; V). A graduate of Cambridge (1679–80), Bradley was a priest in the diocese of York where he was made rector of St Mary Castlegate in 1688 and of Bishopshill in 1705. He became a prebendary of York in 1717. 2 John Sharp; see Letter 505, note 4.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Samuel Travers1 Letter 745 (842) December 29, 1695 f 97r–v

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Epistle DCCCXLII To Mr. Travers

[RM: The Kings Surveyor General:] Sir, Since I came into the Countrie, looking over the Names of the Committè2 selected to Consider of what might be fit to propose in Order to the prudent Constitution of the intended Royal Foundation;3 I find so many more able than my-selfe to discharge this Province (and which I take to be the most Important of all the Rest) that but for your Commands and my promise of writing to you, I should gladly have ben excus’d. In Submission therefore to better Judgements; I conceive we cannot follow a better Example, than that of those Wise, and famous Legislators, who gather’d and Compil’d the Laws, which for so many Ages, have ben the Fundamentals of the best, and wisest Goverments in the World: I do not meane, that we should Travell for them into Greece and other parts, as they did for the XII Tabl4 because we have them neerer home: But if those of the Invalides (which I am told, are translated into English)5 were consulted; and especialy by what Orders and Establishment the French Kings late Colledge at Brest (erected about 10 Yeares since, upon a Designe in part like what is intended at Greenewich) is govern’d;6 ’tis possible something might be found applicable to it: In all events, we have such in this greate Citty, and its Invirons, as I suppose may furnish us with such as have ben well digested, and by long experience found sufficient for the Regulation of the greatest Hospitals, whose Statutes, and Constitutions would be Inspected, and cannot but afford considerable Assistance: I have formerly ben shew’d those of that little Colledge of Dulwich7 (not far 1 Samuel Travers (c.1655–1725; F, H). The surveyor-general of crown lands (1693–1710?), Travers recommended the site for Greenwich Hospital. Evelyn notes that Travers was one of a group who visited the site on 21 May 1695 (Diary V.211). Travers was also a barrister and MP (1690–1710, 1715–25). 2 See Diary V.210. 3 Greenwich Hospital 4 the twelve tables of the Roman law laid down in 451 and 450 BC by the Decemvirates to satisfy plebeian agitation for a law code 5 A Pattern of a ... Well-Governed Hospital: or, a ... description of the building, and relation ... of the ... constitution ... and administration, of the Royal Hospital of the Invalids near Paris (London, 1695). Louis XIV had decided in 1670 to establish a hospital for disabled soldiers which opened in 1674. Work on the Dome Church began in 1676. 6 First recognised as a strategic port by Richelieu in 1631, Brest also became the home of a naval school established by Louis XIV. See Mémoire concernant plusieurs millions prétendus par les héritiers d’Ambroise Guis à charge des PP. Jésuites du Seminaire Royal de la Marine de Brest (Brussels, 1759). 7 Properly called “Edward Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift at Dulwich,” it was opened in 1619 and had eight boys.

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from Greenewich) which though Indow’d but for a very few poore-people; semed to me to have ben compil’d, and settl’d with so much Judgement, Ample, and comprehensive; that I cannot but Recommend them to your perusal: But as this of his Majesties intended Foundation, is of infinitely more extent, it will require many other Considerations, suitable to the nature of so greate a Designe. As to that of the Sick, Wounded, Aged, and otherwise disabl’d;8 I presume little will neede to be added to the Care, and usual Method of Physitians, Chirurgeons, Apothecaries, Matrons, Nurses, Tenders etc.; and for the other Mecha Oeconomical part; the present Establishment at Chelsey9 and other Hospitals, may greately facilitate the Buisinesse of standing Officers, necessarily to be employ’d in the Service of the House, according to which, the Edifice it selfe ought at first to be proportion’d and contriv’d: Especialy, if what I looke upon as the most Important, and as I believe, one of the first things in his Majesties Intention (for the promotion of and carying on a Constitution worthy of it, and towards a lasting and universal Benefit to the Nation) would be a provision for a Seminarie of a thousand Boys, or more; Instructed to supply the Navigation from time to time, with able Sea-men in all Capacities. A Specimen of this has already ben hapily begun at Christ-Church Hospital;10 and how they are Manag’d there, and to what Effect and progresse none can give better Light, than Mr. Pepys (one of this Committè) who labour’d very much in the settling and promotion of it. After the Principles of Religion, which ought to be the greate Care of some grave, and dilligent Chatechist; who should especialy endeavor (amongst other Divine and Moral precepts) to fix in them a detestation of that common vice of Cursing and Swearing, so universal among Seamen: The Elements of Mathematics, Arithmetic, Geometrie, Astronomie; the Use of Instruments to make Observations; Plotting, Drawing Charts and Designing: Skill in Naval Architecture, Piloting, Gunnery; Working a Ship in all Weathers, and upon all Occasions in Peace or War; keeping Journals, and Accompts, with whatsoever else is requir’d to the Accomplishment of an able sea-man; will require the Skill and Judgement of qualified Masters, and will properly fall under the Direction of such as Mr. Flamstead:11 For this end, there should be a Furniture of Globes, Spheres, Charts and Mapps, and other Subsidiary Instruments and Books, amongst which there might be a Collection of Journals, Histories and Descriptions of all the famous Voyages, Adventures and Discoveries that have ben perform’d by either our owne Country-men, or others, which would now and then be Read to, or sometimes, by the Boys themselves upon 8 Evelyn had had abundant experience of this as one of the commissioners for the sick and wounded in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars (1664–7; 1672–4). 9 Hospital was founded by Charles II in 1681 and opened in 1694. The building (as at Greenwich) is by Wren. 10 Christ’s Hospital was founded by Edward VI in 1553 as a school for fatherless and motherless children. Thanks partly to the ineptness of Sir John Narborough’s nautical drawings, Pepys persuaded Charles II to endow within the school the Royal Mathematical School (1673) for training forty boys in subjects suitable to navigation. Robert Hooke designed a badge for these scholars that showed geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy with a ship passing the Pillars of Hercules towards terra incognita. Evelyn also refers to the school in Letter 707. See Bryant, The Years of Peril, 101. 11 John Flamsteed

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certaine Days weekely; for the raising an Emulation in them of doing after their Example, for the Honor of their Prince and Service of their Country: To which I could also wish, were ordain’d certaine Marks of peculiar Esteeme, by Medal or other Badges, given to Distinguish such as have signaliz’d themselves by any brave Action, which should also with his Name be Register’d in a Booke kept for that purpose (his picture set up in the greate Hall) which and this Record and Cognizance to be a Sufficient Voucher of his qualification for the Carrying on in order to farther Preferment. Provisions for Carrying-on of this August and Princely Designe, for the comfortable Subsistance of Emerited and Disabl’d Sea-men and Mariners, their Widdows, Children and Indigent Relations; is another most necessary Branch of this glorious Undertaking; and then how all this may be amply supported, by an universal and permanent Contribution; which for being such, and of so universal Benefit, cannot but be very Easy and agreable to all the Nation in its great, and highest Concerne. This is Sir, in General the Ideä and Plan of what I conceive’d might serve for some hints, to be lay’d before you, not unworthy of better Consideration in Order to the Constitution you are pleas’d to require my Thoughts of: I am Sir Your etc. Wotton: 29 December –1695

William Vanbrugh1 Letter 746 (843) January 9, 1696 f 97v

Epistle DCCCXLIII To Mr. Van-Brough:

[LM: Secretary to the Commissioners.] Mr. Van Brough, Yours of the 31th of the last, and 7th of the present, I give you many thanks for; and am glad to see, there is likely to be some indifferent progresse, if at least, the fervor do not coole againe: Being onely I suppose Concern’d in the Committè of Constitution, I have lately deliver’d my Sentiments on that Article, in a letter to Mr. Surveyor Travers:2 And for the Rest, where I am not particularly nam’d, I presume I am my Attendance is not expected; neither I think, dos that of the Revenue require it, ’til they come in good earnest to

1 William Vanbrugh (c.1657–1716; Diary). Secretary to the commissioners for Greenwich Hospital (1695–1716), Vanbrugh was deputy comptroller of the household (c.1698) and then comptroller (c.1708). He corresponded with Evelyn and his son-in-law William Draper about the hospital (Add 78318: f 123 [15.15.1698]). 2 Samuel Travers; see Letter 745.

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Operation, preparatory to the Building, and other Establishments, for which there will be absolute neede of present Mony; and then I shall be ready to receive the Instructions and Orders, which the Grand Committè (you tell me) have power to give; of which you will advertise me; But, ’til then, I would not willingly come up, for feare of staying another three Moneths to no purpose, as I did the last.3 In the meane time, I hope my Son-in-Law will in my Absence appear for me, upon the least intimation from you if requisite; and for the continuance of the Account you give me, I shall be much oblig’d: I am Sir Your etc.

Wotton: 9: January. – 1695/6

Richard Bentley Letter 747 (844) January 14, 1696 f 97v

Epistle DCCCXLIV To Mr. Bently etc.

[LM: His Majesties Library Keeper at St. James’s] Sir, By Mr. Wotton, I joyfully receiv’d the newes of your being come at last to St. James’s; and though I cannot be so happy as to be at the House-warming, or Encoenia,1 rather (for I ever looke upon a Library, with the Reverence of a Temple) I sent my little Mercurie to Congratulate you in my Name, and to let you know, how much more yet Satisfied I should have ben, to heare of the Accession of the two Clossets, you have so just a Title to,2 and have had so many greate and powerfull Advocates for: But nobody is to be consummately happy at once. Let my Lord of Yorke3 know I every houre expect from my son in Ireland, an Answer of the letter I sent my Lord Lieutenant4 in behalfe of Mr. Bradly;5 and from you now and then to heare how matters go in the Learned World: But I fancy you are so transported with your new Felicity (by what I should myselfe be in your Circumstances and Conversation) that you are not yet compos’d, to mind other matters: Remember

3 Evelyn left Wotton for London on 6 April and remained until mid September (Diary V.235 and 259). 1 a festival dedicating a temple 2 On 17 November 1695, Evelyn noted that he “spake to the AB. Of Cant: to concerne himsefe for the restoring of a roome belonging to St. Jame’s Library, where the books wante place” (Diary V.224). See also Letter 755. Bentley wrote Evelyn on 22 February with a proposal to increase its size (Bentley, ­Correspondence, 113–14). 3 John Sharp 4 Henry Capel 5 John Bradley; see Letter 744.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

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however what my Lord of Canterbery6 will expect; and thinke of me with Kindnesse when you visite your friends in Yorke-buildings:7 I am, Deare Sir, Your etc. Wotton 14 January: – 1694/968

Henry Hunt Letter 748 (845) January 14, 1696 f 98

Epistle DCCCXLV To Mr. Hunt.

[RM: Operator to the Royal Society] Mr. Hunt, We brought the Barometer safe hither; and have plac’d it very commodiously: But neither Sir Cyrill Wych,1 nor my selfe, with all our Philosophy, can comprehend the government of the sliding Index, for if we set it with the 30 → to the height of the ting’d Liquor it still says Faire-weather, however foule, Tempestious, or variable it be: Pray let us understand how it is to be manag’d and why 30 is set to the Index and 29 to Raine: and I should rather thinke the period, and state of the Weather, should have ben plac’d and written on the right side of the glasse tube graduated, as it is by the Thermometer, and a sliding claw to point the station of the liquor, as in those which are fil’d with Mercurie; by this greate confusion and uncertainty would be avoided; for if this → should allways be applied to the rise and fall of the liquor, it would still point point [sic] Faire weather both at to Raine and Storme: These particulars explain’d would much oblige Your Friend etc. Wotton: 19: January. – 1695/6

6 Thomas Tenison; presumably a reference to the still unpublished Boyle Lectures of 1694 7 Evelyn had rented lodgings there (in Villiers St) in 1683 (Diary IV.350) and since Pepys had taken a house there in 1679, where he “lived the life of a connoisseur, bibliophile and patron of the arts” (Pepys Diary I.xxxix), it had become the place where like-minded friends gathered on Saturday mornings. 8 error for 1695/6 1 Sir Cyril Wyche was a fellow of the Royal Society and, since he was married to Evelyn’s niece, a visitor at Wotton.

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William Draper Letter 749 (846) January 24, 1696 f 98

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCXLVI To my Son-in-Law Draper:

Deare Son, Do you think I needed, so much good-natur’d Rhetoric, to have perswaded me to Returne to a Place, and to Relations so Deare, and so exceedingly kind to me, as my Sister,1 your-selfe and my Daughter have ben? Or that any-thing but my promise to my Nephew2 (before I went out of Towne) could oblige me, to continue at such a distance from those who are realy among the greatest Comforts of my Life? I did Consider (as was reason) that my Lady Temple3 ought to be at her Ease with you this Spring; and that the best Accommodation was due to her; whilst my Intercourse betweene this and London being uncertaine, could not but carry some Inconvenience with it; as I am sensible it did, by my so long keeping my Sister her selfe out of her Appartment, which was realy an affliction to me; however her most obliging nature overcame both her, and my selfe to suffer it ... In the meane time, This is not to Abdicate my selfe upon a principle of Courtship and formal Civility, but as a Recesse onely for this turne; since you are like to have enough of me hereafter upon all occasions: Wherefore, with my most humble Accknowledgements to my excellent Sister, and you for both, your former, and present generous Expressions, and real kindnesse, I conjure you to believe that I esteeme my-selfe infinitely Obliged. I just now receiv’d an Account from our Secretary4 of what had ben lately don at the Grand Committe, at which I am glad to find you were present; and something is like to be don: But not being my selfe as yet Concern’d in any, save that of the Treasury, and now for his Majesties £2000, I would not willingly make a needelesse Journey, ’til I am punctualy call’d upon, as absolutely necessary; nor of that, shall I take much notice ’til I receive it from you, who am Dear Son: Your etc. Wotton: 24: January. – 1695/6.

I long not onely to see my Daughters Worke after that famous Picture,5 but to heare what your opinion of it is impartialy:

1 Mrs Draper 2 Sir Cyril Wyche 3 Sarah Temple, née Draper (d. 1700; Diary). The wife of Sir Purbeck Temple (d. 1695), sister-in-law of Mrs Draper and aunt of William Draper, she was also the godmother of the short-lived Thomas Draper. 4 William Vanbrugh 5 This is probably the copy of Murillo’s Boys with Pelota (see Letter 716). Mary Evelyn writes of her daughter’s painting in a letter of 19 April 1696 (Add 78300: f 58 [19.4.1696]).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Sidney Godolphin Letter 750 (847) February 7, 1696 f 98

1073

Epistle DCCCXLVII To my Lord Godolphin.

My Lord When upon the Importunity of my Daughter, I lately beg’d your Lordships Excellent Picture of the Boys,1 for her to Copy (foreseeing she might be in the Country in the Spring) I did not imagine she could have ben so long on it, before it was return’d (for I am Sure, I should not then have ask’d it) but she writes me Word, that the Weather, darker this Winter than usual, and days so very short, hinderd her from working above an houre or two in the morning; and humbly begs your Lordships pardon (as I also do) for her having detain’d it so long from the place where it ought to have ben so long before; I have not seene it, since she first Design’d the Out-lines (but I am told it is not ill don)[.] I have my Lord beene here much afflicted with my old griefe, gravell in the kidneys etc.,2 ’til within a few dayes, which gives me hope, that I may be able to waite on your Lordship and the Office your Lordship has put me in;3 ’Til when, and ever whilst I live, I earnestly Pray for your Lordships health, as often as I do for my owne, and for the most obliging steady and worthy Friend I have in this World Your etc. Wotton: 7: February 1695/6

Richard Bentley Letter 751 (848) February 16, 1696 f 98v

Epistle DCCCXLVIII To Mr. Bentley:

Sir, I never undertooke any Buisinesse, but I was in paine ’til I saw the Issue of it; seldome forgetting my Promesse, much lesse my Obligation: This is therefore to give you an 1 Murillo’s Boys with Pelota; see Letters 716 and 749. Susanna Draper mentions these paintings in a letter of 4 June 1695 (Add 78433). Evelyn also refers to these paintings in a (damaged) letter to his wife of 29 June (1692 or 1693?) in which it seems that one of the copies is to be given to John Evelyn Jr, and in another of 11 November 1695 (Add 78431: f 166 [29.6.16?]; f 171 [11.11.1695]). 2 Evelyn was afflicted with kidney pains from 1682 onwards, but in 1692 he recorded gravel in his kidneys, and by 1705 he was afflicted “with a great & painefull fit of the stone” (Diary IV.275, V.91, V.597). 3 treasurer of the Greenwich Hospital Committee

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The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Account of the Commands I receiv’d from my Lord of York,1 concerning Mr. Bradly.2 I give it you in my Sons owne words: 24: February Dublin:3 ‘–I deliverd your Letter Recommendatorie to my Lord Lieutenant,4 within two days after it came to my hands: his Excellency did not then reade it being Interrupted by Company coming in to make their Court, and waited soone after waited on him againe to receive his Commands to you; excusing his not writing, he desir’d me to acquaint you that there was not at present any Vacancy either in the number of Chaplains in his family, or those abroad: but would gladly be inform’d, whether the person were a Married-man, and what was his Character? To which I could give him no Answer, but that I would write to you about it: He commanded me to give you his service, and to my Lord Arch Bishop and there it rests: But whether any farther solicitation will signifie, I know not; however, I cannot blame the Clergey from E[n]deavoring to be Chaplaines here; for those who are Sur les Rangs do not usualy waite long for preferrments, which fall pretty fast in this Kingdome: But his Excellency is much govern’d in these Cases by some about him –’

Thus far my Son: Now I had not thought my Lord Lieutenant needed any more advantageous Character than what I sent him from his Graces owne mouth, which I also read to you in my letter: That and indeede what could more be said? I presume his Lordship expects it from myself his Grace himselfe; for (betweene you and I) there be some affect such Applications: Had my Nephew Sir Cyrill Wyche5 continu’d in that station, I might have signified something on these occasions, who for a friend of mine, did immediately put him into a living of £300 a yeare, the best in Dublin: I pray you to present my most humble duty to his Grace, and remember that you have an honest faithfull (though unsuccessfull) friend and Servant at Wotton JE:

I looke daily for a Summons, and long to kisse your hands: How Are you and my Lord of Canterbery6 perfectly reconcil’d? Wotton 16: February. 1695/6

1 John Sharp, archbishop of York 2 John Bradley; see Letter 744 and Letter 747. 3 A letter from Bath of John Evelyn Jr of 12 September 1696 indicates his return to England (Add 78301: f 73 [12.9.1696]) and he was in London by 23 October (Add 78301: f 74 [23.10.1696]) where, though still officially employed as a commissioner in Ireland, he was staying in hope of recovering his health. 4 Henry Capel 5 Having been secretary to the lord lieutenant in 1692, Wyche became one of the three chief justices (1693–5). 6 Thomas Tenison; see Letter 747, note 5.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Ralph Bohun Letter 752 (849) February 24, 1696* f 98v

1075

Epistle DCCCXLIX To Dr. Bohune:

Worthy Doctor, The Circle which yours to me of the 17 made to Deptford (where tis probable, my Oeconomas1 there, might be absent, and might retard its arival to me sooner) is the occasion of so late an Answer to you: I have now beene here allmost these three moneths, and pass’d the time very uneasily; much afflicted with Gravell in my kidneys,2 Indigestion, tendernesse of my feete, and other Infirmities of Age creeping every moment on me: Nor write I this to Excuse my doing you all the Service I am able, according to the Measure and precautions you mention: For though nothing else call me from this place, I purpose (God affording me any tollerable remission) to go my selfe expressly to London within few dayes, and try my Uttmost Intent among the Bishops in your behalf;3 Very glad that you have pitch’d upon the Patronage of my Lord of Salisbery,4 to whom I am well known, can have Accesse; and who I believe, will be as good as his Word, if he promise my Lord of Canterbery whom you may be sure I shall Solicit, and not faile of giving you an ­Account of the Successe: I remaine (Worthy Doctor) Your etc. Wotton: 24 February: – 1665/6 [sic]

Richard Bentley Letter 753 (850) February 26, 1696 f 99

Epistle DCCCL. To Mr. Bentley:1

Sir, I shall most readily receive my Lord of Yorke,2 and your farther Commands, and should add my best Assistance in behalfe of Mr. Bradley;3 if after his Graces Recomendation, it

1 2 3 4

housekeepers: Evelyn’s daughter Susanna and her husband William Draper See Letter 750. See Letters 719 and 742. Gilbert Burnet. Bohun was made a canon of Salisbury in August 1701.

1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Bentley of 22 February (Correspondence, 113–14). 2 John Sharp 3 John Bradley

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were possible to Imagine, he should neede any other Advocate, and that this the good man resolves to take off the Objection, by Travelling (like an Apostle) without those Impediments, for διὰ τὴν ἐνεστω̃σαν ἀνάγκην.4 And now I easily fancy how Buisy you are, ’til your Oeconomie be fully settl’d; but whether his Grace of Canterbury will so as easily take it for an Excuse, if you defer it much longer, I dare not undertake[.]5 Rid yourselfe then of this Obligation that you may be in perfect Repose in your silent and delightfull Lodging: o vitæ tuta facultas6 and happy man, what an expression! As to the Closets, your losse I find, has ben your Gaine,7 and you have solv’d the Paradox – Si non errastes8 – and I assure you may looke on it as a singular Court-favour, which dos not often happen: But so it is, that by another pretty Paradox too, you will by this Substruction, Support your Supporter. The noble Work of mine you mention,9 will (I think) be an Antiquity indeede, before it appeares; for ’tis yet (for ought I know) under ground, and you may not be sorry if it so remaine; for the Trouble it is like to give you, if ever it appeare, above if it be true what Mr. Tooke10 writes me; that he now Wants but nine or ten (to Grave) to compleate his 100: In the meane time, I return you many thanks for the Copy of that truely rich, and noble Medalion you send me: I have had it Grav’d a good-while since; though I cannot say from so faire a one: Monsieur Bizot (who gives a Type of it in his Holland Metalique)11 mistakes the ends of the fillets, with which the Juntos Eyes were banded (and should so be express’d, to represent their Obiæcation [word deleted] for Asses Eares): The Boy has perform’d it very well, I wish with all my heart he may be of better Use to you, than I feare he has hitherto ben, as well as Sir Your most humble faithfull Servant JE: Wotton Quinqua gessima 1695/6

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

“for the present distress” 1 Corinthians 7:26 another allusion to the unpublished Boyle Lectures “How safe and easy the poor man’s life.” Lucan, De Bello Civili, 5.527 (Duff, trans) Bentley’s desire to expand the library at St James’s had been frustrated, but Evelyn claims this leaves him the more open to promotion. “if you are not mistaken” Numismata (1697) A letter of 30 May 1696 from Benjamin Tooke reports that the medal that Evelyn hoped to borrow from Dr Lister had been lent to Dr Harrison and was unrecoverable (Add 78314: f 101 [30.5.1696]). Pierre Bizot, Histoire metallique de la republique de Hollande (Paris & Amsterdam, 1687–8). Evelyn quotes Bizot in Numismata (73–7) where he also notes that “Raillery in Medals” did not exist in classical times “however since degenerated” (24). The medal referred to may be that representing the triple league of England, France, and the Low Countries against Spain in 1596, a medal that appears in both works.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Mrs Draper Letter 754 (851) March 13, 1696 f 99

1077

Epistle DCCCLI For my Sister Draper:

From any Creature save your selfe, I should take it for a greate Reproch, to be so aboundantly thank’d for the Trifles, which you have ben pleas’d to accept; who before they came to you, had found out all the Seacrets of that pretty Art;1 as you do all other Ingenious things and diversions, which once you undertake: Give me therefore Pardon for presuming to think I could gratifie your Curiosity, farther than by Obeying your Commands: – I am to returne you a thousand Acknowledgements for your so kind and generous Invitation of such troublesome guests: But as my Wife (who onely design’d to accompany me for a day or two at Deptford, and returne with the Coach againe) begins to be call’d upon by her old cough and Defluction (hitherto escap’d) she will not (I feare) adventure abroade, ’til this Season be lesse inclement, and more advanc’d: In the meane time, infinitely pleas’d with what you write of the little Baby;2 and no lesse longing to see, and Rejoice with those who are so aboundantly satisfied with its Improvement: To her and to her Mother, she sends her Blessing; and to her Grand-Mother all that I am able to expresse of greate Reguard and humble Service: I purpose (God willing) to set out for Deptford, within few days, whether summond or not, and then shall not faile of coming to pay my farther Acknowledgments to you, for your many favours to Dear Madame, Your etc. Wotton 13: March. – 1695/6.

1 Possibly these are from the “Medical and culinary receipts” compiled from 1651 onwards by both John and Mary Evelyn (Add 78337–8). 2 Mary Draper, born 10 September 1695, died as an infant.

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Richard Bentley Letter 755 (853)1 March 22, 1696 f 99v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLIII To Mr. Bently etc.

Whilst men seeke Honor, they Loose their Liberty.2 However Sir, I most heartily Rejoice at, and Congratulate your just *Accumulation: [LM: *of Chaplaine to his Majestie] This comes withall to let you know that I sent my Lord Arch-Bishops Letter to the greate Man,3 with another of mine according to your Instructions: Mr. Wotton has ben here to give me a kind Visite, and since has sent me the life of Des Cartes, written by Monsieur Baillet,4 very well: I found by his Discourse to me, that he has a mind to do something of this nature in memory of Mr. Boile,5 which I would by all meanes promote because I think he would performe it successfully: I have promis’d my Assistance, and bespeake your Incouragement of the undertaking; Since I find, the Bishop of Salisbury,6 declines his purpose, upon the account of want of Leasure etc. But of this more when we meete. Have a care in the meane time, of returning late from Kensington,7 I am, Deare Sir, Your etc. Wotton: 22: March 1695/6

1 There is no 852 in the original numbering. 2 Bentley had announced his appointment as chaplain to the king in a letter of 18 March (Add 78318: f 106 [18.3.1696]; Correspondence, 116–17). 3 presumably to Henry Capel about John Bradley 4 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes (Paris, 1691). 5 A fragment of Wotton’s biography of Boyle is in Add 4229: ff 1–32. It was first published in Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends, ed. Hunter, 111–48. Add 4229 also contains Sir Peter Pett’s notes on Boyle (ff 33–49). Wotton himself wrote to Evelyn his “Essay upon Mr. Boyles memory” on 27 April 1697 (Add 4276: f 211). Evelyn’s long account of Boyle’s life is in a letter to Wotton of 12 September 1703 (Add 4229: ff 56–7 and Add 28104: ff 21–2) and in Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends, 84–99. 6 Gilbert Burnet addressed his account of his continental travels (Some letters, containeing, an account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, &c. [Rotterdam], 1687) to Boyle, and preached Boyle’s funeral sermon (published in 1692). He did not, however, write Boyle’s life; this task was left to Thomas Birch who published it in 1744. 7 William III’s palace was in Kensington, at that time an area infamous for robbers.

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Wotton Letter 756 (854) March 30, 1696 ff 99v–101

1079

Epistle DCCCLIV To Mr. Wotton:1

Sir, I most heartily beg your Pardon for deteining your Bookes so unreasonably long, after I had read them; which I did with greate Satisfaction, especialy, the Life of Descartes:2 The Truth is, I had some hopes of seeing you here againe; for methought (or at least I flatter’d my selfe with it) you said at parting, you would do us that favour, before my going to London, whither I am God willing, setting out to morrow, or next day for some time; not without Regret, unlesse I receive your Commands, if I may be any way serviceable to you, in Order to that noble, and Universaly-Obliging Undertaking you lately mention’d to me; I meane, your generous Offer and Inclination to Write the Life of our late Illustrious Philosopher Mr. Boyle;3 and to honor the Memory of a Gentleman of that singular worth and Vertue: I am sure if you persist in that designe; England shall never envy France, or neede a Gassendus,4 or a Baillet, to perpetuate, and transmit the Memory of One, not onely Equaling, but in many things Transcending, either of those Excellent, and indeede extraordinary Persons, whom their Penns have render’d Immortal: I wish my selfe was furnish’d to afford you any Considerable Supplys (as you desir’d) after my so long Acquaintance with Mr. Boyle5 (who had honor’d me with his particular Esteeme, now very neere fourty yeares) as I might have don, by more duly Cultivating the frequent Opportunities, he was pleas’d to allow me: But so it is, that his Life and Virtues have ben so Conspicuous, as you’l neede no other light to direct you, or Subject matter to Work on, than what is so universaly knowne, and by what he has don and publish’d in his Books: You may perhaps neede some Particulars as to his Birth, Family, Education, and other lesse necessarie Circumstances for Introduction; and such other Passages of his Life, as are not so distinctly known, but by his owne Relations: In this, if I may serve you, I shall do it with greate readynesse, and I hope Successe, having some pretence by my Wife,6

1 2 3 4

The original of this letter is Add 4229: f 58. Wotton responded on 7 April (Diary [1887], III, 352–3). Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes (Paris, 1691) See Letter 755, note 5. See Pierre Gassendi, Viri illustris N.C. Fabricii de Peiresc ... vita (Paris, 1641; 1658 Opera in the 1687 library catalogue); translated by William Rand as The mirrour of true nobility & gentility. Being the life of the renowned Nicolaus Claudius Fabricius Lord of Peiresk (London, 1657), and dedicated to Evelyn. See also Letters 91 and 112. 5 Evelyn’s desire that Wotton write Robert Boyle’s life is also reflected in his letter to Wotton of 12 ­September, 1703, which is not in the letterbooks. The original is in Add 4229: ff 56–[57v], of which Add 28104: f 21 is a copy. This biographical project is referred to in Letters 759, 773, 793, and 803 to Wotton and in Letter 761 to John Williams. 6 Mary Evelyn’s grandmother, Thomasine Browne, was first married to Capt Edward Fenton who was Robert Boyle’s great-grandfather. Boyle’s father, Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork, was a frequent visitor to Sayes Court.

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in whose Grandfathers House (which is now mine at Deptford) the Father of this Gentleman was so Conversant, that (contracting an Affinity there)7 he left his (then) Eldest Son with him (whilst himselfe went into Ireland) who in his absence Dying, lies buried in our Parish Church, under a *remarkable Monument. [RM: *a Tent and a Map of Ireland in Relievo] I mention this, because my Wifes Relation to that Family, giving me Accesse to divers of his Neerest kindred; the Countesse Dowager of Clancartie8 (living now in an House of my Sonns9 in Dover-Streete) and the Countess of Thannet10 (both his Niepces) will I question not be able to informe me, what they cannot but know of those, and other Circumstances of their Unkle, which may not be unworthy of your notice; especialy my Lady Thannet, who is a greate Virtuosa, and uses to speake much of her Unkle: You know she lives in one of my Lord of Notinghams11 houses at St. James’s, and therefore will neede no Introductor there: I will waite also on my Lord Burlington12 if there be occasion, provided in the meane time (and after all this Officiousnesse of mine) it be not the proffer of a very Use-lesse Service; since my Lord Bishop of Salisbery13 (who made us expect what he is now devolving on you) cannot but be fully Instructed in all particulars. It is now (as I said) almost fourty-yeares, since first I had the honor of being acquainted with Mr. Boyle; both of us newly return’d from Abroad, though I know not how, never meeting there: Whether he Travell’d more than France and Italy, I cannot say; but he had so universal an Esteeme in Forrain Parts; that not any Stranger of Note or Quality; Learn’d or Curious, coming into England, but us’d to Visite him with the greatest respect and Satisfaction imaginable. Now as he had an early Inclination to Learning (so especially, to that part of Philosophy he so hapily succeeded in) he often honor’d Oxford, and those Gentlemen there, with his Company, who more peculiarly applied themselves to the examination of the so long domineering Methods, and Jargon of the Scholes: You have the Names of this learned Junto (most of them since, deserv’dly Dignified) in that elegant History of the Royal Society,14 which must ever owne its Rise from that Assembly, and as dos the Preservation of that famous University, from the Phanatic Rage and Avarice of those Melancholy times. These, with some others (whereof Mr. Boyle, the Lord Vicount Brounckar, Sir Robert Morray were the most active) Spirited with the same Zeale, and under a more propitious Influence, were the Persons to whom the World stands oblig’d for the Promoting of that Generous and Real Philosophy Knowledge, which gave the Ferment that has ever-since Obtain’d, and surmounted all those many Discouragements, which it at first incounterd: 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

to Catherine, the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton Elizabeth MacCarty John Evelyn Jr was in Ireland until later this year. Catherine Tufton, née Cavendish (1665–1712; Diary). The fourth daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle, married in 1684 to Thomas Tufton, 6th earl of Thanet. Daniel Finch, 2nd earl of Nottingham and 7th earl of Winchilsea (1647–1730; ODNB) Richard Boyle, 2nd earl of Cork Gilbert Burnet Thomas Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London for the improving of natural knowledge ­(London, 1667; in the 1687 library catalogue)

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But by no man more, has the Territories of the most Usefull Philosophy ben Inlarg’d, than by our Hero, to whom there are many Trophys due: And accordingly, his Fame was quickly spread, not onely among us here in England, but through all the Learned World besides: It must be Confess’d that he had a mervailous Sagacity in finding out many Usefull, and noble Experiments: Never did stubborn Matter come under his Inquisition, but he extorted a Confession of all that lay in her most Intimate Recesses; and what he discover’d, he as faithfully Register’d, and frankly Communicated; in this, exceeding my Lord Verulam,15 who (though never to be mention’d without honor and admiration) was us’d to take all that came to hand, without much examination: His was Probability; Mr. Boyls Suspicion of Successe: Sir you will here find ample Field, and infinitely Gratifie the Curious, with a glorious and fresh Survey of the Progresse he has made in these Discoveries; free’d from those Incumbrances, which now and then, render the Way somewhat a little tedious, though aboundantly recompencing the pursuite; especialy, those noble Atchivements of his, made in the Spring and Weight of the two most necessary Elements of Life, Aër and Water;16 Histories and their Effects: The Origin of Formes, Qualities, and Principles of Matter:17 Histories of Cold;18 Light, Colours,19 Gems,20 Effluvias and other his Works, so firmely establish’d on Experiments: Polycrests,21 and of universal Use to Real Philosophy; besides other beneficial Inventions; peculiarly his; such as the Dulcifying Sea-Water,22 with that Ease and plenty, together with many Medicinal Remedys, Cautions, Directions; Curiosities and Arcana which owe their Birth, or Illustration to his Indefatigable Recherches. He brought the Phosphorus and Anteluca23 to the clearest Light that ever any did, after innumerable Attempts: It were needelesse to Reckon Insist on particulars to one who knows them better than my selfe: You will not however omit those many other Treatises Relating to Religion, which indeede runs through all his Writings upon occasion, and shew, how unjustly that Aspersion has ben cast on Philosophy, that it disposes men to Atheisme: Neither did his Severer Studys yet Soure his Conversation in the least; he was the furthest from it in the World, and I question whether ever any man has produc’d more experiments to Establish his Opinions without Dogmatizing: He

15 Francis Bacon 16 New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, touching the Spring of the Air (1662; Evelyn Library, no 228); A Continuation of New Experiments (1669). For Boyle’s work see The Works of Robert Boyle, ed. Hunter and Davis. 17 The Origins of Forms and Qualities (1666) (2nd ed., 1667; Eve.a.51) 18 New Experiments and Observations touching Cold (1665; Eve.a.76), to which Evelyn contributed (see Letter 224) 19 Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) (Eve.a.75) 20 An Essay about the Origine and Virtues of Gems (1672) 21 serving for various uses, usually medicinal: Some Receipts of Medicine (1688), Medicinal Experiments (1692–4) 22 See Boyle’s letter to John Beale in Salt-water sweetned; or, A true account of the great advantages of this new invention both by sea & land: together with a full and satisfactory answer to all apparent difficulties. Also the approbation of the Colledge of Physicians. Likewise a Letter of the Honourable Robert Boyle to a friend upon the same subject (Dublin, 1683). 23 The Aerial Noctiluca (1680) (Eve.a.26)

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was a Corpuscularian24 without Epicurus; a greate and happy Analyzer, Addicted to no ­particular Sect, but as became a Generous, and free Philosopher, preferring Truth above All; in a word, a Person of that singular Candor, Comitie and Worth; that to draw a just Character of him, one must run through all the Vertues, as well as through all the Sciences: And though he tooke the greatest Care Imaginable to conceale the most Illustrious of ’em; his Charities and the many Good Works he continualy did [insert: could not hide]; [LM: Se Bishop Sanderson De Juramento etc. 2d Edition dedicated to him] it is well known how Large his Bounty was upon all Occasions: Wittnesse the Irish, Indian, Lituanian Bibles,25 to the Translations, Printing, and Publishing of which he layd-out considerable Sums: The Catechisme, and Principles of the Christian Faith, which I think, he caus’d to be put into Turkish, and dispers’d among those Infidels: And here you will take notice of the Lecture he had Indow’d and so seasonably provided for.26 As to his Relations, (so far as I have heard) his Father (Richard Boyle) was Faber Fortunæ;27 a Person of wonderfull Sagacity in Affaires, and no lesse probity; by which he Compass’d a Vast Estate, and greate Honors to his Posterity, which was very numerous and so prosperous, as has given to the Publique both Divines, Philosophers, Souldiers, Polititians and Statesmen; and spread its branches among the most Illustrious and Opulent of our Nobility: Mr. Robert Boyle, Born, I think, in Ireland, was the Youngest, to whom yet he left a faire Estate; to which was added an honorary Pay of a Troop of Horse, if I mistake not: And now, though amongst all his Experiments, he never made that of the Maried-Life; yet, I have ben told, he Courted the a beautifull and Ingenious Daughter of Carew, Earle of Monmouth;28 to which is owing the Birth of his Seraphic Love, and the first of his Productions: *Descartes’s was not so Innocent: [LM: *who confesses he had a Bastard Daughter. Se Monsieur Baillet in Vita Descartes] In the meane time, he was the most facetious and agreable Conversation in the World among the Ladys, when ever he happn’d to be engag’d; and yet so very Serious, Compos’d and Contemplative at all other times; though far from Morosenesse; for indeede he was Affable and Civil rather to excesse, yet without formality. As to his Opinion and thoughts in Religious Matters and Discipline, I could not but discover in him the same Free-thoughts, which he had of Philosophy; not in Notion onely, but strictly, as to Practice an excellent Christian, and the greate Duties of that Profession; without Noise, Dispute, or Determining; owning no Master, but the Divine Author of it: No Religion but Primitive; no Rule but Scripture; no Law, but Right Reason; for the Rest, allways Conformable to the present Settlement, without any sort of Singularity. 24 a believer in atomic theory 25 An Biobla Naomhtha (1690); The Holy Bible translated into the Indian language of Massachussets by John Eliot (Cambridge, MA, 1663); Pirma kniga Mayzezaus wadynann Genesis (1660). For further information on Boyle’s support of the publication on an Algonquian Bible, see Correspondence of Boyle, II, 43–6 and passim. See also Diary V.82, n. 2. 26 the Boyle Lecture was established in 1692 (Diary V.88). 27 the maker of his own fortune 28 She was the daughter of Henry Carey (1596–1661). The DNB cites Boyle’s assertion (Works I.155) that he wrote this work (Some Incentives to the Love of God [Seraphick Love] [1659]) in 1648 before he had “yet been hurt by Cupid.”

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The Mornings after his private Devotions, he openly spent in Philosophic Studys and his Laboratory; sometimes extending them to Night; but he told me, he had quite given-over reading by Candle as injurious to his Eyes: This was Supply’d by his Amanuensis who sometimes Read to him, and wrote-out such passages as he noted, and that so often in loose papers, pack’d-up without Method; as made him sometimes to seeke upon occasion, as himself confesses in divers of his Works: Glasses, Potts, Chymical and Mathematical Instruments; Books and Bundles of papers did so fill [insert: crowd up] his Bedchamber, that there was but just roome for a few Chaires; so as his whole Equipage, was very Philosophical, without formality: There were yet other Roomes, and a Small Library (and so you know had *Descartes) [LM: *One at Egmond29 desiring to see his Library, he brought him into a roome, where he was disecting a Calfe.] as Learning more from Men, Real Experiments, and in his Laboratory (which was ample and well furnish’d) than from Books. I have said nothing of his style; which those who are better Judges, think he was not altogether so happy in, as in his Experiments: I do not call it Affected; but doubtlesse, not answerable to the rest of has greate and shining Parts; and yet, to do him right, it was much Improvd, in his Theodora30 and later writings. In his Diet (as in Habits) he was extreamely Temperate and Plaine; nor could I ever discern in him the least Passion, transport or Censoriousnesse what ever Discourse, or the Times Suggested: All was Tranquil, Easy, Serious, Discreete and Profitable; so as besides Mr. Hobbes, whose Hand was against every body, and admir’d not by but his owne; Francis Linus31 (who yet with much civility, wrot against him) I do not remember he had the least Antagonist. In the Afternoones, he was seldom without Company; which was sometimes so incommodious, that he now and then repair’d to a private Lodging, in an other quarter of the Towne; and at other times (as the season invited) diverted himselfe in the Country among his noble Relations. He was rather tall and slender of stature, for most part Valetudinary, pale, and much emaciated; nor Un-like his Picture in at the Royal Society Gressham Colledge; which, with an almost impudent Importunity, was (at the request of the Society) hardly extorted, or rather stoll’n, from this Modest Gentleman (by Sir Edmund King) after he had refus’d it to his neerest Relations.32 In his first Addresses, being to Speake, or Answer, he did sometimes a little hesitate, rather than Stammer, or repeate the same word, Imputable to an Infirmity; which since my remembrance, he had exceedingly overcome: This, as it made him somewhat slow, and deliberate; so after the first effort, he proceeded without the least Interruption in his 29 Egham, Surrey 30 The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymus (1687) 31 Francis Hall (Francis Line), Tractatus de corporum inseparabilitate, in quo experimenta de vacuo tam Torricelliana quam Magdeburgica et Boyliana examinantur, etc. (London, 1661). Boyle answered him in 1662 with a defence that constituted proof of the proportional relation between elasticity and pressure, known as “Boyle’s Law.” 32 There are three portraits extant by Johann Kerseboom. The original is at the Royal Society. One copy is in the National Portrait Gallery and the other in the Royal Collection.

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discourse: And I rather impute this impediment much to the frequent Atacqes of Palsys, contracted, I feare, not a little by his fre often attendance on Chymical Operations: It has plainly Astonish’d me to have seene him so often Recover, when he has not ben able to move, or bring his hand to his mouth; and Indeede the Contexture of his Body, during the best of his health, appeard to me so delicate; that I have frequently compar’d him to a Chrystal or Venice Glasse; which though wrought never so thinn and finely; being carefully set up, would out-last the hardier Metals of daily Use; and he was withall as Cleare, and Candid; not a bleb, or spot to tarnish his Reputation; and he lasted accordingly; though not to a greate, yet to a Competent Age: Threescore Yeares33 I think; and as to many more he might, I am perswaded have ariv’d, had not his Beloved Sister the Lady Viscountesse Ranalagh,34 (with whom he lived) a person of extraordinary Talents, and suitable to his Religious and Philosophical Temper, Dyed before him: But it was then that he began evidently to droope apace; nor did he (I thinke) survive her above a fortnight: But of this last Scene, I can say little, unfortunately absent, and not knowing of the Danger, ’til ’twas past Recovery. His Funeral (at which I was present) was Decent, and though without the least Pomp; yet accompanied with a greate appearance of Persons of the best, and noble quality, besides his owne Relations. He lies Interr’d (neere his Sister) in the Chancell of St. Martins Church: The Lord Bishop of Salisbury preaching the Funeral Sermon, with that Eloquence natural to him on such and all other Occasions:35 The Sermon you know, is Printed, with the Panegyric so justly due to his Memory: Whether there have ben since any other Monument erected on him, I do not know; nor is it material. His Name (like that of Joseph Scaliger) were alone a glorious Epitaph: And now Sir, I am againe to Implore your Pardon, for giving you this Interruption, with things so Confus’dly huddl’d-up, this very Afternoone, as they crowded into my Thoughts: The Subject you see is fruitfull and almost Inexhaustible: Argument fit for no mans pen but Mr. Wottons: Oblige then all the World, and with it Sir Your etc. Wotton: 30: March. 1696

33 actually 64 34 Katherine Jones, née Boyle, Viscountess Ranelagh (1615–91; ODNB). A sister of Robert Boyle (with whom she lived for 23 years) and widow of Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh, she was actively involved in educational, intellectual and political circles, particularly in the group surrounding Samuel Hartlib. 35 Gilbert Burnet, A sermon preached at the funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle; at St. Martins in the Fields, January 7. 1691/2 (London, 1692).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Roger Wye1 Letter 757 (855) March 30, 1696 f 101v

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Epistle DCCCLV To Mr. Wye.2

[LM: Viccar of Ware Harfordshire]3 Worthy Sir, I were too happy, if the excesse of your Civilitie to me, did not prevaile upon your better Judgement, which oftentimes induces us to Over-see the Imperfections of their our Friends and such as they we esteeme, as I find it has yours: I am however extreamely Oblig’d for your favourable Interpretation of my Impertinences, so often Interrupting, and trespasing on your Patience: But which nothing but the solitude of a Place, where there is so little of Ingenuous Conversation, could have made me presume on; I had purpos’d to have follow’d you, as I told you at your going hence;4 but a greate Cold Surprizing me upon an excursion I made, to see something don in my little Plantation5 (the Eastern-Wind piercingly sharp, and I coming out of a Warme room) made me deferr it ’til I am better: But wherever I am, there will allways be a very humble Servant of Yours etc. Wotton March: 30. – 1696

1 Roger Wye (c.1655–1701; Diary). The curate of Abinger in Surrey and a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Wye became the vicar of Ware (1682–99) before becoming the rector of Wotton (1699–1701). Even before becoming vicar of Wotton, Wye preached frequently there and his sermons are calendared in Evelyn’s Diary. 2 In response to a letter of 26 March 78318: f 109 [26.3.1696]) 3 Hertfordshire 4 Evelyn records Wye’s preaching at Wotton on 23 February 1696 (Diary V.231). 5 An entry of 13 November 1692 (Diary V.119) records Evelyn’s sending fruit trees to Wotton.

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Thomas Tenison Letter 758 (856) April 29, 1696 f 101v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLVI To the Arch Bishop of Canterbery.

My Lord, A letter from Dr. Bohune (formerly Tutor to my Son) acquaints me with his greate Exigencies, besides other hard Circumstances, the necessary Repaires, and almost new Building of his Parsnage house;1 greately exceeding his meane Income; I cannot resist his Importunity; that I would againe Represent his Condition to your Grace, who was pleasd to Assure me, that you had him in your Thoughts, and would do something for him when my Lord of Lincoln2 came to Towne: I beg of your Grace to persist in that Favour, and to Relieve a very worthy Person, Pious, Learnd and Industrious languishing under so many difficulties, and that your Grace will pardon this Confidence of Your etc. Surry-street London 29 April. 1696.

William Wotton Letter 759 (857) May 12, 1696 f 101v

Epistle DCCCLVII To Mr. Wotton:

Sir, I had not ben that long in returning you my Acknowledgements of your Pardoni[n]g my late tedious and Impertinent Volume,1 if a line in yours had not hinted something of my Lord of Canterberys2 Encouragement; and that I could have Accompanied it, with something Material from Mr. Boyles Relations[.] For the First, I believed you would

1 Ralph Bohun was rector of West Kington, Wiltshire from 1674 to 1701. 2 James Gardiner (1636/7–1705; ODNB). Gardiner went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1649, obtained a DD in 1669, and became chaplain to the duke of Monmouth. He was elevated to the bishopric of Lincoln in 1695 by his friend Tenison. Evelyn knew him socially and records the suicide of his wife (Diary V.528). 1 probably an allusion to Letter 756, containing the biographical materials on Robert Boyle 2 Thomas Tenison. Wotton responded on 24 May, stating, “Your naming me at my Lord of Canterbury’s upon such an occasion, was the highest honour could have been done a young writer” (Diary [1887] III.353).

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not be displeas’d; that being Summon’d to a Meeting of all the Trustees3 at Lambeth (in order to the better Securing a perpetuity of the Funds on which the Sallary is to depend) I mention’d your generous Inclination to consecrate the Memory of the noble Benefactor, by Writing of his Life; and for whose Honor, none were more concern’d, and would be better Vouchers, against all pretenders whatsoever: Accordingly they readily embrac’d the Motion, with much Satisfaction, and desir’d that his Grace should in all our Names, signifie so much to my Lord Bishop of Salisbery;4 that in Case, he had quite lay’d downe aside the thoughts of what he seem’d to promise in his Funebral Oration Panegyric; he would give you the best Assistance he could, which they believ’d would be very Considerable;5 together with those which my Lord of Canterbery tells me, he himselfe can furnish; Especialy as to his Charities, and other Circumstances of his Sicknesse and Death; having ben almost daily with him all the time he lay sick. For the second; something I have gather’d from the Ladys (his neere Relations)6 whom I mention’d; but it is not of much importance, to what my Lord Shanon7 were able to contributed (even beyond any thing to be expected from the Earle of Burlington)8 as my Lord Ranalagh assures me: But my Lord Shanon living altogether at Twicknam, I cannot at present give you the Account I would: I dispos’d of your Present to Sir Cyrill,9 and am to returne you my humble thanks for that excellent piece, wherein you have so justly vindicated an Author who has ben sufficiently Svaligiato,10 to say no more: I remaine Sir Your etc. Surry-streete 12: May. 1696.

3 Sir Henry Ashurst, 1st baronet (1645–1711; ODNB) and Sir John Rotherham (1630–1708; ODNB) were the other trustees. Evelyn notes the meeting of the trustees at Lambeth on 2 May (Diary V.238). 4 Gilbert Burnet; see Letter 756, note 35. 5 Neither Burnet nor Wotton wrote a life of Boyle, but their notes for the purpose were used by Thomas Birch. Burnet’s and Wotton’s material for such a biography are contained in Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends, ed. Hunter. See also Burnet’s A Sermon preached at the Funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London, 1692) and Letter 756. 6 See Letter 756. 7 Francis Boyle (of Ballincrea) (1623–99; P). The sixth son of Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork and the brother of Robert Boyle, he was named 1st Viscount Shannon in 1660. 8 Richard Boyle, 1st first earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork (1612–98; ODNB) 9 On 7 April 1696, Wotton sent Evelyn copies of No 219 of the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, one of which was for Sir Cyril Wyche (see Eve.a.149). 10 burgled; Evelyn refers to Wotton’s translation of Louis Ellies Du Pin, A new history of ecclesiastical writers, containing an account of the authors of the several books of the Old and New Testament; of the lives and writings of the primitive fathers; an abridgment and catalogue of their works, their various editions, and censures determining the genuine and spurious (London, 1692). Evelyn may be alluding to the second volume, which appeared in 1697.

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Richard Holden Letter 760 (858) May 18, 1696 f 102

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLVIII To Mr. Holden Viccar of Deptford:

Sir, There were with me on Saturday last, some Gentlemen of the Parish, about a Subscription towards the Re-Building of a New Church for this large Towne; which as I well Remember, had ben formerly propos’d;1 so you may please to Call to Mind, what my Opinion was then Concerning it: Why I still persist in the Same (and is the Occasion of my writing at present) is not, I Assure you, to excuse my-selfe from following their Example, who have so liberaly Subscrib’d, what ever may be thought: But, because upon many (to me) weighty Considerations, I conceive they will find it a far greater Charge than they Imagine: For to Erect a Superstruction upon an Old, and Crazy Foundation, or patching this up, by exalting the Roof, is a very meane designe; and to Re-build a new, must needes cost a greate deale more than they reckon on: And therefore my Advise was; That they should in the first place, do well to Consult his Majesties Surveyor, Sir Christopher Wren; who has built so many fair Churches of all Capacities and Dimensions; and is able to give both a suitable Model, and a more accurate Calculation of what it will require to Compleate such a Fabrique as may be fit to receive so numerous a Congregation as this Parish requires: For though I question not the Abillities of those Gentlemen who have already computed the Summ they conceive will finish it; Yet Naval Architecture2 is so extreamely different from Building Churches (though even the Churches Nave is compar’d to ship a ship) with Stone, and Materials of another sort, that they may Easily be mistaken: And therefore (both in reguard of the Fabric it selfe, and for the extraordinary Charge of Such an Undertaking) what I formerly propounded, I still insist on (and that with more Reason than Ever) That the Parish should Apply themselves by humble Petition to his Majestie for a Brief, setting forth the Necessity of the Work, and greate Inability of the Inhabitants to Accomplish it, without his Royal Assistance. If the vast, and still Increasing Charge of the Poore, chiefly caus’d through the perpetual Conflux of strangers from all parts of the Nation to his Majesties Yard; some working there, others Employ’d at Sea, and through so many Accidents oft’ Miscarying, dying and leaving their Wives and numerous Children to the Parish; the few Substantial Inhabitants and small extent of Land (together with the Burden of present Taxes; the Universall Dearenesse of all Commodities, especialy of Building Materials, the Scarcity and corruption of Mony etc. to support all this) be well Represented; with so many 1 A proposal to rebuild St Nicholas, Deptford, was first made in 1692 (Diary V.119). Evelyn subscribed £40 to its rebuilding in 1697, which cost £2,200 (Diary V.348 and n. 2). 2 Because of the adjacent naval dockyards, many of the “Gentlemen of the Parish” would have been officers in the navy.

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other Extraordinary payments, all of them Inconsistent with such an Undertaking, be (as certainely they are) sufficient Inducements to proceede by this Method; I cannot but believe, his Majestie would not onely graciously Condescend to Grant you such a Briefe as I mention; but Incourage it by his particular Bounty also; it being for the Benefit and Convenience of a Place, where the First and Greatest Yard and Marine Magazine of the whole Kingdome is settl’d: Nor doubt I, but the Lords, and others of the Admiralty and Principal Officers of the Navy, will cherefully Assist the Petitioners if duly apply’d to: I have some small Interest with the Lords Justices (our now Governors)3 and with some of the Lords Bishops, especialy my Lord Archbishop of Canterbery, who well understands the straitenesse of the present Church, is the (at least pretended) occasion of their straggling from it and deserting the Parochial Congregation; and therefore I am confident will readily promote it: This I shall heartily Joyne in, if upon Consultation with those Gentlemen of the Parish, they think it Reasonable to proceede by this Expedient; whilst as to any other, during the Continuance of this Chargeable War4 (by which though some get vastly, and may therefore Contribute largely); others (subsisting onely upon Rack- and Surcharged Rents, much disabl’d and Impoverish’d) cannot; I think this Conjuncture (all Circumstances consider’d) to be the most Un-seasonable in the World, to set about such an Undertaking by Subscriptions amongst Mechanics: Works of this Nature being onely proper for times of Peace and Affluence: Sir, you may please (if you think fit) to Communicate what I have here Written to those Gentlemen of the Vestry: In whose better Judgement I shall Acquiesce. In the meane time, I hope they will not think I cast in these Objections to hinder their proceeding, or to save my purse: Since if a Briefe do not Succeede, and that there be an Absolute Necessity of so speedily Rebuilding it, I shall not be slack in Contributing towards it as becomes me. Sir I remaine Yours Says-Court 18 May – 1696.

3 the Regents during the king’s absence on the continent May–Oct. 1695 and May–Oct. 1696 4 The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 concluded the campaign begun in 1689 by William III against Louis XIV.

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John Williams Letter 761 (859) June 15, 1696 f 102v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLIX To Dr. Williams Prebendary of Canterbery, etc. at Canterbery

[LM: Since a Bishop:] Worthy Sir, At my being in the Country some Moneths since, and among other things falling into discourse with some Gentlemen, of De Cartes (whose life has lately ben so handsomely writen in French)1 they were wishing my Lord of Salisbery2 would gratifie the World with something he seem’d to let fall in his Funeral Panegyric3 about his giving us the Life of that noble Person, and my deare Friend Mr. Boyle: It was said that his Lordship had then indeede such an Intention; but had since so little Leasure; that he would readily Assist any who should be thought fit to undertake it. Mr. Wotton (now Tutor to a Son of Mr. Finch,4 late Solicitor to the King Charles the 2d, and my neighbour here in Surry) came presently into my Thoughts, as One that might be prevail’d with, to Ease my Lord of Sarum: Nor did he (after some modest excuses) refuse the Task, if his Lordship approv’d of it. Not long after, I Acquainted my Lord of Canterbery, and the rest of the Trustees,5 with what had pass’d, who were all so well satisfied with the proposal and seasonablnesse of promoting so desierable a Work (not onely for publishing to the World so Illustrious an Example, as the Life of Mr. Boyle; but to prevent any Impertinent Scribler from Imposing on it, any thing under such a Title, should it be long neglected) that his Grace writ immediately to my Lord of Sarum about it, and receiv’d an Answer, concurring with their Opinions of Mr. Wottons Abillity to performe it: Since my coming now to Towne, his Grace Informes me of an Intention, which he has very lately heard, of Printing the Works of Mr. Boyle together in one Volume,6 and that you have ben bespoken to write a Preface to it, wherein you may possibly might give an Account of the Authors Life; and therefore, though he knows nothing of it certainely, Advis’d me to write to you about it, before Mr. Wotton should be too far Ingag’d: Those who know Mr. Wotton, his Style, and other Talents (a Specimen whereof, I doubt not but you have seene in what he has publish’d

1 Adrien Baillet, La Vie de Monsieur Des-Cartes (Paris, 1691) 2 Gilbert Burnet 3 A Sermon preached at the Funeral of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London, 1692). See Letter 756 above. 4 Heneage Finch 5 Sir Henry Ashurst and Sir John Rotherham were the other trustees of the Boyle Lectures 6 See Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends, xxxviii–xxxix for Arthur Charlett’s plan to produce an ­edition of Boyle’s collected works. Thomas Birch edited the first edition (in 5 volumes) in 1744.

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upon an Essay of Sir William Temple, concerning the Antient and Modern Learning)7 will allow him to be one of extraordinary Parts for his time; nor perhaps Impar Oneri,8 if Dr. Williams be not Ingag’d: But I am certaine if he be, Mr. Wotton will neither presume nor pretend to take the Pencil in hand after such an Artist. ’Tis now more than 40 Yeares I have had the honor of being Acquainted with Mr. Boyle, and partly with his studies; and though I question not, but that besides the Enumeration of his Vertues, and singular Piety, you will give the World an ample Account of his Family and Relations, Person, Education, Learning, Travells, Correspondences both Abroad and at Home; in all which, he was so exemplarily Conspicuous; yet, when I consider those innumerable heaps of Letters and Papers, and other Circumstances of his Life, to be Consulted, Read-over and Digested; together with what must be gather’d from his Friends and more intimate Conversations; which instead of a Præface will require a worke by it selfe, and no small Labour; I begin with his Grace to doubt we are not so perfectly assur’d, that Dr. Williams is more at Leasure than my Lord of Salisbery, for such a buisy Work, as I am sure he is aboundantly Able to performe it, and to be prefer’d to any other, if he seriously undertake it. Be pleased therefore Worthy Sir, to let me Understand in a few lines, how far you are Ingag’d, and how this matter stands, of which my Lord Arch-Bishop tells me, he has so little Certainty. I suspend an Answer to a letter of Mr. Wottons (wherein he tells me of his Resolution to proceede upon the Work), ’til I receive a Confirmation from your selfe, of what is Reported here, hoped you are about, and to which I heartily wish all successe, who am Sir Your etc. London 15 June. 1696.

Sidney Godolphin Letter 762 (860) June 16, 1696 ff 103–4

Epistle DCCCLX To my Lord Godolphin One of the Lord Justices, and First Comissioner of the Treasury:

My Lord, There are now almost foure Yeares Elaps’d, since looking over some Papers of mine, I found among other things, divers Notes, which I had taken, relating to Medals; when Reflecting upon the Usefullnesse of the Historical part of that noble study, and Considering 7 Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (London, 1694) 8 unequal to the task

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that there had ben little, or indeede rather nothing at all written of it among us here in England (whilst our other Country abounded in many excellent Books and Authors of greate Name, on this Subject) I began to divert my solitary Thoughts by Reducing and putting my Scatter’d Collection into such Method as grew at Last to a formal Treatise: Among other particulars (after I had more at large dispatch’d what concern’d the Greeke and Roman, and those of the lower Empire) I endeavor’d the gather[in]g up all such Medals as I could anywhere find had ben struck before and since the Conquest (if any such there were) relating to any part of good History: Now though Mony and Coines during the severall Reignes of almost all our Kings, from the British, to this present time (as may be seene in what Mr. Walker has added to the late Edition of Cambden)1 be forraine to my Subject; and that I could meete with none which deserved the Name of Medal, ’til the two last Centuries; yet I could not well avoyd Speaking something of the Mint, where Medals were Coin’d as well as Mony: The Copy being thus Prepar’d for the Presse, I two yeares since deliver’d to a Book-seller;2 who after he had wrought off almost 80 Pages in folio, emulating what had ben don and publish’d by Jaques de Bie, and Monsieur Bizot in their Histoire Metalique of France and Holland,3 would needes be at the Charge of Ingraving an hundred Stamps to adorne a Chapter relating to our English Medals: This, requiring Time (and far better Artists, than any I perceive he is like to find) retarding the Publication of his Book; I thought it might not be either unseasonable, or unagreable to your Lordship, if on this conjuncture of Affaires (and when every body are discoursing of these matters) I did present your Excellency with a part of that Chapter concerning Mony, which (though passing through the same Mechanisme) I distinguish from Medal at the beginning of my First Chapter, proceeding in the VIIth to that of the Mint. It is there that I shew (after all the expedients offerd and pretended) for the Recovery and Security of this Nation from the greate danger it is in, by the wicked practises of those who of late have so impudently ruin’d the publique [word deleted] Therefore Credit and Faith of all man-kind among us, by clipping, debasing, and all other unrighteous ways of perverting the Species,4 what it is which can possibly put a stop to the Evil and Mischiefe, that it go no farther; if at least it have not ben so long neglected, as to be Remediable: But my Lord, this is not all: There are severall other Things of exceeding greate Importance which had neede be taken care of, and to be set on foote Effectualy, for the Obviating the growing Mischiefs, destructive to the flourishing state of this Mercantile Nation: Amongst the Rest–

1 Walker contributed some notes to Gibson’s 1695 translation of Camden’s Britannia. See also his The Greek and Roman History illustrated by coins and medals (London, 1692). 2 Benjamin Tooke 3 Jacques de Bie, La France metallique, contenant les actions celebres tant publiques que priuées des rois et reynes remarquées en leurs medailles d’or, argent et bronze (Paris, 1634); Pierre Bizot, Histoire metallique de la republique de Hollande (Paris, 1687) 4 The clipping of the edges of coins had been a problem since the Restoration but became more acute in the 1690s because of a shortage of money. See Diary V.186, 229, 242, 245–6, 253, 256. Evelyn notes that new money was being minted on 23 February 1696 (Diary V.231).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

1093

There is certainely wanting a Council of Trade,5 that should not be so call’d onely; but realy be in Truth, what it is call’d: Compos’d of a Wise, Publique Spirited, Active and noble President; a sellect number of Assessors, Sober, Industrious, and Dextrous men, and of consummate experience in Rebus agendis:6 who should be arm’d with competent force at Sea, to protect the greater Commerce, and general Trade; if not Independent of the Admiralty; not without an almost Co-ordinate Authority as far as concernes the protection of Trade; and to be maintain’d chiefely by those who as they Adventure most, receive the greatest Benefit; To these should likewise be Committed the Care of the Manufactures of the Kingdome, with stock for Employment of the poore; by which might be moderated, that unreasonable Statute for their Relief (as now in force)7 occasioning more Idle Persons, who charge the Publique without all reason; as reamedy, to the Occasioning more Idle Persons than otherwise there would be, insufferably burdning the Parishes, by being made made to earne their Bread honestly, who now Eate it in Idlenesse, and take it out of the Mouthes of the truely Indigent, much inferior in Number, and worthy Objects of Charity. It is by such a Council, that the Swarms of Private Traders, who, though not appearing in mighty Torrents and Streames; Yet like a Confluence of silent, almost indiscernable, but innumerable Riveletts; do evidently draine, and exhaust the Greater Hydrophylacia8 and Magazines; nay the very Vital Blood of Trades where there is no follower to supply those many Issues, without which, the Constitution of the Body Politic, like to the Natural, needes must faile for want of Nourishment and Recruits: But whom this Article affects, I have spoken in my Discourse of Mony:9 Tis likewise to this Assembly, that all Proposals of new Inventions (pretended for the Publique Benefit) should first be brought, and examin’d; Incourag’d or Rejected, without Reproch as Projectures, or turning the Unsuccessfull Proposer to Ridicule, by a Barbarity without Example, no where countenanc’d but in this Nation. Another no lesse Exhauster, and Waster of the Publique Treasure, is, the Progresse, and Increase of Buildings about this already Monstrous Citty;10 wherein one Yeare with another, are erected above 800 Houses as I am credibly Inform’d; which carrys away such prodigious Summs of our best, and weightiest Mony by the Norway Trade for DealeTimber onely;11 but exports nothing hence of moment, to Balance it; besids Sand and Gravell to Balance their Empty Ships, whilst doubtlesse those other more necessary Commodities (were it well Incourag’d) might in a short time, be brought us in greate 5 Since Evelyn’s involvement with the Council of Trade (1660–74) and his projected “History of Trades” (Diary III.268 and n. 2) he had been concerned for the reform of trade and licensing. 6 things to be done 7 In 1697 John Locke proposed a reform of the Poor Law that included “working schools” for poor children. See Woolhouse, Locke: A Biography, 396–7. 8 Evelyn seems to have confused this uncommon Greek word meaning “a person who is in charge of reservoir or aqueduct” with the reservoir itself. 9 Numismata (1697) 10 a subject that had concerned Evelyn since Fumifugium (1661) 11 compare the case made in Sylva for the development of local forests; see also Milton’s comparison of Satan’s “wand” to a Norway pine used for a ship’s mast (Paradise Lost I.292–4).

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Measure (and much preferrable to their goodnesse) from our owne Plantations, which now we fetch from others for our Naval stores. Truely, my Lord I cannot but wonder, and even stand Amaz’d; that Parliaments should have sate from time to time, so many hundred Yeares, and value their Constitution to that degree, as the most Sovrain Remedy for the Redresse of Publique Grievances; whilst the Greatest still remaine un-reform’d and untaken-away: Wittnesse, the Confus’d, Debauch’d and Royatous manner of Electing Members,12 qualified to Choose the Representatives of a Nation, with Legis-lative power to dispose of the Fate of Kingdomes; which should, and would be compos’d of worthy Persons, of known Integritie and Ability in their respective Countries, and still would serve them generously, and as their Ancestors have don; but are not able to fling away a Son, or Daughters Portion to bribe the Votes of a Drunken Multitude, more resembling a Pagan Bacchanalia than an Assembly of Christians and sober men (met upon the most Solemn Occasi[on] that can concerne a People) and stand in competition with some Rich Scrivener, Brewer or Banker, or one in some Gainefull Office; whose Face or name perhaps they never saw, or knew before: How my Lord must this sound Abroad! With what Dishonor, and Shame at Home! To this add the disproportion of the Burroughs, capable of Electing Members; by which the Major part of the whole Kingdome are frequently Out-Voted, be the Cause never so Unjust, if it concern a Party Interest. Will ever those Swarmes of Locusts La – – [wyers] and Attourneys, who fill so many Seates; Vote for a Publique Register, by which men may be secured of their Titles and Possessions, and an Infinity of Suits and frauds prevented? Immoderate Fees, tedious and ruinous Delays, and tossings from Court to Court, before an Easy Cause (which might be determin’d by honest Gentlemen and understanding Neighbours) can come to any final Issue, may be numbred amongst the most vexatious Oppressions, that call alowd for Redresse. The Want of Bodys (slaves) for Publique and Laborious Works, to which many sorts of Criminals might be Usefully Condemn’d and some Reform’d (instead of sending them to the Gallows) deserves to be consider’d. These, and the like, are the greate Desiderata (as well as the Reformation of the Coine) which are plainely Wanting to the Consumate Felicity of this Nation; and divers of them of absolute Necessitie to its Recovery from the Atrophy and Consumption it labours ­under. The King himselfe should (my Lord) be Acquainted with these particulars, and of the greate Importance of them; by such as for their Wisedome and Integrity, deserve the neerest Accesse, and would Purchase him the Hearts of a Free, and Emancipated People, and a Blessing on the Government; were he pleas’d Uncessantly to Recommend them to those who from time to time are call’d together for these Ends, and Healing of the Nation.

12 New laws against corruption in elections were passed in 1700, but in February 1701 Evelyn was still complaining that “there was never know so much perjury, bribery & other enormous means used in the Election of this Parliament, filled with young debauched boys & worthless members” (Diary V.446).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

1095

And now your Excellency will doubtlesse Smile at this politique Excursion, and perhaps at the Biscoctum13 of the rest; whilst the Yeares to which I am by Gods greate goodnesse ariv’d: Your Lordship Commands in a former letter to me; some Conversation with Men, and the World, as well as Books, in so large a tract, and variety of Events and Wonders, as this period has brought forth; might Justifie one, among such Crowds of pretenders to Ragioni di Stato;14 some of which I daily meete to come abroad with the Shell still on their heads;15 who talke as Confidently of these Matters, as if they were Counsellers of state and first Ministers; with their Sapient and expecting lookes, and whom none must Contradict: And no doubt but (as Job said) they are the People, and Wisedome is to die with them:16 To such, I have no more to say; whilst I Appeale to your Lordship, whose Real, and Consummate Experience, greate Prudence and dexterity in Rebus agendis without Noise; were enough to silence a Thousand such as I am: I therefore Implore your Pardon againe, for what I may have written Weakely, or Rashly. In such a Tempest, and over-grown a Sea, everybody is Concern’d, and whose head (save your Excellencys) is not ready to turne? I am sure, I should myselfe almost despaire of the Vessel, if I save any save your Lordship were at the Helme; But whilst your Hand is on the staff, and your Eye upon the star, I compose my selfe and Rest Secure. Surry streete 16 June 1696

John Place Jr1 Letter 763 (861) August 17, 1696 f 104r–v

Epistle DCCCLXI To Mr. Place

Mr. Place, I have seriously consider’d your Letter concerning your Resolution of Sparing no Cost, whereby you may Benefit the Publique, as well as Recompence your owne Charge and Industry (which truely is a generous Inclination, not so frequently met with amongst most Book-Sellers) by Inquiring how you might possibly supply what is Wanting to our Country (now beginning to be somewhat pollish’d in their manner of Building, and indeede to the Accomplishment of the English Language also) by the Publication of what ever may 13 14 15 16

twice-cooked, overcooked reasons of state probably a reference to Sir Politic Would-Be who hides in a shell to spy in Jonson’s Volpone. Job 2:2

1 John Place Jr was the son of John Place (1645–86; I), the publisher of Evelyn’s Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern (1664, 1680) who had a shop at Furnivals-Inn Gate in Holborn. He ­corresponded with Evelyn between 1694 and 1698.

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be thought Conducible to either: In order to this, you have some time since Acquainted me with your Intention of Reprinting the Parallel;2 desiering that I would Revise it, and Consider what Improvements may decently be added in relation to your general designe: As for the Parallel, I take it to be so very Usefull, and perfect in its kind, and as far as it pretends to (namely all that was material in those Ten Masters upon the Orders)3 that I cannot think of any thing it farther needes to render it more Intelligible. As for what I have annex’t to it, concerning Statues, My Good Friend Mr. Gibbon4 would be Consulted; and for the Latter; so much as I conceive is necessary, I will take care to send you with your Interpolated Copy. In the meane time, touching that Universall Work, or Cycle, which you would have Comprehend, and Imbrace the intire Art of Building, together with all its Accessories for Magnificence and Use, without obliging you to the paines in Gleaning, when a whole Harvest is before you; or the trouble of calling many to your Assistance (which would be tedious) I cannot think of a better, more Instructive, and Judicious an Expedient; than by your procuring a good, and faithful Translation of that excellent Piece, which has lately been Publish’d by Monsieur D’Avilar;5 were he made to speake English in the proper Termes of that Art, by some Person Conversant in the sort the French, and if neede be, Adding to him some Assistant, such as you would have recommended to me, if my leasure, and present Circumstances, could have comply’d with my Inclinations of promoting so beneficial a designe. I should here enumerate the Particulars he runs through, in my opinion sufficiently Copious, and in as polish’d, and yet as easy and familiar a style as the subject is capable of: In nothing exceeding the capacity of our ordinary Workmen; or unworthy the Study and Application of the noblest persons who employ them; and to whom a more than ordinary and superficial knowledge in Architecture is no small Accomplishment: I say I should add the Contents of his Chapters, and the excellent Notes he has subjoyn’d to a better Version of Vignole, Michael Angelo and the rest of our most celebrated Modern Architects, and their Worke; together with all thats extant of Antique, and yet in being, apply’d to Use, and worthy knowing: If I thought you had not already heard of the Book, since it has now ben 4 or 5 yeares extant, and since Reprinted in Holland, as all the best, and most Vendible Books are, to the greate prejudice of their Authors, by their not onely printing them without any Errata, by which the Reader might Reform them, or (as if there had been this had none at all) correcting the faults themselves, which indeede, that of the Paris Edition 2 Place proposed republishing Evelyn’s Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern. He subsequently heard that Tooke would reprint the work and wrote to Evelyn demanding a half-share in the enterprise (Add 78318: f 110 [14.5.1696]), a proposal to which Evelyn’s draft reply on the reverse agrees, so long as Place can agree with Tooke. Place replied in Add 78318: f 112 [15.8.1696]). The book was not in fact reprinted until 1707 by Tooke and others. 3 Palladio, Scamozzi, Serlio, Vignola, D. Barbaro, Cataneo, L.B. Alberti, Viola, Bullant, Delorme 4 Grinling Gibbons 5 Augustin-Charles d’Aviler (1653–1700), Cours d’architecture qui comprend les ordres de Vignole, avec des commentaires, les figures & descriptions de ses plus beaux bâtimens & de ceux de Michel-Ange, etc. (Paris, 1696). D’Aviler also intended to write an architectural dictionary with an explication of the terms of architecture, but he died before completing it and it was included in Le Blon’s dictionary.

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(faire as it seemes, and is in the Elegancy of the Character) exceedingly will neede, before it be Translated, by whom soever taken in hand. But as the letters, and its other beauties exceedes the Dutch Edition, so do likewise the Plates, which are don with that accuratenesse and care, as may almost commute for the Over-sights of the Presse: I do not say the Holland Sculps are ill perform’d; but though they seeme to be pretty well Copied, they will yet require a strict Examination, and then I think they might be made use of, and a competent number of Plates (provided not overmuch worn) procur’d at a far easier rate out of Holland, than by having them perhaps, not so well graven here, for ’tis not the Talent of every Artist, though skill’d in heads and figures (of which we have very few) to trace the Architect as he ought: But if they could be obtain’d from Paris, as happly (with Permission) they might, it were much to be preferr’d: I forgot to tell you, that there is a most accurate, learned and critical Dictionary by the same Author, explaining (in a 2d part) not onely the Termes of Architecture, but of all those other Arts, that waite upon, and are subservient to her, which is very Curious. And now if what I have said in Recommending this Work, for the full Accomplishment of your Laudable Designs (and which in truth, I think were aboundantly sufficient) Induce you to proceede in it; and that you would with it present the publique with a much more Elegant Letter, than I believe England has ever seene among all our Printers; perhaps it were worth your while, to render it one of the First Productions of that noble Presse, which my worthy and most learned Friend Dr. Bently (his Majesties Library-Keeper at St. James’s) is with greate Charge and Industrie erecting now at Cambridge.6 There is another Piece of Mechanics, and some other very rare and usefull Arts agreable to this of Architecture (and incomparably Curious) which if Translated and joynd to the rest, would (without Contradiction) render it a most desierable and perfect Work: If when you passe this way, you will visite a lame man (who is oblig’d to stay within at present) I shall endeavor to Satisfie you in anything I may have omitted here; but the tiring of you and my selfe with a tedious Scribble (upon your late Importunity before my leaving this Towne) which you may wish I had omitted. Surrey streete 17 August. 1696

6 See McKenzie, The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712, I, 6–16, and “Richard Bentley’s Design for the Cambridge University Press,” and Letter 784. Place denied to Bentley that he had been given this suggestion (letter of 17 October in Bentley, Correspondence, 125–6) when he asked Bentley to undertake translations for the proposed edition of the Parallel; Evelyn’s response to Bentley (letter of 18 October in Bentley, Correspondence, 127–8) attacked Place for acting “impertinently” in approaching Bentley only as a translator.

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 764 (862) August 3, 1696 f 105

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLXII To his Excellency, my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, Though my lamenesse obliges me to keepe within at present, and my Duty1 (which has now kept me in Towne these 4 moneths) to continue here with so little progresse in discharge of it: It will not I hope be imputed to my want of Endeavor to promote the best, and most noble Resolution of his Majestie for the Incouragement of Sea-men, and of the greatest Concern to this Nation whatever: With what universal, flagrant Zeale and forewardnesse this was first begun and set on foote, your Lordship is Witnesse: But as all other Good things, begun with much fervor (but wherein men have no particular Interest) in this fatal, and indeede Ominous period, and want of publique Spirits, quickly tires and flaggs: So of all the numerous Catalogue of Commissioners, who were wont to meete in Order to promote the Designe, and answer his Majesties Expectations; there rarely now appeare above 5 or 6 to make a Quorum upon the most urgent Occasions. We have all along ben mightily call’d upon to lay the Foundation, that People might see it was in Earnest, and that then we should not feare the want of Benefactors in aboundance.2 ’Tis don my Lord, and a multitude of hands employ’d, and Material contracted for; to whom there is due considerable Summs; but no Mony to pay them of all the Subscribers: so as unlesse it be what your Lordship (who is the very First, and as yet, the onely Effectual Contributer)3 has put into my hands (with permission to dispose of it, though to the uttmost disadvantage on this pressing Occasion) [RM: being Bank bills]4 the whole Work had stood still, and ben abandon’d, like the Towne in the Parable. I am urg’d to go about, and aske for Mony of the Greate Persons (subscribers) and accordingly I have ben with the Duke of Shrewsbery, Earles of Dorset, Pembroc, My Lord Keeper, Lord Montague, and severall other noble men, knights and Gentlemen of the first Rank etc. My Lord, The[y] seeme to looke on and avoyd me, as one Carying the Pest about me; I am however not a little Astonish’d; that among all those Rich and Opulent Gentlemen and Citizens, who have are known to have vast Summs by them, I should not find one, who (seeing the Straites we are in, and seeming to pitty us) has so much as Ask’d the Question; whether an hundred pound would do us any service pleasure:5 But so it is my Lord, that those who 1 as treasurer of the Greenwich Hospital Committee 2 On 30 June Evelyn reports: “I went with a select committee of the Commissioners for the fabrik of Greenewich Hospital, & with Sir Chr: Wren the Surveyor, where with him I laied the first stone of that intended foundation” (Diary V.249). 3 See Diary V.249 (4 July). 4 notes for credit issued at advantageous rates of interest by the bank 5 On the cartouche of donors outside The Painted Hall at Greenwich, Evelyn’s is the second name, as ­having given £2000.

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most highly magnify the designe, and subscrib’d so liberaly, are the most backward to Advance it[.] Your Lordships of the Treasury have given me Tallies for £2000 upon the best funds (on the post office) but not one of them can I possibly dispose of, for a single hundred, under neere 40 per cent: See then to what we have brought matters, by this prodigious corruption and neglect of the Coynes, and where it will end, God alone knows: My Lord, this stop (as to our Reguard, and the Worke we are plung’d in) requires your strenuous Assistance: Permit not my Lord, so glorious a designe to sink for want of a little Supply: Can Sir Robert Clayton, Mr. Duncomb,6 who offer at, and accomplish Purchases of £100000 want an hundred pound on such security: They shamefull[y] shrink, and I am asham’d at their poore spirits: I beseech your Lordship to lay it before your Board, and the absolute Necessity of some Reliefe, that the poore Labourers at least, may receive their hire, least the Reproch lie where it will be very unwellcome: In the meane time, I have don my Duty, and your Lordship will justifie it, which is a greate Satisfaction to My Lord your 3 August. 1696.

Officers of the King’s Yard, Deptford Letter 765 (863) September 8, 1696 f 105v

Epistle DCCCLXIII To the Gentlemen and Officers of his Majesties Yard, at Deptford

[LM: Subscrib’d by Mr. Holden the Viccar and Chiefe of the Towne.] Gentlemen, So soon as your Letter with the Indors’d from Sir Richard Raynce1 (Judge of the Arches) came to my hands, I went immediately to White-Hall; that possibly finding my Lord of Canterbery, with the rest of the Lords Justices I might with his Graces favour and Assistance, Represent the Sad Condition of the poore Man;2 for whom you are Intercessors to

6 When describing the currency crisis, Evelyn singles out “Duncumb not long since, a meane Goldsmith, having made a purchase of neere 90000 pounds of the late D. of Buckinghams Estate, & reputed to have neere as much in Cash” (Diary V.246). 1 Richard Raines 2 The man in question, “Thomas Sherman, master carpenter of His Majesty’s frigate the Portsmouth prize,” had quarreled with the boatswain who, in the absence of the captain (Ramsey) ordered that Sherman “be confined in the cook-room, where he was almost smothered to death with smoke.” Sherman had broken the door with his foot and “rushed on deck with a sword, uttering passionate words” which led to his condemnation to death by court martial. Richard Holden had sent word to Evelyn at his son-in-law’s house in Surrey St asking for his intervention. CSP Dom. 1696: 377. See Letter 766.

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their Excellencys: But the Style of that High Extraordinary Council, being ever by Petition; his Grace (whom I had before in private Accquainted with your Request, finding the Omission) Advis’d me to get one drawne in forme, as from the poore Woman his Wife: Which accordingly I did: And then my Lord coming out to me (for they were now shut up in Council) was pleased to take the Papers, and carry[ing] them in himselfe, gave me the opportunity of laying before their Excellencys, what you had written to me, and of saying what Charity and Pitty suggested to me, in concurrence with what you had so much better express’d, and represented in your letter to me: Nor were their Excellencys at all Unaffected with what was petition’d in his behalfe: But as they did allways in these Cases referr them to the Commissioners of the Admiralty, the[y] did not think fit to use their power of Granting Pardon, ’til that Board had ben Acquainted with it, which should be immediately be don; and then they would Consider, what favour might be shew’d consistent with the Circumstances of his fault: Upon this I went presently to my long Acquaintance and worthy Friend Mr. Bridgeman3 [LM: Secretary to the Admiralty]; inform’d him what had pass’d with their Excellencys; and in all your names earnestly besought his favour, when the Cause should come before their Board from the Lord Justices. He told me, that how ever dispos’d he was to Commiserate the Condition of the Un-happy-man, and would do him all the kindnesse he could; he was yet afraid, if their Excellencys Resolutions depended on their Report; there would be little Hopes of Reversing the Sentence; so inflexibly resolv’d, he at all times found them, to preserve the Discipline of the Fleete (as to this particular)[.] Sir Richard Haddoc4 had already ben it seemes, at the Board on the same account, to bespeake their favour, but without Effect: which makes me feare it may go hard with the poore Man; for which, as I should be most heartily Sorry; so if there be any-thing else, in which my Service may Signifie to the Reliefe of the poore man, or the Comfort of his afflicted Wife, I shall be very ready to receive your Commands. JE. London 8: September 1696

Thomas Tenison Letter 766 (864) September 9, 1696 ff 105v–6

Epistle DCCCLIV To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbery

May it please your Grace, The Importunity of all the Officers belonging to his Majesties Yard at Deptford (who, by my long observation, are inflexibly severe, as to any favour of Mutineres) are generaly 3 William Bridgeman (1645/6–99; ODNB). 4 Sir Richard Haddock (c.1629–1715; ODNB, H). A commissioner of the navy (1673–82) and knighted in 1675, Haddock was joint admiral (August–December 1690) and comptroller of the navy (1682–1715).

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so Affected with the sad Condition of the poore Condemned Man;1 that I cannot withstand their reiterated Request; I would yet Implore your Graces favour, and the rest of their Excellencys in his behalfe; unanimously affirming his behaviour to have ever ben so averse from giving the least Suspicion of Disloyalty or ill-Intention; that they verily believe the Words he utterd, proceeded onely from the meere Disturbance of his braine, put into Disorder by the Smoke, which had in all liklyhood Smother’d him, if he had not forc’d his getting out of the Place, wherein they had shut him, into the fresh aer, after long Intreaty: Their Excellencys will therefore distinguish betweene words rashly spoken by one not in his Senses, and almost perishing. The Lords of the Admiralty2 (to whom I heare your Excellencys are Referring it) use not indeede to Recede from the severest Discipline, as doubtlesse necessary: It is therefore onely in your Excellencys power to Extend your Mercy in a Case and Circumstances, so very Singular: The Unhappy Man is said to have a Wife, and many Children, who are Objects likewise of Commiseration: My Lord, I humbly beg your Graces Pardon for this; and hope the Importunity of the Gentlemen my late Neighbours (Captaines and Officers of the Navy) so much concern’d for this poore man, will justifie this Presumption of my Lord Your Surreystreete ix September – 1696:

Sidney Godolphin Letter 767 (865) August 12, 1696 f 106

Epistle DCCCLXV To my Lord Godolphin.

My Lord, It is a sensible Affliction to me, and a greate Misfortune to my Son; that his present Indisposition (though in so hopefull a way of Recovery, and apparent Amendment) this moist and unfriendly Season, concurr to hinder him from waiting on, and doing his duty to your Lordship and Patron:1 If therefore my greate Concernment for his Preservation, 1 See Letter 765. In Tenison’s reply of 11 September 1696 (Add 4274: f 75 [11.9.1696]) Sherman’s offence is described as “muling”: possibly “mulling” – “creating a stir in an underhand way.” 2 There were no judges of the High Court of Admiralty at this time. The lords of the commission were Edward Russell, Henry Priestman, Robert Austen, Sir Robert Rich, Sir George Hoole, Sir John Houblon, and James Kendal. The entry in CSP Dom. 1695: 377 contains a digest of the recommendation of Captain Thomas Willshall and Robert Castle that Sherman be pardoned. 1 John Evelyn Jr’s illness became an increasing concern for his father hereafter (see Letters 772, 787, 796, 799, 802, 805) and led to an extensive correspondence with Sir Hans Sloane. Evelyn notes his return from Ireland on 13 May (Diary V.240), and that he was “Indispos’d.” At this time he was at Bath for a cure, from which his mother said he benefitted (Add 78301: f 65 [24.7.1696]; f 68 [7.9.1696]).

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and the absolute necessity of his continuance in some Imployment Suitable to his Circumstances (where he may enjoy his better health in his native Country, and neere his Relation) put me againe upon this humble Application to your Lordship in his behalfe. I know your Lordships goodnesse will not condemn, nor reprove the Recourse I must ever have in all my difficulties and concernes. For whither naturaly should I go? Who so able to Assist me? Who so generously obliging: I Confesse a Customers2 Place, now Vacant by the Death of Sir Patience Ward (howsoever the most Adæquate to, and therefore the most desierable in his Circumstances) cannot want for Competitors, of greate Interest; nor dos he hope to succeede in so bold a Request: I humbly therefore take hold of this Occasion to bespeake your Lordships Favour (if it either be too late, or too immodest a Request) for something of this nature, though of th lesse Value, and that your Lordship will have him in your kind thoughts, for her Sake, for whom alone you have ben, and still continue so kind to me: And if from that alone I still pretend pleade Title, and almost Præscription to a perpetuity of your Favour (how many soever I daily receive) I allways come with Confidence but not with boldnesse. I thank God my Son wants strength rather than Health at present, which he finds greately Improv’d since his being in England; where that he may continue without a necessity of returning into Ireland, by the aboundant favour of your Lordship; as he will owne owe his Life and even Subsistence to your Goodnesse; so must I for the Preservation of a Son and of a Family, who have but one more to Support it Surry Street 12 August. 1696

William Bridgeman Letter 768 (866) September 15, 1696 f 106

Epistle DCCCLXVI To William Bridgeman Esquire Secretary to the Admiralty:

Sir, After six moneths now dilligent attendance, with my best endevor to promote the progresse of that Royal Foundation1 in which with the rest, you have more especialy shew’d a Zeale worthy your Character: That my Absence in the Country for some considerable time, may be no prejudice, My Son in Law Mr. Draper2 (whom you will find every way 2 a place in the office of the customs 1 Greenwich Hospital, of which Evelyn was treasurer to the committee, was a continuing thorn in Evelyn’s side, especially when he was at Wotton. See for example an indignant letter of 29 November (Add 78300: f 110v [29.11.1696]), in reply to one of Draper’s of 22 November (Add 78300: f 112 [22.11.1696]) and Letter 775 to Sir Stephen Fox. 2 William Draper was a member of the Greenwich Hospital Committee and appeared on Evelyn’s behalf when he was unable to attend meetings. He succeeded Evelyn as treasurer.

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Qualified and without Exception) is so kind, as to supply my Place upon all occasions that may concern my Duty: By him it is, that I beg your Favour of excusing my not waiting on you or the rest of the honourable Commissioners this day; preparing for my Journey, and that you will do me the honor of your Correspondence now, and then with Sir Your etc. Surry Stret 15. September –1696

Mrs Draper Letter 769 (867) September 16, 1696 f 106v

Epistle DCCCLXVII To my Sister Draper:

My deare Sister, I know not of any thing worthy to stand among the Curiosities of your most Elegant Closet: however, I have ben so presumptuous as to beg your Acceptance of this little Present; [LM: a repeating Table Clock] which yet were I present with you, I should blush at the Smalenesse of it: My Obligations for so many Favours to me and mine being above any expression of Words; I shall ever pray to God to supply this defect, to give you health, and the Continuance of it, who am, Dear Sister Your

16: September: 1696

Sidney Godolphin Letter 770 (868) September 18, 1696 f 106v

Epistle DCCCLVIII To my Lord Godolphin etc.

My Lord: Your Favour Interceeding with his Majestie for an Abatement of that so exorbitant a Fine (my Case being so very Singular) is of that Concern greate Importance and Concern at Says-Court, that I hope your Lordship will beare with the Importunity, after my so many yeares being in danger of Supplanting, by the Greate man,1 who Labours to deprive me

1 For details of this case involving Thomas Osborne, 1st duke of Leeds (formerly earl of Danby and marquis of Carmarthen), see Diary V.195 and n. 2.

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and mine of a Tennants Right, for the future, of a just Title (were Justice don me) to the Inheritance, as your Lordship well knows; not onely solemnly promis’d me by a greate King;2 but dearly purchas’d also: But I submitt, and Acquiesce this in his Providence (whatever be the Event) who has betstow’d on me that which I realy Value above any thing in this World (next the favour of God) your Lordships Friendship and Kindnesse to Your etc. 18 September –1696

Richard Bentley Letter 771 (869) October 18, 1696 f 106v

Epistle DCCCLXIX To Dr. Bently etc.1

Worthy Friend, I cannot but exceedingly wonder, that the hints you gave my Lord of Canterbery, and the promotion of Dr. *Williams, [LM: *made Bishop of Bath and Wells:] should produce no discourse about the Lecture;2 and of what I assure you pass’d betweene us, a few days before my coming hither; as also with Sir William Ashurst:3 I do not comprehend the meaning of this proceeding; nor shall I be at Ease, ’til I do: My Son Evelyn (who is now here with me, going hence tomorrow, and is the deferent of this to you) has another from me to his Grace;4 In which I take occasion to mind him of what I advise he should speake nothing of; for it could be no lapse of Memory; some other Mysterie there must be in it, of which you shall be Sure to receive an Account, and in the meane time a copy of what I am writing: But were you not to blame in not asking who his Grace would nominate upon the new Bishops exit? Modesty due Too much modesty sometimes dos us harme except

2 Charles II 1 Evelyn is responding to a letter from Bentley of 17 October (Bentley, Correspondence, 125–6), who made no mention of the decision concerning the 1697 Boyle Lectures, and apologized for his delay in returning proofs for Numismata. 2 Evelyn replied to Bentley on 18 October, expressing concern over the status of the Boyle Lectures (in Bentley, Correspondence, 127–8). The lecturer for 1695 and 1696, John Williams, had been named bishop of Chichester, and a new candidate would be required. Evelyn wished them to revert to Bentley. He was unpleasantly surprised when informed that the trustees had selected Francis Gastrell (1662–1725; ODNB) to deliver the 1697 lectures. A graduate of Oxford (MA 1687, BD 1694, DD 1700), he was elected preacher at Lincoln’s Inn (1699) and appointed chaplain to Robert Harley, speaker of the House of Commons (1700). He was a canon of Christ Church (1703) and was consecrated bishop of Chester in 1714. Neither his theology nor his politics endeared him to Evelyn. 3 i.e., Sir Henry Ashurst 4 nor had he received any information from his proxy, Thomas Tenison; see Letter 772.

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in nolo Episcopari:5 As to what you write of the Printers,6 I am not solicitous; That which now lies upon my heart (besides this Concerne with my Lord of Canterbery) is, That we must be so soone, so long, and at so greate a distance as Worcester:7 But wherever, as I expect you will be speedily Call’d; so have you here and wherever I am, a most faithfull friend and Servant: Wotton: 18: October: Fast S. Luc:

Thomas Tenison Letter 772 (770) [n.d.] [between October 18 and 28, 1696]# f 107

Epistle DCCLXX To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbery:

My Lord, The Approching Session of Parliament, bringing-up to Town, my Lord of Lincoln,1 I could not forbeare giving the languishing Dr. Bohune2 the good hope of what your Grace has ben pleas’d to give me also, of your favour in his behalfe, whose Circumstances I am sensible of, to be very Un-Easy, and whose worth and learning bespeakes your Graces kindnesse, without my Intercession: But whenever I receive a Promise from so good, and Greate a Person as your Grace I looke upon it with Assurance, but not with boldnesse and Acquiesce. The Promotion of Dr. Bently Williams,3 being so good a Work, must I am sure have your Graces hand in it; whilst at the same time it re-calls to mind the Lecture,4 which I presume he will shortly lay-down: Your Grace, who dos me still the honor to continue my Proxy, remembers (when I lately tooke my leave of you at White-hall) how willing I should be that your grace my Suffrage for Dr. Bently, might be agreable to your Grace, when ever the next Election should happen; and I think it was with your Graces liking, as it was with Sir William Ashursts5 whom I met a little after: I heare the Doctor is preparing 5 “I do not wish to be bishop.” 6 Bentley was reading some of Benjamin Tooke’s proofs for Numismata (1697), and Evelyn anticipated further delay. 7 where Bentley, as chaplain to Bishop Stillingfleet of Worcester, would have to move, as Bentley had announced in his letter of 17 October

1 2 3 4

James Gardiner, bishop of Lincoln Evelyn had discussed Ralph Bohun with Tenison on 29 August (Diary V.256–7). John Williams, made bishop of Chichester, and Boyle Lecturer The Boyle Lectures, given to Francis Gastrell for 1697 (see Letter 771). Evelyn had given his vote by proxy to Tenison, who had selected Gastrell. Evelyn had preferred that they return to Bentley. 5 Sir Henry Ashurst

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the Sermons he is Indebted to us for the Presse;6 and since he seemes to have turned all his Thoughts, and studys so much that Way, and so laudably begun, and was your Graces first Choyce; I cannot but wish he may be your Second next: My Son (as yet Valetudinary) comes to Aske your Graces Blessing for himselfe, and for, My Lord Your Graces etc.

William Wotton Letter 773 (871) October 28, 1696 f 107r–v

Epistle DCCCLXXI To Mr. Wotton:

[RM: Answer to his of the same date.] Worthy Sir, I should exceedingly mistake the Person, and my owne Discernment, could I believe Mr. Wotton stood in the least neede of my Assistance; but such an Expression of yours to one, who so well knows his owne Imperfections, as I do mine, ought to be taken for a Reproche; since I am sure it cannot proceede from your Judgement. But forgiving this fault – I most heartily thank you for your Animadversion on Sylva; which though I frequently find it so writen for σúλμα1 and ὑλη, Wood, Timber, Wild and Forest-Trees, yet indeede I think it more properly belongs to a promiscuous casting of severall things together, and as I think my Lord Bacon has us’d it in his Natural History,2 without much reguard to Method. Deleatur therefore wherever you meete it. Concerning the Gardning and Husbandry of the Antients (which is your Inquirie) (especialy of the First) that it had certainely nothing approching the Elegancy of the present Age: Rapinus3 (whom I send you) will aboundantly satisfie you: The Discourse you will find at the end of Hortorum Lib: 4o Capp: 6.7. What they cal’d their Gardens were onely spacious plots of Grownd, planted with Platans4 and other shady trees in Walks, and built about with Porticos, Xisti and noble ranges of Pillars, adorn’d with Statues, Fountaines, Piscinas, Aviaries,5 etc. But for the Flowry parterr, beds of the Co Tulips, Carnations,

6 Bentley’s 1694 Boyle Lectures were not published. 1 i.e., σéλμα (?): logs and brush 2 Sylva sylvarum: or a Naturall Historie (London, 1627). Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists the 1651 edition (Eve.b.30). 3 René Rapin’s Hortorum libri IV (Paris, 1665; Eve.b.1) had been translated by John Evelyn Jr (Of Gardens. Four books [London, 1673; Eve.a.48]). 4 plane trees 5 Xysti: covered porticos or colonnades or walks planted with trees; piscinas: fish ponds or bathing ponds

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Auricula, Tuberose, Jonquills, Ranunculus, and other of our rare Coronaries;6 we heare nothing of; nor that they had such store and variety of Exotics, Orangeries, Myrtils, and other curious Greenes; nor do I believe they had their Ortchard in such perfection, nor by far our furniture for the Kitchin: Pliny7 indeede, enumerates a World of vulgar Plants and Olitories; but they fall infinitely short of our Physic-Gardens, Books [words deleted] and Herbals every day augmented by our sedulous Botanists, brought to us from all the quarters of the World:8 And as for their Husbandry and more rural Skill, of which the same Author has written so many Books in his Natural History especialy Lib: 17. 18 etc. you’l soone be judge what it was: They tooke greate care indeede of their Vines, and Olives, Stercorations, Ingraffing, and were dilligent in observing Seasons, the Course of the stars, etc. and doubtlesse were very Industrious; but when you shall have read over Cato, Varro, Columella, Palladio, with Constanti and the rest of the Greek Geopondes,9 I do not think you will have cause to preferr them before the modern Agriculture, so exceedingly of late Improv’d: for which you may Consult and Compare, our old Tusser, Markham, the Maison Rustic, Hartlib, Blyth,10 the Philosophical Transactions and other Books which you know better than my selfe: I have turn’d down the page, where poore Palissy11 begins his persisting Search: If you can suffer his prolix style, you will now and then light on things, not to be despiz’d. With him I send you a short Treatise concerning Metals, of Sir Hugh Platts12 which perhaps you have not seene: I am sorry I have no more of those Subjects here, having left the rest in my Library at Deptford,13 and know not how to get them hither, til I get thither: Sir, I am in no hast for the returne of these, if they may be Servicable to you; but in no little paine for the Trouble your Civility to mine puts one, who knows so much better how to employ his time, than to mind the Impertinences of Sir Your etc. Wotton: xxviii. October – 1696

6 flower gardens 7 Evelyn’s 1687 library catalogue lists two editions of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis (Leiden, 1669, and ­Geneva, 1615), and an English translation (London, 1631). 8 In this contest between ancients and moderns, the latter unequivocally prevail. 9 The agricultural works of the first century BC writers Cato, Varro and Columella were commonly collected as De re rustica and often included the work of the fifth-century writer Palladius. Evelyn had the Paris edition of 1543 and another of 1687 in his 1687 library catalogue. He also had Henri de Valois, Excerpta auctoris ignoti, de Constantio Chloro, Constantino Magno, et aliis impp (Paris, 1681). Geopondes were writers about cultivation, one of whom was Hesiod whose works Evelyn had both in Greek and in the 1618 English translation by George Chapman. 10 In the 1687 library catalogue: Thomas Tusser, A hundrethe good points of husbandrie (London, 1638); Gervase Markham, The second booke of the English husbandman. Contayning the ordering of the kitchingarden, and the planting of strange flowers: the breeding of all manner of cattell (London, 1615 ed.); Charles Estienne, L’Agriculture et Maison Rustique (Lyon, 1659); Samuel Hartlib, Samuel Hartlib his legacy of husbandry (London, 1655); and Walter Blith, The English improuer improued or the survey of husbandry surueyed (London, 1652). 11 Barnard Palissy, Le moyen de devenir riche (Paris, 1636; in the 1687 library catalogue). 12 Gabriel Plattes, A Discovery of Infinite Treasure hidden since the Worlds Beginning (London, 1639; in the 1687 library catalogue). Evelyn is confusing him with Sir Hugh Platt, the author of books on gardening. 13 See Hunter, “The British Library and the Library of John Evelyn,” 82–102 and Mandelbrote, “John Evelyn and his Books,” in Harris and Hunter, John Evelyn and His Milieu, 71–94.

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John Evelyn Jr Letter 774 (873) October 6, 1696# f 107v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLXXIII To my Son:

Though I am as much concern’d as any body possibly can be, both upon my owne Account and yours, at the Recesse of our *Patron; [LM: *Lord Godolphin]1 yet I am not so much Surpriz’d as I should have ben, if I had not expected it so long since as I gave you notice of it, if you well remember some time past: And though I conjecture from whence it comes (besides from the almost, insupportable difficulties and perplexities of the Province he has hitherto so laudably govern’d) yet I impatiently waite for what you may have learn’d of the Cause, who are so neere the sourse: There are some who emulate (not to say Envie) his parts and Station, and have long set traps for one whose Integrity, and Steadinesse will not Suffer him to Deviate, or hinder any (in whose light he possibly stood) from performing better in that station; which I heartily wish we may find in the conclusion: But of this, you will be better able to Judge: In the meane while, though I am of opinion, this Retirement will but give him the advantage of a greater exaltation, when they shall see the want of him; yet I think it imports you to learn, where the prime Ministry2 is like to be next, and accordingly endeavor to make your Interest with all due Caution: For the rest, relying on that providence which has hitherto supported you, I doubt not but will still do, if we do what becomes us, and benefit by the Experience we daily have of the things of this giddy Age; and the providence provocation we give Almighty God to abandon us: As to other matters concerning your present Condition and Posture, I shall neede add nothing to what your Mother has written: If you want any Goods, Books, Pictures, Cabinets or other furniture of Use or Ornament to your new house; you may send for any thing from my house: There is an excellent Pendule-Clock, and an In-lay’d stone Cabinet, which I wish with you especialy, having enough of such curiosities here in our Appartment already: The other Japan Indian Cabinet3 I rather keepe in the Country (where with the rest of our supernumerarys of that nature) because of the Carving, which

1 Godolphin resigned as lord treasurer on 30 October; Evelyn notes his departure on 1 November (Diary V.261). He was succeeded by Sir Charles Montagu who was also chancellor of the Exchequer. Evelyn may have believed that Montagu’s vigorous determination to deal with the currency crisis by establishing the weight of the coinage and introducing milled coins was at the expense of Godolphin’s reputation in the mid-nineties. Evelyn was also concerned about the continuance of John Jr’s Irish appointment, as a letter from Sir John Methuen on 7 September 1698 suggests (Add 15858: f 76 [7.9.1698]). John Jr in his turn was concerned about the preservation of Wotton where many of the trees were being cut down to pay for the transfer of the land from his uncle to his father (Add 78432: 17.1.1696). John Jr returned to London in early October 1696. 2 This means “predominant ministry,” not its modern sense. 3 Evelyn records cabinets of this sort in Diary III.324 and IV.190 and 343.

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the aer of London would prejudice: Pray neglect not your old Patron upon all Occasions, with my most humble Service: So with my Blessing etc. You give me no account of my letter to his Grace.

Wotton: 6: October. 1696

Stephen Fox Letter 775 (874) November 15, 1696 ff 107v–8

Epistle DCCCCLXXIV To Sir Stephen Fox

[LM: one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury: who having I believe the command of an hundred thousand pound, sent to borrow of me £200 for 6 moneths, mony being now so rare, by reason of the Clipping etc.] Sir, A Letter lately received from my Son Draper,1 would not a little have Surpriz’d me, could I otherwise think than that that of Sir Stephen Fox, was pleas’d to Railly his most humble servant: For since Miracles are ceas’d, one has not heard of a little despicable Rivulets supplying the original and onely Sourse from whence it has its Waters: A man may [words deleted] (with Reverence) say; If this be don in the Greene tree, what may be expected from the Dry?2 But as I take it for a mighty Condescention, that you should at all remember an old absent servant (though in this pleasant way) so I am encourag’d to lay hold of the opportunity to acquaint you in what a low condition I am, after allmost two yeares Attendance on the Office, I am intrusted with;3 not having receiv’d one peny of my due, though, I have Indulgence to pay my selfe, out of such monys as come to my hands; nor indeede, could I think it becomes me, so long as the poore Workemen were in that distresse, and in which they still are likely to continue, unlesse your Lordships of the Treasury, afford your helping hand more effectualy; that what is begun with such alacrity and zeale already, may not sink at last: As for my owne particular, I have not receiv’d £40 almost these 6 moneths from of my owne poore fortune, and am a greate deale out of Purse in waiting on that service, as I shall still continue, so long as Sir Stephen Fox, and such honorable Persons sit at the Treasury, who I am sure will at last Consider the Importance of this necessary and glorious Foundation: [line deleted] I was before I went

1 William Draper wrote to Evelyn on 22 November (Add 78300: f 112 [22.11.1696]) about Fox’s concerns about the interest due on his bonds. 2 Luke 23:31 3 As treasurer of the Greenwich Hospital Committee Evelyn was distressed at the failure of the Crown to pay the workmen’s wages for the foundations.

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out of Towne to kisse your hands, and to condole your losse of your excellent Lady;4 but you were gon to Chiswick:5 I will not now recall that Melancholy Subject to your thought, but with my most humble Service to Mr. Fox and his faire Lady, remaine Sir Your etc.

Wotton: 15: November – 1696

Samuel Pepys Letter 776 (875) December 3, 1696 f 108

Epistle DCCCLXXV To Mr. Pepys etc.1

I Inquire not what you do, or think; but how you do? because I am Sure we think much alike, I onely wish I could do so too; for I should then be allways well imploy’d, and doing well: I am not altogether Idle yet; for as often, as the lame Leg2 which hardly carried me out of Towne into the Country gives me leave (which I thank God it now and then dos much better) I take a walke in the Garden, and the little Grove3 I am planting: for all the World else is Deluge (no man alive remembring such a Season)4 and when I am Confin’d; Reade, and Write, or build Castles in the Aer. To be Serious; I have of late among others ben chewing over some Old stories, and among others, the Life of Lewes the XIth, and Charles Duke of Burgundy written, you know, by Philip de Comines 200 yeares since[.]5And whilst I contemplate your, and my Condition (sic parvis componer)6 cannot but bemone, pitty, and deplore the unhapinesse and misery of Kings and princes (whilst either they are not born Philosophers, or Philosophers not Kings) because they never take the Counsel of such honest, wise and worthy persons, as the excellent Author of those Memoires was: If I were to be a Princes Tutor; I would cause my Royal Pupil to Reade Comines over, once a yeare at least. So much for that – 4 Fox’s wife had died on 11 August. The other “lady” may be a reference to his daughter who was married to George Compton, 4th earl of Northampton. 5 Fox’s house was next to Lord Burlington’s in Chiswick. 1 Particular Friends, D30, 259–60. The original version is printed in Pepys, Private Correspondence, no 85. 2 See Diary V.262. 3 See the “plantation” referred to in Letter 757. 4 See Diary V.261–3. 5 Philippe de Commines, De rebus gestis Ludouici, ejus nominis undecimi, Galliarum regis, & Caroli, Burgundiæ ducis ... commentarij (Paris, 1568; in 1687 library catalogue) and Les Memoires de Messire Philippe de Commines ... Reueus & corrigez ... Augmentez de plusieurs traictez ... & de diuerses obseruations (Paris, 1649; Evelyn Library, no 405). 6 to compare great with small

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Have you seene an Anonymous little piece, Intitl’d, Discourse Sur les Reflexions ou Sentences et Maximes Morales?7 I am perswaded you will not dislike it: The later part is written by a Lady. I meane You will find it full of very noble thoughts; another Mrs. Astal.8 Amongst our owne little Books, and but greately learned, I am well pleas’d with Nicolsons Historical Library;9 and exceedingly glad to find the Bishop of Worcester puting his hand so strenuously to the defence Vindication of what has ben the Faith, of us Wise, and Reasonable men,10 as any of our bold and Blasphemous pretenders, reproching that the lazinesse of the many concern’d, who, whilst they should defend the Flock, Worry and take to pieces, one-another: By the way, you will find something of Dr. Locks, civily discuss’d, and with his deserved Elogie. Were you at Gressham College on St. Andrews Day?11 I have never before ben absent ’til this Yeare, I think these 35 yeares. I feare to Aske what progresse you make, towards the greate Work12 you are about; and which none but you can do? Will you never let us see it ’til perfect, according to your Seale? Remember the Advice of a very Wise King quicquid assequitur manus tua ut facias, pro facultate tua, fac13 – [RM: IX Ecclesiastes] The rest is, what you and I have oft reflected on, – but why don’t you give us a part or two ut ex pede Herculem!14 Time flys a pace my Friend ’tis Evening with us, do not think perfection dwells on this side of Life: If it be the Best, as I am assur’d it is, nothing can be better. And thus, partly Demonstrative, and partly Objurgative, whilst I have thus Entertaind my selfe at least, with my Worthy Friend, I hinder him perhaps from finishing the Worke I speake of. God Almighty keepe you. I am Sir Your etc. Wotton 3d: December 1696

7 This is probably "Discours sur les Reflexions ou Sentences et maximes morales," printed with the 1692 edition of La Rochefoucauld, Reflexions ou Sentences et maximes morales: Augmentées deplus de deux cens Nouvelles maximes (Paris,1692). It also includes “Maximes” attributed to Mme de Sablé, to which Evelyn appears to refer. 8 Mary Astell, A serious proposal to the ladies (London, 1694) 9 William Nicolson’s English Historical Library (an account of English authors) was published in 3­volumes between 1696 and 1699. Nicolson commended Evelyn in vol. III. 10 Edward Stillingfleet engaged in a controversy with Locke about the nature of the Trinity which he believed had been questioned in Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding. Each of Stillingfleet’s pamphlets was answered by Locke. 11 the date of the annual meeting to elect the council and president of the Royal Society 12 Navalia, Pepys’s never-completed history of the navy 13 “Whatsoever thy hand findeth for thee to do, do it with thy might.” Ecclesiastes 9:10 14 literally, “as Hercules by the foot”: probably an allusion to Hercules’s pacing the Olympian stadium cited in Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae 1.1.

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Jael Boscawen Letter 777 (876) December 3, 1696 f 108v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLXXVI To Mrs. Boscawen:

[LM: Sister to the Lord Godolphin] Madame, Do you think it possible, that whilst there is so little real Friendship in the World, I should not as often think of Suffolck-streete,1 as I say my Prayers? and that whilst I wish prosperity to the publique, and my Country, I could have ben so long unconcern’d with at the Recesse of that Friend2 in the World, to whom I have the greatest Obligations, without Regret? In good earnest it was so Surprizing to me; that as I was not willing to believe it; so nor could I, ’til very lately and that with no little trouble: It were perhaps presumption in me to Inquire why he would leave us, and a station and a tyme in which the publique, had neede of the most able and worthy person; and whilst he was of that Number, if that may be cal’d a number, where there’s not one Left like him, I had much Confidence that this Nation was not so quite abandond: I neede not tell you now my Apprehensions, which I assure you more afflict me for the Publique, than for my selfe, to whom the Continuance and honour of his Friendship (abstracted from the good Offices I have receiv’d) is most valuable to me, whilst withall, I enjoy, that of Yours, and your worthy Family, than which I have no greater, because none so Obliging, so Sincere; And this, I must as long as I live professe: Give me then the Satisfaction of hearing that you are all in Health, and of presenting mine, and my honest Wifes most humble Services to all, by Deare Madame I do in particular desire my Service be given to Sir William, Mrs. Penelope and the late maried Lady your Daughter, and all that I can expresse of the greatest Affection to the young Senator, now no more Massie,3 but one of our Masters. What’s become of Lady Sylvius?

Wotton: 3: December 1696

1 the London residence of the Boscawens, near the present National Gallery 2 Sidney Godolphin; see Letter 774, note 1. 3 Sir William Godolphin; Penelope Godolphin; Dorothy Meadows, née Boscawen; Francis Godolphin

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Anne Spencer Letter 778 (877) [n.d.] [between 3 and 6 December, 1696]# f 108v

Epistle DCCCLXXVII To the Countesse of Sunderland etc.

Madame, Though I were in the greatest Solitude in the World, I could not say pretend I had nothing to Write, when ever I reflect on the many Obligations I have receiv’d from your Ladyship, and am perswaded, that the same goodnesse which made you Condescend to Visite a Poore, Old, Lame Gentleman (when I was last in Towne)1 will not be displeas’d to heare what becomes of him since. I made use of Monsieur L’Evesque,2 ’til himselfe, as well as my Doctor3 was sensible, that external Application, without some Inward Remedies, would not remove the Cause, which was a Soft Sharp, Scorbutic Defluction,4 which gave me a cutting paine, shooting like the Tooth-atch. Accordingly, after some Juices I was prescrib’d, the familiar Mountebank Taffys Elixir,5 has taken both the paine, and almost the Spots away, for there was never any Sore, or flesh broken at all: So as I am, I thank God, upon my legs againe, and for the rest, in better health of body than before. And now Madame, I long extreamely [to] heare of your Ladyships and the rest of our excellent Friends; and that with the more Concern; since a noble Lord, Greate Friend and Patron (as your Ladyship knows) of mine, has quitted his a Station in a Conjuncture, wherein the Publique has the greatest neede of Able and Worthy persons:6 But I am not to dive into Causes; satisfying my selfe that there is a good one, which must move so wise and good a man to quit his office retire. My Lord Spencer7 is now in the Greate Counsel of the Nation, where whom I am to salute him with my most humble service, through your Ladyship, without taking him a moment off from the publique Care, whilst we are here in the Country, attending providence, and the Issues of their Consultations, in these difficult times in which, I shall pray God to preserve your Ladyship who am Madame etc. Your 1 Evelyn records dinner at Lambeth on 6 May with “the Co: of Sunderland & divers ladys” (Diary V.239). 2 Noas L’Evesque (d. 1697) was an MD (Cambridge, 1690) of the parish of St Martin-in-the Fields, where Evelyn could have met him either through the rector Thomas Tenison or through the family of the Godolphins in Sussex St who were parishoners. 3 Probably this is Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753; ODNB) who had been the physician in charge of Christ’s Hospital since 1694 and a fellow of the Royal Society since 1685. He became a member of the council (1690–9) and secretary (1693–1700). He had been in practice in Bloomsbury Square from 1689 onwards and Evelyn had been to see his collection of curiosities from Jamaica in 1691 (Diary V.48). Evelyn’s wife, Mary, was attended by Sloane in 1701 (Diary V.456). 4 a discharge related to scurvy 5 “Daffys Elixir,” a common name for a quack medicine, is referred to by John Jr as having been effective with his father (Add 78301: f 78 [2.4.1697]). 6 an allusion to Sidney Godolphin’s resignation as lord treasurer; see Letter 774, note 1. 7 Charles Spencer

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My Wife who has I thank God pass’d this (though most unseasonable) Winter in better health, than of many years past presents her most humble Service to your Ladyship, as we both do to my Lady Bristol.8

Thomas Tenison Letter 779 (878) December 6, 1696 f 109

Epistle DCCCLXXVIII To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbery.

My Lord There being a Smalle Living Vacant in this County, and in the Gift of the Deane and Chapter of Windsore: The Bearer hereof Mr. Morehouse, Curate of the Parish of Wotton, where I much am; being a Modest, humble man, a profitable Preacher and of very good Conversation, as by long experience I can affirme; Begs your Graces Assistance to his Testimonial, signed by many worthy persons who know him: I would have written to my Lord Bishop of Chichester1 (to whom I am greately Obliged for the Sermon he lately sent me)2 and to others in Mr. Morehouse’s behalfe; But your Grace’s Recommendation will be instar omnium: I will not Repeate anything of a Letter which I hope came sometime since to your Graces hand;3 but that of the continuance of your Graces Favour and Blessings to Your Wotton: 6: December 1696

8 Anne Digby 1 John Williams 2 John Williams, The perfection of the evangelical revelation. A sermon preached at St. Martins in the Fields, Jan. 6. 1695/6. Being the first of the lecture for this present year founded by ... Robert Boyle, Esquire (London, 1695). 3 Letter 772

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

William Draper Letter 780 (879) January 10, 1697 f 109

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Epistle DCCCLXXIX To my Son in Law Draper.

Dear Son, I should begin with my Reply to yours of the 2d, if the most wellcome tidings of GodAlmightys Blessing you and my Daughter with a son1 (which with all my heart I congratulate) did not intervene, and invert the Method very reasonably, by an accesse of Joy and Satisfaction to us, and your Relations here, as well as to you and yours, for whose prosperity we are equaly concern’d and wish all hapinesse to: My good Brother gives his Blessing to you and the Infant whose being Susceptor is most cherefully embrac’d: pray make my Complement of Congratulation to my Sister,2 and my Daughter in particular, with many thanks to her for the present she has made to so deserving an Husband: Now to the other buisnesse, I suspended my Reply ’til Johns3 Coming, that I might in person give him charge, and those Cautions you have so prudently suggested: He is certainly a very faithfull Servant, and whom (having had up now neere 20 years) I have intrusted with things of Consequence, and many Thousands of publique Mony: He is now in a station which requiring the same Confidence I hope he will performe his duty, with no lesse fidelity [word deleted]: I therefore send him back, with fresh commands to observe all your directions, and with an Accompt of that Anticipation of my Sallary, not ’til now understood, and so recommend you and yours with my repeatd Blessing to you and yours, who am Dear Son Your etc. Wotton 10: January. –1696/7

1 George Draper (1 January 1697 – 18 September 1700). See Diary V.262–3. In a letter of 23 January, John Jr refers to having found “a very fine boy” there when he visited (Add 78301: f 75 [23.1.1697]). 2 Mrs Draper 3 probably Evelyn’s steward, John Strickland who, as he notes in this letter, had been in his employ for nearly 20 years. He is recorded in Evelyn’s notebook (Harvard: Ms Houghton 992.2, p.16) as being paid £12 p.a. and in 1680 as being paid for his bill (Add 78406). He was still working for Evelyn in 1694 (Add 78318: f 86 [22.6.1694]) and seems to have handled John Jr’s business in London throughout his stay in Ireland. He also wrote to Evelyn about the repairs necessary to the garden at Sayes Court after Czar Peter the Great’s visit (Add 78318: f 124 [16.2.1698]). As Evelyn notes here, Strickland dealt with “things of Consequence, and many thousands of public Mony.” A letter to Nicholas Doning about the repayment of a loan (Add 78318: f 122 [22.3.1697]) suggests that Strickland frequently handled such financial business. The claim that he is “now in a Station which requires the same Confidence,” suggests that he was already acting as a clerk to William Draper, who became the treasurer of Greenwich Hospital. In a letter in 1698 Evelyn refers to Strickland as living “neer the New Hospital now erecting” (BL Sloane 4075, f 91). De Beer is mistaken is saying that Strickland was a witness to Evelyn’s will in 1706; the witness was William Strengfellow.

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Sidney Godolphin Letter 781 (880) January 10, 1697 f 109

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCLXXX To my *Lord Godolphin

[RM: *upon his resigning layd-down of his Commissioner of the Treasury]1 My Lord Though I cannot be Surpriz’d with any thing your Lordship dos as to the prudent part, in your owne Concernes (which I am sure is allways the best) yet the newes of your Lordships Retiring from publique Buisines, and the Station you so worthily menag’d in a period and Conjuncture of the greatest want of able Ministers; could not but create some Melancholy thoughts, and that more upon the publique account, than from any private Selfe-Interest of my owne, who in the worst of Circumstances have found you so constant in your friendship to me, and promisd the Continuance of the most precious and valuable thing you could bestow: “Give me leave to Repeate it, Deare Mr. Evelyn; I promise you my Friendship most faithfully and Inviolably, as long as I live; and I will keepe your Letter for ever, as the pledge of your constant Friendship to me: I will remember you constantly in my prayers: I must forget to pray, when I forget you etc.” [RM: in a Letter to me long before:]2 The rest is as Indearing my Lord: But am I not to repeate it a thousand times? I assure your Lordship it is of greate Consolation to me, abstracted from all the good Offices you have don me; so I still am charm’d with the noblenesse of it, as oft as I call it to mind, which is as often as I live a day, imploring God Almighty to reward it. As for this Retirement, I presume not to divine of Causes, satisfying my selfe that there is a just one, if it were onely the preservation of your Health by this Relaxation for a time, that you may resume what you have lay’d downe, with greater vigour, and as I am sure, the publique needes will soone require for ma[n]y reasons: And now my Lord: Since out of the mouth and Heart the Mouth Speaketh: Accept of this Solemn Profession of and Acknowledgement for all your favours, and give me leave to declare it in the best and onely manner I have to expresse it: My constant Prayers to God to preserve your Health, and prosper you and your noble familie, to whom I have so many Obligations: I am my Lord Your etc. Wotton: 10 January. 1696/7

1 Godolphin had resigned on 30 October 1696. As chief of the commissioners or lords of the Treasury, he had been effectively prime minister since 15 November 1690. He was to resume this position in 1701 and again from 1702 until 1710. 2 from Godolphin’s letter of 22 September 1678 (Add 78307: f 98 [22.9.1678]), written less than two weeks after Margaret Godolphin’s death

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Richard Bentley Letter 782 (881)1 January 10, 1697 f 109v

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Epistle DCCCLXXXI To Dr. Bentley:

Worthy Sir, I Send this at Adventure, upon Conjecture onely that you cannot be much longer from your delicious Charge at St. James’s,2 and to let you know, that I was not a little surpriz’d to find in a Newes-paper, one to succeede Dr. Williams in the Boylian Lecture, whose name I had not heard of before,3 and that his Grace4 (who is you know my Proxy); and to whom I had written not long before, should not yet have return’d me an Answer as (by a friend of mine lately at Lambeth) he say’d he would shortly do: I suppose his meaning was after this Mans Election; know foreseeing how un-easye I should be have ben: But so it seemes it is, and I knew know not a syllable of it more: I have now ben in the Country above 3 moneths, and pass’d a Severe Winter tollerably well, and now expect from you some account of so long a Retreate:5 Is my Lord Bishop well? Is he come up to parliament? Are you Married, or fairely (as they say) promis’d? How goes the Presse on?6 It shall not stay (as the Hospital dos at Greenewich) for my Subscription: When were you at our Friends in York-buildings?7 In Summ, say any thing but that you’l trouble your selfe no more with my Impertinences,8 though they have stayd ever since at the printing house

1 also printed in Bentley, Correspondence, 132–3. Bentley had provided no information concerning the selection of Francis Gastrell by the trustees of the Boyle Lecture (see Letter 771). In his reply to Evelyn of 12 January (Bentley, Correspondence, 132–4), Bentley claimed that he heard of the decision (and, by implication, of Tenison’s support of it) indirectly, but defended the choice, saying that “The person that has it, is very well qualified for the performance, and has desired it a long time” (133). 2 as keeper of the library there 3 Gastrell’s lectures were published as The certainty and necessity of religion in general: or, The first grounds & principles of humane duty establish’d; in eight sermons preach’d at S. Martins in the Fields at the lecture for the year 1697, founded by the honorable Robert Boyle, Esquire (London, 1697; Evelyn Library, no 618). 4 Thomas Tenison 5 Bentley had obviously gone with Stillingfleet to Worcester. Bentley was engaged in work on Numismata. See Letter 784. 6 an allusion to Bentley’s role in establishing the new press at Cambridge (see Letter 784, note 9) 7 Evelyn had stayed in York Buildings in Surrey St for most of six months in 1696. Pepys still lived there. 8 In his response, Bentley told Evelyn to have Benjamin Tooke send him proof sheets of Numismata. It was finally announced for publication in November 1697 and advertised in the London Gazette on 10 January 1698 (Diary V.283 and n. 3).

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if they should be brought you againe; For then were poore Tooke9 undon, and the learned Author: Of all those matters or as many of them as you also please I pray signifie to Sir Your etc.

Wotton: 10 January. – 1696/7

Thomas Tenison Letter 783 (882) January 18, 1697 f 109v

Epistle DCCCLXXXII To the Arch-Bishop of Canterbery etc.

I looke upon it as one of the greatest felicities of my life, that I find myselfe in the rank of those, whom your Grace is pleas’d to honor with your Friendship, and to Condescend so far, as amidst so many avocations and weighty Concernes of the Publique, to give me any Account of what was don about Mr. Colire’s Petition,1 which I am sure you had just Cause to Suspend, as I to be sorry that the Importunity of others have sometimes obliged me to presume upon your Grace, having no other concerne than to do what kindnesse I could for such as I thought deserving, upon which account I acknowledge to have ben often instant with your Grace to Remember Dr. Bohune and which I allways found your Grace dispos’d to, and therefore one cannot but hope, he is still in your thoughts, as one every way qualified and deserving: As to Dr. Bentley and Suffrages of for Mr. Gastrill;2 how ever my greate Value for Dr. Bentley could not but have lead me, I acquiesce in the Choice has it seemes ben made, having nothing more in my aime, than that the Lecture be allways Supplied with fiting persons, and in the Method your Grace has mention’d, for the Encouragement and Example of such, whose Talents are very necessary in this Conjuncture, wherein the Essentials of our Faith and Religion are so insolently attack’d by those who think themselves the onely men of Reason: I looke on it therefore as a providence that suits so with the Intention of the Founder to Restraine the Growth and Spreading of Such pernicious Doctrine, as was seene to prevaile among us. I have once seene the French Treatise mention’d by your Grace, and esteeme it as a Usefull piece,

9 A letter from Tooke of 11 January, 1697 lists the 23 persons to whom Evelyn wanted Numismata presented (Add 78318: f 103 [11.1.1697]). 1 Jeremy Collier (1650–1726; ODNB), with two other clergy (including William Snatt, the son of Evelyn’s schoolmaster), was involved in giving absolution to Sir William Perkins and Sir John Friend, two men executed for their part in the attempted assassination of William III. See Diary V.235–6 and n. 1 (236). The “petition” is probably Collier’s A Defence of the Absolution given to Sr William Perkins, at the Place of Execution, April the 3rd (London, 1696), which was addressed to the archbishops and bishops. 2 Francis Gastrell; see Letters 771 and 782.

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and to be put into the Classe of Besson, Ramelli, Zoncha, Caus and D’Acres3 who a good while since and of late have publish’d Machines on that Subject: But none of these would incourage any to proceede with our River here at Dorking, though of late undertaken, stop’d by private Intrests, which is the bane of all such profitable Designes: I am in the meane while glad to heare of the progresse of the Counsell of Trade,4 encouraging the bringing of Naval Stores from our Plantations, that we may not be Impos’d on, by the Northern Princes, to the greate detriment of the others: It is a thing I long since Suggested to men in power, but not of Publique Spirit enough to concerne themselves in so good a Work: But my Lord, I forget to whom I am writing, at the Expense of those precious Moments your Grace employs so much better than to be any longer retain’d by Your Graces etc. Wotton: 8 January – 1696/7

Richard Bentley Letter 784 (883) January 20, 1697 f 110

Epistle DCCCLXXXIII To Dr. Bently etc.

Worthy Doctor Yours of the 16th past, came not to my hands ’til the Day after I had sent mine away,1 without any knowledge of your being return’d but by conjecture: But all is well, because you are so, for which I am heartily glad: I went you know out of Towne with a lame leg,2 which I thank God, partly the aer, and partly an Elixir3 I tooke has so well succeeded with me, that I hope to be able to see my friend early in the Spring, and to make him my Acknowledgements for his perseverant Assistance in the parturition under which I have now 3 Jacques Besson, Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum (Lyon, 1578; 1602 Spanish translation in the 1687 library catalogue, and Evelyn Library, no 131, bought “at the dissipation of Card: Mazarinis Library”); Salomon de Caus, Les raisons des forces mouvantes, auec diverses machines tant utilles que plaisantes (Frankfurt, 1615; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 317); R. D’Acres, The elements of water-drawing (London, [1660]), The art of water-drawing (London, 1660); Agostino Ramelli, Le diverse et artificiose machine (Paris, 1588; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1237); Vittorio Zonca, Novo teatro di machine ed edificii per varie e sicure operationi (Padua, 1607; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1602) 4 The Council of Trade and Plantations (1672–4), which emerged out the original Council of Trade (1668–72) had been reestablished as a Council of Trade on 30 April 1696. (CSP Dom. 1696: 154). 1 See Letter 782 and Bentley’s letter of 12 January (Correspondence, 132–4). 2 On 9 August 1696 Evelyn wrote in his Diary: “Lamenesse in one of my Legs, kept me from church” (V.254). 3 “Daffy’s Elixir;” see Letter 778.

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so long labour’d;4 not a little glad that my Age, and the Conscience I have of my owne Imperfections, will at last cause to Cease such Abortive Conceptions and Superfœtation,5 as I have too long troubl’d my friends withall: You have under your hands something of Mr. Wotton,6 whilst he has ben so kind, as (without my asking) to offer me his help in looking over (not over-looking) the Typographical fault and other faults, escaped in my the last Impression of Silva,7 which I am most earnestly call’d upon to Re-print: The Copy, which I frankly gave about 30 yeares since to Allestry, is now in the hands of Chisswel, and your Namesake Mr. Bentley;8 who have sold off 3 Impressions, and now Impatient for the fourth; and it having ben no unprofitable Copy to them, I had promis’d some considerable Improvements to it, upon Condition of letting Benjamin Took (for whom I have a particular kindnesse) into a share: This, though with reluctancy, they at last Consented to; I with the more care endeavor to render it with advantage, and have ambition enough to wish; that since it is a folio, and of so popular and usefull a Subject, as has procur’d it some reputation, it might have the honor to beare the character of Dr. Bentlys new Imprimerie,9 which I presume the proprietors will be as prowd of as my selfe; to the Reproch of Place,10 who made so many difficulties about my Booke of Architecture, as you well know; I have however made very Considerable additions to that excellent Treatise, as far as concernes my part, and mind to Dedicate it to Sir Christopher Wren, his Majesties Surveyor and Intendent of his Buildings, as I did the other part to Sir John Denham his predecessor, but infinitly inferior to his Successor: I confesse I am foolishly fond of these, and other Rustications, which had ben my Sweete diversions during the dayes of destruction and devastation both of Woods and Buildings; whilst the Civ 4 the long-delayed “birth” of Numismata at the press 5 second conception 6 Although this is probably the manuscript or proofs of the second edition of William Wotton’s Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (London, 1697; Evelyn Library, no 1597) to which Bentley contributed, it may also be the first drafts of Wotton’s intended life of Boyle. That Wotton was actively engaged on this is evident from a series of letters to him and to others about it (Letters 756, 759, 761, 786, 793, 803). Wotton was to write to Evelyn on 27 April 1697 (Add 4276: f 211) referring to “my intentions to write an Essay upon Mr Boyles memory,” and describe some of his difficulties in getting access to materials in a letter of 2 January 1698 (Diary [1887] III.370–1). 7 last printed in 1679, and reprinted in 1706. 8 James Allestry (c.1630–70; I) was appointed with John Martyn as printer to the Royal Society in 1662 and published the first and second editions of Sylva (1664, 1670); Richard Chiswell, the elder (1640– 1711; ODNB, I), publisher of the eighth edition of Kalendarium Hortense (1691), and the fourth edition of Sylva (1706), who had solicited Evelyn’s support for his application to become printer to the Royal Society (Add 78318: f 6 [20.1. 1680]); Richard Bently (active 1675–97; I), also involved in publishing the eighth edition of Kalendarium Hortense. 9 In 1696 plans were drawn up for a new University Press at Cambridge, and on 10 July 1697, Richard Bentley was given permission to buy fresh type. Bentley’s new printing house was ready by November 1695. In Letter 763 (17 August 1696) to James Place Jr, Evelyn refers to Bentley’s role in creating this press. Bentley says in his letter of 12 January 1697 that “Our University Press goes on: we expect Letter from abroad by the next Convoy: Presses and all tackling are already provided at home” (133). See Mc­ Kenzie, The Cambridge University Press, 1696–1712, I, 6–16. 10 John Place Jr, the son of the first publisher of the Parallel. See Letter 763, note 6 for Place’s approach to Bentley and Evelyn’s response.

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Rebellion lasted so long in this Nation; and the kind Receptions my Books have found (præfiscinè dico11) makes me the willinger, to give them my last hand; sorry in the meane time, for all my other aberrations in pretending to meddle with things beyond my Talent et extra Oleas:12 But enough of thisI did never believe Dr. Bently needed the Boylean Lecture to give him Reputation; but I have ben hitherto sensible that ’til he be prevail’d with to Resume it againe, we are to looke for no greate progresse from those who come after, how qualified so ever the Gentleman13 may be, whom you tell me has so long desir’d it. Mr. Wotton acquaints me of his going from this Neighborhod to be at Rygate with his wife, 6 miles from hence, ’til the Spring; and then to Reside at his Living for alltogether; before which I call to mind you made me hope we should enjoy you here: I am sorry to heare my Lord of Worcester is loosing so excellent a Lady,14 and himselfe still under so painefull an Infirmity, whose health ought to be precious to all the Learned and Pious of the Age: His late Piece against the Socinians15 worthily reprooving those audacious Spirits, who set up for the onely Witts and men of Reason, and gives a seasonable Reproofe to the Insolence of some, and slothfullnesse of others, among the sonns of our own Cleargy; for I do not looke upon the others as belonging to our Church. We have hereon an Anecdote or Seacret History of White-Hall,16 which being the last New Book has ben sent down, seemes a notable piece of History for whosoever undertakes to write the Annals of this Age of Wonders: But whilst thus my pen runs over, I almost forgot at whose expense I trifle, so hard it is to give-over, when one is in Conversation with Dr. Bently. Little Jack17 returns to Eaton, there’s no dealing with him in Homer, Virgil or Horace: Just as he tooke his Leave, I reproch’d him for making his Unkle18 no Complement, upon

11 “if I may say so without offence” 12 “outside the olive trees.” A contraction of the motto of Pallas Athena (Ne extra oleas) as represented in the device of the Elzevier firm 13 Francis Gastrell; see Letters 771, 782, and 783 14 Edward Stillingfleet, whose second wife, Elizabeth, née Pedley, died in 1697 15 A discourse concerning the Doctrine of Christ’s Satisfaction; or, the true reasons of his sufferings; with an answer to the Socinian objections (London, 1696). Evelyn felt particularly strongly about this subject in part because his brother-in-law, William Glanville, had become a Socinian. 16 David Jones, The secret history of White-hall, from the restoration of Charles II. down to the abdication of the late K. James, 6 vols (London, 1697) 17 John Evelyn, grandson 18 Sir Cyril Wyche; see Evelyn’s letter to Ralph Bohun of 18 January, printed in Evelyn, The History of the Evelyn Family, 75–80.

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which going to the Window with pen and Inke, and asking me for a Theame, I told him Christmas comes but once a yeare, Immediately, without a Stop Natalis Christi toto semel advenit anno, Illius adventus nos hilaresque facit[:] Protinus haud aliter vero quam somnia vana Vanescit, dicit longum abiensque vale. Laudandus tamen est animus generosus et amicos Gaudentis Patrui magnifice accipere.19

which got him a piece of broad Gold from his unkle: Now will not you conclude me mad, and that the old foole dotes? Well, Remember the Philosopher and Hobby-horse,20 and suspend your Censure ’til you have Nephews of your owne!

Wotton: 20 January: –1696/7

Anne Spencer Letter 785 (884) February 7, 1697 f 110v

Epistle DCCCLXXXIV To the Countesse of Sunderland: Condoling the death of her Mother the Countesse of Bristol.1

Madame, How it came to passe I know not, that ’til my Daughter was able to sit up and write, we had no certainty of my Lady Bristols decease: I should not else have ben thus long in Condoling your Ladyships Losse of so excellent a Person and deare a Mother: For though as to your Ladyship, there could be nothing surprizing in it, but what was every day to be expected from so greate an Age; nor any thing to be deplor’d upon the account of happinesse, and the being translated from a vaine and uncertaine tumultous World, to a quiet and far better state, with so much honor and piety, and all that indeede could be desierable 19 “The birth of Christ comes once in all the year, and his coming makes us cheerful. But immediately it vanishes, truly not different from empty dreams, and going away it says a long farewell. But the noble spirit of an uncle who rejoices to receive friends in fine manner is to be praised.” 20 “What Pain and Anxiety, what Tender Care and Concern, what Trouble and Expence, and what a World of Affection went to the bringing of him up. But This in Truth is a Computation which no Man is capable of making justly, till he come to have Children of his own; Then Matters will appear to him quite otherwise, than now they do. And therefore, as the Philosopher, who was found riding upon a Hobby-Horse with his little Boy, desired that his Friend would forbear to expose that Levity of his, till he was a Father himself:” Pierre Charron, Of Wisedome, George Stanhope, trans (London, 1697), 605. 1 Anne Digby, who died on 26 January 1697

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in her Circumstances (which is to be so admirably prepar’d for a better Life, as her Ladyship was); Yet we do not part with Friends and such neere Relations without sorrow, and no small Reluctance, not to call them Convulsions, and which onely time, and submission, and the Assurance of the blessed Change they make (who prevent us, and leave a little while, and leave us here to follow) makes it not onely tollerable; but Advantagious, whilst besides that it minds us of our owne frailty, and the Vicissitude of things below; we sorrow not as those without hope, but even aspire after a reunion, and of rendering our selves qualified to meete them all our friends againe where we shall never part: This Consolation Madame as it has beene to me on many pungent losses of Friends and neere Relations, whom I loved as my Life; I am sure cannot but have the like Effects in your Ladyship upon this, mour and all other mournfull Occasions, whom God has Exercis’d with many Trials, and Remunerated with as many Blessings, which I shall Implore him still to Accumulate and continue, who am Madame etc. Your Wotton 7: February. –1696/7

Thomas Tenison Letter 786 (885) April 10, 1697 f 110v

Epistle DCCCLXXXV To the Arch Bishop of Canterbery etc.

Your Grace has ever allow’d me so kind and Easy Accesse; that I am never in paine for a friendly Advise, when a just and proper Occasion countenances an Application to your Grace: I am desir’d by a neere Relation of mine, to enquire concerning one Dr. Fullam;1 a person who (though I yet have never seene that I remember) has made his Addresses so successfully to a Niepce2 of mine (when she was lately at London) that he appeares to have gain’d a greate way in her esteeme: The Character we here have of him is very faire as to his Intellectual qualifications; what his other Circumstances are, we would be glad to know: He sends hither a particular to my Brother (who is her Grandfather) of £700 per Annum, whereof a competent part is temporal, with greate pretences of more preferment

1 George Fulham (c.1660–1702; Diary). Evelyn’s great-nephew-in-law, was rector of Compton in Surrey (1685–1701), prebendary of Winchester (1693), and archdeacon of Winchester in 1700. He married George Evelyn’s granddaughter, Katherine, in 1697 and became a thorn in Evelyn’s side over the settlement of the money owing to George’s daughters upon the estate of Wotton passing to Evelyn. Evelyn described him as “a Crafty and intriguing person” (Add 15857: f 247 [30.10.1699]). See also “The Case of George Evelyn of Wotton” ([London], [1698?]). 2 Katherine Fulham, née Evelyn (1671–99; Diary), the granddaughter of Evelyn’s brother, George

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by favour of the Bishop of Winchester3 where he is a Prebendarie, and gos for a very accomplishd person otherwise; and so indeede I hope he is; for my Niepce, besides her being (though no greate beauty) a most agreable Young Woman, and without exception (for many Vertues) has in her owne disposal £3000, which, though no mighty portion (as the World now goes) yet is enough to make one happy, who is of her modest, sweete and happy temper and will deserve a worthy man, and something answerable to her fortune. I humbly beg your Graces thoughts of this matter; for I am certaine a Person of any Character worthy your Graces Notice, cannot be unknowne to your Grace. I have no more to add upon this Commission, but to implore your Graces pardon for the Confidence of etc. Your Graces Here is come down to us Dr. Locks Reflections upon my Lord of Worcesters late Book:4 I wish the Bishop well deliver’d of him; he has a very civill way of expressing his Resentments, but in my poore opinion, a shrewd advantage upon some Mistakes, which I hope his Lordship will reconcile.

Wotton: 10 April. 1697

John Evelyn Jr Letter 787 (886) April 11, 1697 f 111

Epistle DCCCLXXXVI To my Son Evelyn:

Son, Yours of the 2d found me not altogether so Confident of the perfect recovery of my late Indisposition;1 but that I begin to suspect a fresh attack, without timely prevention, which ingages me to begin with my former Antidot,2 and engages and retards my coming among my friends at London longer than I intended: I am in the meane while very glad to heare (by everybody) that you are in a much better State of Health than lately;3 considering 3 Peter Mews (1619–1706; ODNB). President of St John’s College (1667), Oxford, and vice-chancellor (1669–73), Mews became bishop of Bath and Wells in 1673 and of Winchester in 1684. 4 John Locke, A Letter to ... Edward [Stillingfleet] Ld Bishop of Worcester, concerning some passages relating to Mr. Locke’s Essay of Humane Understanding (London, 1697; Evelyn Library, no 920) was a reply to Stillingfleet, The Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared, as to Scripture, reason and tradition (London, 1687). Stillingfleet replied to Locke in 1697. 1 Evelyn had a lame leg in January (see Letter 784), but this is possibly also a reference to his ongoing problem with kidney stones. 2 Daffy’s elixir 3 He suffered from “giddiness” and general weakness and had returned ill from Ireland the previous year (Diary V.240).

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the rigour of the Season, which has here ben extraordinary sharp. What you write of Jack,4 both as to his Improvement, stay at Schole, and disposure of when he comes from there, as to the forming of him for a usefull Man, answerable to his Education, and the care there has hitherto ben taken of him, I wholy assent to, and that the hardest Taske is yet to come; for he will soone take the Plie5 to what his Inclinations leade, whatever it be; and unlesse that be right and laudable, all will come to little: I doubt not therefore but that you take all Occasions of Instilling worthy Principles in him (he being now Susceptible of them) and that will be the best preparation I can think of, for whatsoever Course you Designe him, and which I wish may be in order to some other Imployment, than that of a Gentleman at Large, for many reasons: I am glad you continue to Visit my Lord Godolphin as often as you have opportunity, and I question not but you will think it your Interest to preserve my Lord Galloways6 kindnesse, to whom I pray present my most Humble Service; I would write a Congratularie Letter to him, if you think it seasonable before he is in Ireland and settld in his Goverment, which perhaps will be more proper: I have no farther to add at present, but my prayers for and my Blessing to you and Yours: Wotton 11. April –1697

William Wotton Letter 788 (887) April 13, 1697 f 111r–v

Epistle DCCCLXXXVII To Mr. Wotton

Worthy Sir, Hearing that you were come to Rygate,1 I could no longer defer my Acknowledgements, so long due to you, for those most friendly Animadversions,2 which you were pleas’d to send me; and to beg your Pardon for the trouble it must needes create, in putting you to the drudgery of Sweeping away such a deale of Rubbish, as I perceive you met with; for which I have little excuse, intrusting all to the care and honesty of Mr. Allestry and Martin, on whom I gratis bestowd the Copy, and upon the finishing, sent a large Errata, which according to their Custome, they it seemes contracted, and dealt not fairely with me. Nor is this the first time I have ben serv’d so: For when, neere 40 yeares since (Going 4 John Evelyn (grandson) was at Eton. See Letter 784. 5 The familiar pedagogical belief that a child will take instruction as a twig is bent was endorsed again by Locke in Some Thoughts concerning Education (London, 1693). 6 Henri de Massue Ruvigny, earl of Galway (1648–1720; ODNB) had just been appointed one of the lords justices of Ireland and effectively head of the administration. See Letter 789. 1 Wotton was now living at Reigate in Surrey, about ten miles east of Wotton. 2 Although one would expect this to be a list of errors in Numismata, what follows is Wotton’s recension of mistakes in Sylva, which was to be republished by James Allestry and John Martyn in 1706.

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into France) I sent Dr. Triplet my Version of the first Booke of Lucretius,3 with Notes on a Philosophy, at that time, very little Cultivated in England, or indeede any where else, ’til Gassendus and some few others, reviv’d it;4 and with my Copy, deliver’d a most accurat Edition of Stephen’s,5 to be printed è regione;6 I found some hundreds of Errata in the Latine Text, and many more in the other, notwithstanding all the Doctors Vigilancy; which indeede so displeas’d me; that I flung-by the five remaining Books (which I had also translated) as much out of Indignation at the Printer, as in diffidence of my Performance, in so audaciously pretending to attempt an Author so far beyond my Strength: One that should turn to what Lipsius7 has said on a like Occasion, and see what foule Worke they have made of Salmasius’s Edition de Augustæ Scriptores,8 Vossius Historicis de Scriptores Græcis and Latinis,9 Sanhemius de praestantia Numismatum10 with innumerable others (and who ’tis presum’d had some Care of what they publish’d, or some able person for them) will not wonder at my Complaint: For though I cannot but acknowledge my exceeding Oscitancy,11 shamefull Ignorance and Folly, in blotting so much paper as I have don, with my Impertinences: Yet, I must disclaime many here; such as Esperiènze with an X, Aranjuez with i Vowel; Rhemus, Buckolic, Almanec etc. Nor will I stipulate for the Correct Orthography of some English words, apt to put the (E)ffeminie to the end of Masculin Words, and double Consonnats for single (which a frugal Compositor uses to save)[.] But I was astonish’d to find Ptolomaus12 five-hundred times I think, both in the Text and Tables in Gerard Vossius: But why do I Afflict you with these trifles; whilst other Mistaks more material, and many shamefull Incongruities, injurious to my Reader, such as you so kindly rectifie (as in that of the Gymnosophists, Lambards Αρχαιονομία etc.)13 stare me in the face? Conscious of this, I beg’d the favour of you not to spare me in the 3 Evelyn’s An Essay on the first book of T. Lucretius Carus de Rerum Natura was published “with innumerable errata by the negligence of Mr Triplet who undertook the Correction of the Presse in my absence” (Diary III.173). Evelyn misrepresents the chronology, as he had returned from France in 1652. 4 Pierre Gassendi’s epicurean philosophy was introduced to English readers by Walter Charleton, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana: or, a Fabrick of science natural, upon the hypothesis of atoms (London, 1654; in the 1687 library catalogue). 5 Throughout his life, Evelyn continued to believe that he had used an edition of Lucretius by Henri Estienne. No such edition exists. Probably he misremembered his 1570 Paris edition, edited by Lambinus. 6 as directed 7 Justus Lipsius (1547–1606); the printing of his Politica (1589) seems to have been particularly vexed. 8 Historiæ Augustæ scriptores VI.: Ælius Spartianus, Iulius Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius Pollio, Flauius Vopiscus. Claudius Salmasius ex veteribus libris recensuit, et librum adiecit notarum ... Quib. adiunctæ sunt notæ ... Isaaci Casauboni iam antea editæ (Paris, 1620; Eve.c.3) 9 Gerard Vossius, De historicis græcis libri IV (Leiden, 1651); De historicis Latinis libri III (Leiden, 1651); and Duo tractatus aurei: vnus de historicis Latinis, alter de historicis Græcis. Nunc denuò, subtractis prioribus exemplaribus, eruditorum desiderio restituti (Frankfurt, 1677; in the 1687 library catalogue and Evelyn Library, no 1542). 10 Ezechiel Spanheim, Dissertationes de praestantia et usu numismatum antiquorum. Editio secunda, priori longe auctior, etc. (Amsterdam, 1671; Eve.a.121). In the preface to this second edition, Spanheim criticizes the errors in the first edition (Rome, 1664). 11 drowsiness 12 these words should be Remus, Bucolic, Almanac, Ptolemæus 13 William Lambard, ΑΡΧΑΙΟΝΟΜΙΑ, sive de priscis Anglorum legibus libri (London, 1584; 1602 ed in the 1687 library catalogue).

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least: For if that Phoenix of Mirandula14 sent his juvenile Poems to the learn’d Politian, ut castigentur, ut vapulent, ut Erratorum Poenas et ungue et Obeliscis luant;15 how should the deference of so incomparable a Prince humble such poore shrubs as I am! That I may yet, render you some Account of what you seeme to doubt of: Popilius was that Popilius Læna whom Cicero de Claris Oratoribus,16 speakes of, so seasonably quelling a dangerous Tumult: what I cite of Paulus Diaconus is in his Historia Lumbardieni;17 Salmasius is rightly quoted, and so is Cujas, it should not be Cajus as you suppose: The Cardinal of Triers (which was his birth place) is frequently cald De Cusa, or Cusanus:18 Alzei is a small Territory neere Ulm, and the Pfaltz in German:19 Cops-Woods belonging to the Glebe, is by our Lawyers cal’d Clergy Spiny-Woods, and Assarts a known terme in Manwood,20 and all our Forest Laws: Nether the Common Bay-tree,21 nor the Laurus Cerasus22 are thought to be that wich they crown’d Poets etc. with; but of another species more flexible and apt to be wreath’d into Chaplets; so as when I mention it in that paragraph, I leave it to any kind, which beares that name: A roote of this exotic, was betstow’d on me, by the late (unhappy) Earle of Essex, from Cassioberry:23 The Bermudas Cedar24 (of all the rest the most excellent) is not the Conifera, but beares a round berry four times as big as the Juniperus, which is also to be reckon’d in the Classe of Cedars: Bet is an Esculent: Beta Estur ab Olus25 says Mr. Ray,26 and is a very gratefull Salad, the red especialy: Central Salts are often us’d by Chymists, instead of Essential, meaning the same: Walnut Shucks are different from the hard shells, and is that which covers them before they are droping ripe: Litiere is the true French Orthography for our Litter27 etc. But whither am I rambling? I aske your Pardon a thousand times, and should have reserv’d all this to

14 Pico della Mirandola (1463–94); Angelo Poliziano (1454–94) 15 “that they may be reprimanded, that they may be beaten, that they may pay the punishment for their errors to a hair by means of obelisci” (i.e., commentators’ or proofreaders’ “daggers of despair”: †). 16 Cicero, Brutus 14.56. Marcus Popilius, who calmed a riot “cum auctoritate tum oratione.” 17 Paul the Deacon, also known as Paulus Warnefridus (c.720–c.800 AD), De gestis Langobardorum libri VI (Leiden, 1595; in the 1687 library catalogue). 18 Nicholas of Cusa (c.1400–64), cardinal and philosopher, was born Krypffs or Krebs and was from Kues or Cusa in the archbishopric of Trier (Treves). 19 Alzey, a grand duchy of Hesse, southwest of Mainz 20 A copse is a wood primarily cultivated for timber. A spinny is a wood cultivated for the protection of game for hunting. An assart is a clearing in a forest that has been turned into arable land. John Manwood’s A Treatise and Discourse of the Lawes of the Forrest (London, 1615; in the 1687 library catalogue) is the standard work on this subject. 21 Laurus nobilis 22 the common or cherry laurel 23 Arthur Capel’s house was Cassiobury in Hertfordshire. 24 Juniperus Bermudiana 25 the beet that brings forth edible greens 26 John Ray (1627–1705; ODNB), elected fellow of the Royal Society (1666), and author of the Catalogus plantarum Angliæ et insularum adjacentium (London, 1670; Eve.a.30) and the Historia plantarum (London, 1686, 1688; Eve.c.16). 27 as in animal litter

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an opportunity of waiting on you at Albery,28 before you quite leave this Country, had I ben so happy to know when you were there: But wherever, I am Worthy Sir Your etc. Wotton. 13. April. 1697

I quite forgot to send your Nicolson,29 with the rest, which I now returne with aboundance of Thanks: And now just as I am making up this Packet, comes the sad news of a dismal Accident befalln Mr. Finch at Albery, by a fire last night, and yet not quench’d:30 We are sending thither from hence, if any Accomodation here may be seasonable in this Distresse: Have not you a greate many Books there not yet remov’d?

Henri de Massue Ruvigny Letter 789 (788) April 19, 1697 f 111v

Epistle DCCLXXXVIII To my Lord Vicount *Galloway etc.

[LM: Marquis de *Ruvignie made one of the Justices or rather Sole Lieutenant of Ireland:] My noble Lord: If an Indisposition under which I have labourd most part of this Winter, had not detain’d me in the Countrie; I should not have don that in Paper, which it was my duty to have perform’d [insert: don] in Person: Congratulating your Excellencys safe *Return [LM: *out of Savoy, where he was a Generalle:]1 from abroad, and the dangers you have pass’d to take on you an Honor and a Charge, not more commensurate to your Excellencys Merits (which deserve the highest Accumulations) than to his Majesties greate Discernment and Care for the Good of a Kingdome, which is sure to be prosperous and happy under the Government of so Illustrious and Worthy a Person: The many Favours I have received from my Lord Marquis your Father,2 and your Excellency, require my profoundest Accknowledgements, and the noblenesse of your

28 Wotton had been employed as a tutor to the son of Heneage Finch who had bought Albury, where (when it was the estate of Lord Arundel) Evelyn had laid out the garden. 29 This is probably The English Historical Library, or a short view and character of most of the writers, now extant, 3 parts (London, 1696–9), a historical survey of English writers by William Nicolson, FRS, whose enthronement as bishop of Carlisle Evelyn mentions in 1702 (Diary V.508). Nicolson was to compliment Evelyn for his Numismata in the third part of the work (1699, 249–50). 30 Much of Albury was destroyed in this fire, and was rebuilt by Finch. 1 Ruvigny was appointed lieutenant-general of the forces in the Savoy in 1693 and envoy to the Savoy in 1694. 2 Henri de Massue, 1st marquis de Ruvigny (c.1610–89), was a French protestant exile who had been a good friend and near neighbour of Evelyn at Sayes Court.

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obliging Nature embolds to Recommend my Son to your Excellencys Patronage, who is shortly returning to his Employment in Ireland, with addition of alacrity; since he is to be under your Excellencys Protection. I am not without hopes of being able to Waite upon your Excellency before you take your Journey, and with my Wifes most humble Service to my Lady your Mother,3 and your selfe, Beseech Almighty God to Blesse both your Person and all your Undertakings, and that you will still allow me the honour of Subscribing my selfe, with a most grateful and sincere devotion, My Lord Your Excellencys etc. Wotton: 19: April. 1697.

Sidney Godolphin Letter 790 (789) [no day or month], 1697#1 f 112

Epistle DCCLXXXIX To my Lord Godolphin etc.

[RM: This letter is misplacd] My Lord, Though I am to Acquiesce with the Rest who are concern’d in this jealous point, with the Duke of Leedes,2 I was yet willing my whole Case should be Read and open’d before your honourable Board3 (the Duke himselfe present) and am therefore much obliged to your Lordships calling for it upon my Request: Not that I thought it very pertinent to the present buisinesse, unanimously agreed upon: But that it might appeare how singular my Case is, and how just my Claime to a Title which was once in the power of either of those now Greate-men (formerly not much above my Levell) to have put me in possession of, and indeed due to me, upon many accounts of Kindnesses, (I shall not call them Obligations, though I might, and that with modesty) as your Lordship knows, by many Instances formerly repeated in mine to your Lordship. As to the Earle of Rochester,4 I confesse

3 Marie de Massue, née Tallemant, marquise de Ruvigny, d. c.1698 1 It seems likely that this letter is misdated or misplaced as Evelyn suggests. See Letters 641 and 770, and Diary V.195 and n. 2 for Osborne’s claims to Sayes Court. 2 Thomas Osborne, duke of Leeds (earl of Danby) 3 The Treasury Board had heard Osborne’s petition in April 1696. See Calendar of Treasury Books 1696–97: 98–101. 4 Laurence Hyde as lord treasurer dealt with Evelyn’s suit against William Prettyman in 1686, a business that Evelyn at the time thought was finally settled (Diary IV.516).

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I was moved, when being Lord Tressurer he treated me so strangly; when your Lordship taking notice of it, writ to me a Letter, that I should take not resent it, for prudent reasons your Lordship gave me:5 He must needes yet have known, that his owne Father6 who with his Majesties Secretary of State, since the Restauration, and when Lord High Chancelor, acknowledg’d the Justice of my Father in Laws pretence under his Majesties owne hand,7 reiterated Seales, Accompt severely examind and adjusted by that noble Lord, the Earle of Southampton8 and that so soone as the Dutch War was ended, I should be put into possession of an Estate so dearly purchas’d, or be payed the £19000 owing to my Father and [in] Law for no immaginary, but real Service: But instead of this, being Left in a Troublesome Suite in Chancery I hardly at last emerg’d with detriment enough: I do, and shall still, persist to Justifie my Title to the Inheritance of Says-Court; the Summ yet in arreare, or an Equivalent; which if I am not to expect ’til Astreas Descent,9 and that your Lordship is in her Place, the sole Dispencer of Justice here, I must patiently sit downe by the Losse, and reproch my credulity of having to do with worthy persons, and mistaken friends: When it had ben in my power to have made some Figure, in the World if not by merit (by which so few rise) yet by Purchase above 40 yeares since: Justice, and Gratitude was then my sole dependance for all the Improvement of fortune I expected, and the Losses of my Relations Estates, long Exile, and Sufferings with his Majestie Charles IId, and father before him: In the meane time that providence which has never deserted me, has in this beene exceedingly Gracious, so in so disposing of me and mine as never to have ben Tempted to seeke Favour to Unworthy Persons, or unworthy Compliances, the Continuance of which I am sure never to want, whilst your Lordship subsists by that Miracle to me, by which you Ascended to the Dignity and Honour, which your Prudence and Vertue still mainetaine: There was a time, when I might not have despair’d of making a Fortune (as they call it) but as I could not Submit to some humiliations, I had not sufficient dexterity to purchase and obtaine anything neere worth the Reputation of one of my Principles: And now my greate Age, and the Circumstances attending it, require Thoughts exceedingly different from those, who place their felicity in this World. I pray God to grant, I may make that use of this Experience as becomes My Lord Your etc. London 1697

5 Evelyn importunes Godolphin in Letters 421, 440, 443. See also Letter 537 to Laurence Hyde. 6 Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon 7 Evelyn met with Hyde on several occasions in 1661–2 to discuss his claims (see Diary III.272, 285, 302, 318, 343). 8 Thomas Wriothesley, 4th earl of Southampton (1608–67; ODNB), lord treasurer (1660–7) 9 the return of the golden age

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Jael Boscawen Letter 791 (790) May, 1697 f 112r–v

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Epistle DCCXC To Mrs. Boscawen:

[RM: upon the death of her sister Penelope dying of a feavour caused by her head dresse (call’d a Commode1 then in fashen) taking fire by a Candle] Madame, and my most deare friend: I receiv’d the sad newes of the death of that pious Lady your Sister, with the same Concern, as happning to my neerest Relations into which the greate favour and friendship derived on me from my Lord,2 your selfe, and the rest of your noble family, seemes to have long since Adopted me. It is an honor and a presumption I confesse, to which I dare Challenge no Title from any Merit, or claime of mine, other than that of an infinite Esteeme, and constant prayers for its prosperity; the Interruption of which by this disastrous Accident must sensibly Affect me; not for that happy Change that happy Saint has made (with whose I wish my owne Soule) but for the Consolation of those she has Left behind, who deplore her losse and the so tenderly loved her, and who were as many as had the honor to know her edified by her Vertues and Example: Fruitfull are the Sentences and Panegyrics on these occasions, with the Counsels how we should compose our selves; and yet I am Sure, you are not now to Learn (taught by so many sad experiences) we still are in neede of New Lessons, and Lenitives, if not suddainly to heale, yet to aleviate the present Smart, which is so sensible in good Natures to flesh and blood: This Madame is that, which as I kindly accept of from others on such Melancholy Subjects, so would I gladly apply to you, and to my selfe were there any of so universal and sovrain a Vertue, as the intire Submission and Resignation to the Wisdome and Will of God; with the Assurance we have of meeting our Friends againe in that eternal Blissfull State (whom here we Enjoy but for a Moment) which is onely able to Support us in our greate losses. If there be any other (after the Calamitys and Revolutions we have seene and may yet expect) I am to seeke: To that Sanctuary then let us repaire; in that Asylum we shall find Safty, and those rëal, and Substantial Consolations, which I beseech Almighty God of his infinite Mercy, to give you, and to all your Relations: who I am Madame Your etc. Berkelystreete 1 May – 1697

1 a tall headdress fashionable for women in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, which often had ribbons attached 2 Sidney Godolphin

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Anne Spencer Letter 792 (791) May 4, 1697#1 f 112v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXCI To the Countesse of etc.

Madame, The most wellcome Newes of my Lords2 – appearing at Court again with a Character so bright; as it receives honor Luster, and Estimation from his Lordships Merits (to which all that is great, is naturall and but due) so it shews his Majesties greate discernment of Persons the most Worthy of his highest favours, and Obliges me to come among the first with Congratulations, though with this manner of Confidence, that your Ladyship will so far Condescend as to be my Proxy, and answer for one who has ever ben sincerely concern’d in all those many Providences through which Almighty God has exercis’d your Vertue: And now Madame, if the Confidence of that long, and signal (though undeserved) Friendship which your Ladyship has allow’d me to Value and distinguish my selfe by, create too greate an Ambition in a your humble Servant; if I at any time presume to farr; I most Submissively beg Pardon before hand, who shall all my life remaine Madame your Ladyships etc. Lond Wotton: 4 May: –1697:

William Wotton Letter 793 (792) June 26, 1697 f 112v

Epistle DCCXCII To Mr. Wotton:

Worthy Sir, I am just now come from the most profitable, and most Charming Entertainement in the World, and in still new Admiration of your Learning and of the greate Present you

1 Because William III had already stayed at Althorp “7 or 8 days” with the Spencers in October 1695, by which time he was lord chamberlain (and described by Evelyn as “now the greate favorite”; Diary V.223, 226), it seems likely that this letter is misdated. 2 Robert Spencer

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have made me by the hands of Dr. Bently,1 ’til I ariv’d at the Chapter of Gardning and Husbandry Horticulture, where by suffering the Honor you do me (so immensely above my Merits) to prevaile on your better Judgement; you have given your Antagonist the greatest Advantage Imaginable: I am extreamely Concern’d, that your greate Civility to mee, should prove the onely diminution to that noble Piece of yours; Conscious, as I am to my selfe, what a Shrub I am, to those tall Cedars you mention, and how despicable a figure I make, among those greate Names, your pen has so justly Celebrated: For the rest, our Learned Friend the Doctor could never have met a more apposite and just Occasion, of not onely vindicating himself;2 but of chastizing the petulancy of those, who who return’d his Civility with so ill a grace, not to say ill manner. He has don himselfe but right, and as he ought; and the whole University, as well as the rest of the Learned World, will be oblig’d for it: Sir, Being now both of you deliver’d from both these supercilious, and haughty Pretenders; I cannot but rejoice at the Prospect of your future Undertakings, undisturbed Meditation, and the Treasures we may promise the Learned World, from those unexhaustible Mines you are in so full possession, and generously Communicative of: Methinks I already see my noble Friend Mr. Boyle, Rising againe, and made Immortal by Mr. Wotton, and Mr. Wotton by Mr. Boyle: In this pleasing Vision, I returne a thousand Acknowledgements for this, and your many favours, to Sir Your etc. Berkeley streete: 26: June 1697

1 Richard Bentley had presumably brought Evelyn the second edition of Wotton’s Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (London, 1697; Evelyn Library, no 1597 with a dedicatory note) which included “large additions.” In his comparison “Of Ancient and Modern Agriculture and Gardening,” Wotton praises Evelyn for providing, in Sylva, “a full System of the Wood man’s Skill” (292). See also Letter 773. 2 Bentley, A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Themistocles, Socrates, Euripides, and others; and the Fables of Æsop (London, 1699; Eve.a.132). Bentley’s edition of “Phalaris,” Φαλαριδος ... Ἐπιστολαι: Phalaridis ... Epistolæ (Oxford, 1695) had involved him in a controversy not only with Sir William Temple but with Charles, 4th earl of Orrery and other supposed supporters of the “ancients.” His opponents were Charles Boyle and Sir William Temple. See Levine, The Battle of the Books, 47–84.

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Charles Trimnell1 Letter 794 (793) August 19, 1697 f 113

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXCIII To Mr. Trimnell Chaplaine to my Lord Chamberlain2

Sir, I no sooner heard of the Learned *Dr. Gales3 promotion [RM: *Schole Master of Pauls] to the Deanery of York, but (among those deserving Persons likely to be Candidats, and in Election of Succeeding him) I soone thought of Mr. Postletwhait:4 I am sure, that Worshipful Company, in whose disposure it is, could not Justify their the Care and Trust reposed in them, with more universal Approbation, than in Conferring of it on a Person so Pious, Learned, Industrious, and in all respects, more perfectly qualified for it. This Sir, is what I think, and heartily should wish (though you had not bespoken my Suffrage in his name) as a Publique Good and Benefit, as well as to shew how Glad I should be to understand that their Choice were determin’d on so worthy a Person, who am, Sir your etc. Wotton: 19 August. 1697

1 Charles Trimnell (1663–1723; ODNB) was chaplain to Robert Spencer during his exile. Trimnell remained with the Spencer household after they returned to Althorp. In 1691 he was made a prebendary of Norwich Cathedral, and in 1696 became the rector for Brington, which included Althorp. He resigned this position in 1698, when he was appointed to the archdeaconry of Norfolk. 2 Robert Spencer, appointed lord chamberlain on 19 April 3 Thomas Gale; Gale had been high-master of St Paul’s School. In September 1697 he became dean of York. 4 John Postlethwayt (1650–1713; ODNB). A graduate of Oxford (BA 1675, MA 1678), Postlethwayt was highly thought of by Tenison and Bentley and was instrumental later in establishing the lord almoner’s lectureships in Arabic at Oxford and Cambridge. Initially master in charge of the school that Tenison set up at St Martin-in-the-Fields (1688–97?), Postlethwayt became high master of St Paul’s School (1697–1713).

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Thomas Tenison Letter 795 (794) September 26, 1697 f 113

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Epistle DCCXCIV To my Lord Arch Bishop of Canterbery.

My Lord, I just now receiv’d a Letter from Dr. Woodward in behalfe of Mr. Harris,1 for the Boylian Lecture, wherein he desires I would write to your Grace in his behalfe: Before I went into the Country your Grace may remember, I mention’d him to you, as Recommended to me by Dr. Woodward and several other Gentlemen and since that have receiv’d a Booke from him about a Philosophic Controversy,2 in which Dr. Tankred Robinson3 is I find Concern’d, and others; which yet I wish had ben something lesse acrimonious: Me thinks, Philosophers should not fall-out about shells and pibbles: They are both indeede learned persons, and I should therefore be very glad to gratifie and the Doctor (his friend) in what they seeke if your Grace think fit; to whose disposal, I not onely for this Turne, but for all succeeding ones leave my Suffrage, as becomes My Lord Your Graces etc. Wotton 26: –September 1697.

1 See Diary (1887), III, 368–9. John Woodward (1665/1668–1728; ODNB) was a physician, geologist, and antiquary, and a fellow of the Royal Society (1693) and of the Royal College of Physicians (1703). John Harris gave the Boyle Lectures in 1698. 2 John Harris, Remarks on some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge, and to the Natural history of the Earth (London, 1697). Harris (c. 1666–1719; ODNB) delivered the Boyle lectures in 1698. 3 Sir Tancred Robinson (1657/8–1748; ODNB). See Robinson’s A letter sent to Mr. William Wotton, B.D. Chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl of Nottingham. Concerning some late remarks, &c. Written by John Harris, A.M. ([London]: [1697?]), and Harris’ reply, A letter to Dr. Tancred Robinson, in answer to some passages in his to Mr. VVotton, relating to Mr. Harris’s remarks on some late papers, &c. ­([London], [c.1697]).

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Elizabeth MacCarty Letter 796 (795) October 3, 1697 f 113

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Epistle DCCXCV To the Countesse Dowager of Clancarty:

Madame: We think our selves extreamely Oblig’d to your Ladyship for the Concerne you expresse for the Recovery of my Son; who though still continuing in a weake Condition; yet in hopes that by the mercy and blessing of God he may be restored to his former health, by this change of Aer, and thereby inabled to go over into Ireland againe, and discharge his former Duty; is willing to suspend his dismission demission of that Office for the Present: But in Case his Indisposition should require his longer stay here than the Spring, he knows of none whose Proposal he would sooner Embrace, than that of Sir Arthyr Shanes1 your Ladyships Nephew, whose Abillity and Integrity, we are all so well assured of: Your Ladyship may please (with all our Services) to Acquaint Sir Arthyr with this, and to receive from me and my Wife our most humble services to Madame: Your etc. Wotton 3d: October.1697.

William Bridgeman Letter 797 (796) September 28, 1697 f 113

Epistle DCCXCVI To Mr. Bridgeman Secretary to the Admiralty

Sir, The Bearer my Cleark,1 acquaints me, that upon a Re-inspection of the Royal Grant,2 your unanimous Opinion is, that the Committe has power intirely to dispose of his Majesties

1 Sir Arthur Shaen (d. 1725). A relative of Evelyn through the Clancartys, Shaen was an Irish MP for Lismore for most of the period 1692–1725. He was also sheriff of County Mayo (1708) and of Roscommon (1709–18). See Letter 802. 1 probably John Strickland; see Diary V.98, n. 3. 2 The Commission for Greenwich Hospital had been appointed by letters patent dated 12 March 1695 ­(Diary V.209).

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and others Charitys relating to the Greenwich Marin Hospital, without any farther Application to Justify my Complyance with your Orders, so as I acquiesce, having no other end by this Scrupule, than to do my Duty with such Caution as becomes one who is (you know) under a greate Trust: My Son in Law Mr. Draper will now, as formerly waite on the Committe, to receive their Commands upon all Occasions which concerne Sir Your etc. Wotton 28 September – 1697

Susanna Draper Letter 798 (797) October 14, 1697 f 113v

Epistle DCCXCVII To my Daughter Draper

[LM: Like to have ben burnt in her bed etc.]1 Deare Child, The wonderfull Escape, you have ben bless’d with (as you relate to your Mother) requiring our Thankfullnesse to Almighty God in yours, and all our behalfs; I doubt not but you will gratefully Acknowledge as long as you live: Indeede I consider it as a preservation so greate and so particular, as carrys with it, an Admonition not onely sent to make us more Circumspect, to prevent such Accidents, but to remind us of any other Omissions, and of the Uncertaintys of all our Injoyments here, but what are establish’d upon that, which nothing can diminish and deprive us of: Nor doubt I but you have made the same Reflexions as I have don upon this Occasion. Pray let my Sister2 know and your Husband, that I joyne with them in Blessing God for this his Signal providence. In the meane time, I wish I could yet send you any better Comfort of your Brother, who seemes to persist in his Melancholy way, though his health be otherwise not more impaird to all appearance: We shall now be glad to heare that the late fright has wrought no other ill Effects on your health, than what your Reason and ordinary Discretion (with the Consideration of Gods greate Mercy to you) has Compos’d. My humble Service to my Sister and Blessings to you and all Yours, from Dear Child Your Wotton: 14 October. 1697

1 The fire is described in Diary V.268. 2 Mrs Draper

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Anne Spencer Letter 799 (798) [n.d.]# f 113v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCXCVIII To the Countesse of Sunderland:

Madame, I did no sooner understand by my Daughter Draper of your Ladyships approch, when not onely the many Obligations I lie under for multyply’d Favours; but a just propension of Gratitude (which the continuance of them has now made natural as well as habitual) prompts me to Accknowledge upon all occasions: I have brought my Son1 down hither, to see what the Change of aer may contribute to his health, the good Effects whereof we do not much expect ’til towards the Spring, in which interim he wholy depends on God, and your Ladyships Protection: My Wife presents her most humble Service to your Ladyship, and I purpose sometime the next Moneth (if God blesse me) to waite on your Ladyship with my owne, who am for all I have of most Valuable, which is, your Ladyships noble Friendship Madame your Ladyships devoted etc.

Mary Tuke, née Sheldon Letter 800 (799) November 1, 1697 f 113v

Epistle DCCXCIX To my Lady Tuke at Lisbonn in Portugal

Madame, I take hold of any pretence (especialy, wherein I may in the least contribute to the Service of One, who has had the honor of the least Relation to the Service of her Majestie your Royal Mistris)1 to recommend the Petition of a neighbour of mine at Deptford;2

1 Evelyn refers to the arrival at Wotton of John Evelyn Jr “in his melancholy Indisposition from Lond:” on 9 October 1697 (Diary V.266). 1 Catherine of Braganza 2 The person is unnamed both in Evelyn’s letter and in Lady Tuke’s reply in which she claimed to be unable to do anything for Evelyn or the petitioner (Add 78306: f 160 [23.12.1697]).

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that through your Ladyships hands and mediation, his Case may be re-examind and distinguish’d from the rest, and by her Majesties goodnesse and Justice, restor’d to her favour, since as he relates the matter, it seemes to have ben injuriously represented to his prejudice from hence, and therefore needed not indeede any Interposure of mine in his behalfe to your Ladyship who are allways ready to do good Offices: But Madame this is not all the Advantage I presume to derive from this Occasion; but to lay my selfe and my Wife at her Majesties feete, that she will give us Leave to hope (what none can forbid us Wishing) that now a Peace3 so universal has ben proclaym’d; her Majestie will blesse againe not onely her Desolate Palace here at Somerset House (into whose Gardens I have now the prospect) but the whole Nation, whose Royal Vertues and Perfections have left such deepe Impressions in it, as create an Universal Longing for her Return, and Royal Presence. I am newly come to Towne from Wotton, for a few days, where I left your Servant my Wife in Competent health, and am going to waite upon my Cousen your faire Daughter,4 who I heare are as well as their absence from your Ladyship can render them: My Daughter Draper (at whose house I lodge, and who is greatly obliged to their Conversation) kisses your Ladyships hands by Madame Your Ladyships etc. Surry street: 1 November 1697

The 77th yeare of my Age and 50th of Mariage this day Deo gratias. Ora pro Nobis.

Anne Spencer Letter 801 (800) December 23, 1697 f 114

Epistle DCCC To the Countesse of Sunderland.

Madame, I do not Impute it to anything, but my owne greate misfortune and your Ladyships Indisposition, that I have ben so long disappointed of the honour of kissing your Ladyships hands, and receiving your Commands before I went out of Town, though I often attempted it, but durst not presume to aske so greate a favour, Enquiring daily after the state of your health: I am exceedingly concern’d at the continuance of any thing which deprives me, and all who are so infinitely Oblig’d to you, and know how to value goodnesse and perfection as they ought: I am now sent for into Surry, my Daughter Evelyn1 being very 3 the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) 4 Mary Tuke (“Mop”) 1 Martha Evelyn, John Jr’s wife

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dangerously ill of a Flux2 and which adds to my Affliction should it long deprive me of waiting on your Ladyship at your returne which I heartily pray for to him, who is the onely Restorer of Health and of all other Blessings: The Expresse whom I charge with this, will I hope refresh me with some assurance of your Ladyships better health, to the greatest Satisfaction of Madame Your etc.

London Surry Streete: 23 December 1697

Sidney Godolphin Letter 802 (801) December 23, 1697 f 114

Epistle DCCCI To my Lord Godolphin etc.

My Lord, To other Afflictions which it pleases God to exercise me under, the dangerous Condition of my Daughter in Law, lying sick of a continud Flux, hastning me into the Country, will deprive me of waiting your return from Windsor, as both my Obligations for your many, many friendly and uncommon kindnesses require; and the present Circumstances of my Son,1 for the Continuance of the favour I still most earnestly, and humbly beg of your Lordship in his behalfe: That through your Lordships Mediation and Assistance Mr. Warberton2 may succeede my Son in Ireland, as known to be a person very well qualified for it, and not unknown so to be by my Lord Galoway:3 One word of yours and his Excellency to his Majestie, would I doubt not obtaine his favour for that Gentleman: I Acquainted your Lordship with which the Countesse Dowager of Clancarty4 wrot to me in behalfe of her Nephew Sir Arthyr Shaen,5 nor should I be sorry if his Lordship should think him as fit for that weighty Employment as the other: It being equaly my Sons Interest, so his Majestie be well Served: But the other is a person (as I am assur’d) of so greate probity, and without exception for his Abillitys, that I cannot but wish him your Lordships good word, unlesse there be any 2 an abnormal flow of blood or excrement 1 John Evelyn Jr was still on sick-leave from his post in Ireland and in need of Godolphin’s protection. 2 This is probably George Warburton who was deputy postmaster in Ireland from 1683 until 1688, when he was forced from his post by the disorders. His claim for compensation (£513.18.10) is recorded in a warrant of payment for 5 August 1697 in Calendar of Treasury Books Apr.–Sept., 1697: 280–1. 3 Henri de Massue Ruvigny was effective lord lieutenant of Ireland at this time. 4 Elizabeth MacCarty 5 Sir Arthur Shaen. See Letter 796, note 1.

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other in your Lordships Eye, and would recommend, which indeede I should rather desire[.] Let me further beg of your Lordship to permit my Nephew Glanvil6 to receive your Lordships Commands and friendly Assistance in this very greate Concerne of my Lord Your etc. London 23 December – 1697

William Wotton Letter 803 (802) December 23, 1697 f 114

Epistle DCCCII To Mr. Wotton

Worthy Sir, Lying under two such greate Misfortunes,1 as were my not having such a Generous and able Friend to Advise with, before I Adventur’d on these Subjects (and my Absence from the Towne, whilst more than halfe of it was wrought off ) I should blush at the meane present2 I make you; had I not experience of your Candor and Indulgence; upon Condition of my no more trespassing in this kind; and attempting things beyond my force, and in my Dote-age: I beg your pardon therefore for this greate presumption of Sir Your etc. Next to this I am exceedingly asham’d and in Indignation, at what my Lord Bishop of Salisbery3 tells me of the Ear[l]e of Burlington,4 that he should have weare so meane and little a Soule under such a Dignity, out side and other Circumstances: But I conjure you Sir, let not this, discourage our noble Undertaking.5 I am Worthy Sir Your

London 23: December – 1697.

6 William Glanville Jr 1 the illness of his son and daughter-in-law (see Diary V.282) 2 In his record of Christmas 1697, Evelyn notes that he presented his “Booke of Medals &c to divers noblemen, before I suffered it to be exposed to sale.” Among these were Gale, Wotton, Henshaw, and Sloane (Diary V.283 and n. 3). See Add 78318: f 103 (11.1.1697) from Benjamin Tooke, which lists 23 names. 3 Gilbert Burnet 4 Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Burlington and 2nd earl of Cork (1612–98; ODNB). In a letter of 2 January 1698, Wotton notes that Burlington “insisted upon my giving a bond that I demanded no gratification” before consenting to give access to Boyle’s papers (cited in Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends, xxxix–xl). 5 a reference to Wotton’s intended biography of Robert Boyle

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Richard Bentley Letter 804 (804) December 25, 1697 f 114v

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCIV To Dr. Bently

Worthy Doctor: Though I made hast out of Town, and had so little time to spend after we parted; I was yet resolved not to neglect the province which I undertook, as far as I had any Interest in Sir Edward Seymor,1 whom I found at his house, and had full Scope of Discourse with: I told him I came not to petition the revival of an old Title or Unsettlement of Title or a private Estate,2 so often of late interrupting our late Parliaments; but to fix and settle a publique *Benefit [LM: *New Library to be built in St. James’s Park etc.] that would be of greate and universal Good and Glory to the whole Nation: This (with your Paper)3 he very Kindly and Obligingly received, and that he would Contribute all the Assistance that lay in his power, when ever it should come to the House: To send you notice of this, I thought might not be much more Acceptable to you, than to Acquaint you that we are full of Company, and already enter’d into a most dissolute Custome of Eating, and Indulging, according to the mode of antient English Hospitality; by which meanes I shall now and then have opportunity of recommending the Noble Designe you are intent upon, and therefore wish I had some more of your Printed Proposals to disperse: Sir Cyril Wyche, who accompanied me hither, is altogether transported with it, and thinks the Project so discreetly contriv’d, that it cannot miscarry: Here is Dr. Fuller with his Spowse.4 The Doctor gave us a Sermon this Morning in an Elegant and trim Discourse on 39 Psalm ultima;5 which I find had ben prepar’d for the Court and fitter for that Audience than our poore Country Churches: After this you will not expect much Intelligence from hence, though I shall every day long to heare of the Progresse you make in this glorious Enterprise, to which I Augure all successe and prosperity, and am Worthy Doctor Yours Wotton: 25: December. 1697

1 Sir Edward Seymour, 4th baronet (1633–1708; ODNB, H). Known to Evelyn as a subcommissioner for prizes during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, he was former speaker of the House of Commons (1673–8), privy councillor and lord of the Treasury (1692–4). Evelyn is soliciting his support for Bentley in setting up the library at St James’s. 2 Seymour was himself involved in conflicts over the founding of the new East India Company. 3 Bentley had given Evelyn a copy of his A Proposal for building a Royal Library, and establishing it by Act of Parliament (London, 1697). 4 George Fulham; Katherine Fulham, née Evelyn 5 “O spare me that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more” Psalms 39:13. Evelyn makes the same objection to a sermon preached by Fulham at Wotton on 2 January, 1698 (Diary V.283).

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Mrs Draper Letter 805 (805) December 25, 1697 f 114v

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Epistle DCCCV To my Sister Draper

Dear Sister, I take the first opportunity of making my very greate Acknowledgments for your continud kindnesse and patience in Suffering so long a Trouble and so often, as I persist to give you, without having the power, or indeede the Modesty, not to promise not to Repeate it againe; for to such an height of Confidence and boldnesse has you[r] Indulgence brought me. I came hither in good time, found the Family and house top-full of Christmas Company, and dispos’d enough to be cheerfull, did not my unhappy Son, and Indisposed Daughter his Wife,1 give so greate an alay to it. We have yet some hopes of her, since the drinking of the Bath-Waters, after so many unsuccessfull Experiments of the Doctors: My Lady Wych2 is so transported with the Present you have made her, that all the Family have ben call’d up to her Apartment to see and admire it, and she intends to give you Thanks in forme, as becomes her: Deare Sister Were that sufficient to expresse the far greater Obligation you so generously heape on me and mine (whom you every-day Inrich with the Productions of your Ingenious Labours) I should repay them (and as indeede I am onely able to do) with the highest Sentiments of Gratitude, which, though your Acceptance can at all render Agreable, can never in the least, make Proportionable to what is due from Dear Sister Your etc. Wotton: 25: December. 1697

1 See Letter 802 on the health of John Evelyn Jr and Martha Evelyn 2 Mary Wyche

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Christopher Wren Letter 806 (806) February 20, 1697#1 f 115

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

Epistle DCCCVI To Sir Christopher Wren Surveyor of his Majesties Workes

Sir, That I assume the Boldnesse of Adorning this little Work,2 with the Name of the Master of the Works, whose Patronage alone can give it Reputation: I have no Excuse for; but an Ambition of publiquely declaring the greate Esteeme I have ever had of your Virtues and Accomplishments; not onely in the Art of Building; but through all the Learned Cycle of the most Usefull Knowledge and abstrusest Sciences, as well as of the most Polite and Shining: All which is so justly to be allow’d you; that there needes no Panegyrick, or other History, to Eternize them, than the Greatest Citty of the Universe, which you have Built and Beautified, and are still Improving: Witnesse the Churches, the Royal Courts, Stately Halls, the Magazines, Palaces and other publique structures; besids what you have Erected of Greate and Magnificent in Both the Universitys, at Chelsey and in the Country, and are now advancing of the Royal Marine Hospital at Greenwich etc. All of them so many Trophys of your Skill and Industry; and conducted with that Successe; that if the whole Art of Building were intirely lost it might be Recover’d, and found againe in St. Paules,3 the Historical Column4 and those other Monuments of your happy Talent and Extraordinary Genius: – I have nam’d St. Paules, and truely not without Admiration, as oft as I call to mind (as frequently I do) the sad and deplorable Condition it lay in, when (after it had ben made a stable of Horses and Den of Theives)[.]5 You, with other Gentlemen, and my Selfe, were by the late King Charles, named Commissioners to Survey its Dilapidations, and to make Report to his Majestie, in order to a Speedy Reparation:6 You will not (I am sure) forget, the struggle we had with some, who were for patching it up any how, instead of Building what it altogether needed, when, to put an End to the Contest, within two or three days after (for it was at the End of August) that Dreadfull Conflagration7 hapn’d, out of whose Ashes this Phoenix is risen, and was by Providence, design’d for you: The Circumstances, and Conjuncture is so Remarkable (though haply not much heeded) that I think it worthy Notice: However I will now say no more, But to beg your Pardon for this 1 Although placed in the letterbook after a letter of 25 December 1697, this letter of dedication is dated 21 February 1696/7 in the preface to the 1707 edition of Evelyn’s A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern. 2 A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern 3 Evelyn attended the first service at Wren’s rebuilt St Paul’s on 5 December 1697 (Diary V.278). 4 the Monument to the Great Fire 5 See Letter I.36, note 8. 6 Evelyn had been appointed to a commission to consider the state of St Paul’s in 1666 (see Diary III.448 9). 7 the Great Fire of 1666 (see Letter 280)

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Confidence, after I shall have Aquainted you, that the Parallel8 (to which this Treatise was Annex’t) being out of Print, I was by the Book-seller9 Importun’d to Add something to a new Impression: But, to which I was no way inclin’d, ’til (not long-since) going to St. Paules some of your Chiefe Workemen Gratefully Acknowledg’d the Assistance it had afforded them, I tooke this Opportunity of doing my Selfe this Honor, who am Sir etc. Wotton: 20: February. 1696/7

Thomas Tenison Letter 807 (807) February 1698 f 115

Epistle DCCCVII To the Archbishop of Canterbery:

My Lord, This comes to beg your Graces Pardon for my late presumption in offering to present you with a Book1 so unworthy your Acceptance, that every line of it Reproches my temerity: I was long-since so very sensible of it, and its many defects, that as I obstructed the Progresse of the Printer,2 for two yeares; so would I with all my heart have withdrawn my Copy, could I have don it, without Injury to the Book-seller, who had ben at Charges for the Sculps,3 perswading me (when I first went into Surrey) that he would put it into the hands, of an extraordinary Superviser. How he has Acquitted himselfe, of the Care he promis’d, the Errata shew: But this my Lord, is not all: I was Conscious of my owne Inabillity, to undertake a Province would expose it: But the Die is Cast, and I must submit:– I know I shall be Censur’d, for what I have Advanc’d concerning Etiminius,4 after what

8 Evelyn’s Parallel of the Antient Architecture was first published in 1664 and reissued in 1680 (see Keynes, Bibliography, 169–72). The second edition, referred to here, was published in 1707 after his death. The “Treatise” referred to is an expanded version of his Account of Architects and Architecture to which this dedication is attached. 9 John Place Jr, who solicited the new edition (see Letter 763) 1 The printing of Numismata (1697) was the subject of almost as much regret for Evelyn as his early publication of the first book of Lucretius. His presentation copy to Sir Hans Sloane (BL C.71.g.3) is prefaced by a letter apologising for its errata and emending the text throughout. 2 Benjamin Tooke 3 engravings 4 In Numismata Evelyn instances a medal of “Etim[in]ius King of London” as the frail evidence upon which “our learned* Antiquaries have asserted her Metropolitan Title, against all the Critics, tho she was no Roman Colony” (51). The marginal note at * cites Burt. Itin. Ant. p.159. This is probably Richard Burton’s Historical remarques, and observations of the ancient and present state of London and Westminster (London, 1681; in the 1687 library catalogue).

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the most Learned Spanheme5 has sayd of that Medal, and to whose Judgement I infinitely defer: But if I was, and still am, unwilling to Degrade our glorious Citty of her so Early Metropolitan Dignity, and had others to support me, I cannot be so much concern’d and asham’d, as of some other Sphalmata which, I know not how Escap’t me, when I gather’d out the Errata and could not be ignorant that Obryzum signify’d Gold of the purest Test, and ad Obrussam exactam,6 by all the Critics I was sufficiently convinc’d indeede, that Constantinople had the juster right to CONOB but the Medal coine I mention, seemes to differ so little, that was in doubt: There is likewise a mistake (p. 207) of Richborough for Regulbium,7 which escap’t me: But, my Lord, there are so many more and greater Faults, that I am quite out of Countenance, Though, si parvis componere8 –. The Illustrious Spanheme publish’d not long since abroad, and Mr. Drydens famous Virgil 9 here at home, have not ben so hapy, to passe the presse, without cruel and many Scars: I must humbly therefore crave your Graces pardon for this boldnesse, and to Absolve me with your Benediction: Wotton February: –1697/8.

John Batteley1 Letter 808 (908) February 4, 1698 f 115v

Epistle DCCCCVIII To Dr. Bettley Arch Deacon of Canterbury.

Worthy Sir, Though I am a stranger to your Person, which is my greate Misfortune, yet was it not possible to see the name of Dr. Bettley without Reproch to my selfe, and what I presum’d to 5 Ezechiel Spanheim, Dissertationes de praestantia et usu numismatum antiquorum. Editio secunda, priori longe auctior (Amsterdam, 1671; Eve.a.121), 647 6 “testing or assay of gold by fire.” In his marginal addenda to the copy of Numismata sent to Sir Hans Sloane, Evelyn notes on the sentence “There is a small hollow coin seeming to be Gold, but of mixt or Obrize sort”: “and Oberiz sort also; for such a Medal I find mention’d by Aldus, of Valentianus, with CONOB, which he reads Constantinopoli Obrizatum, belonging to Count Landus: Se Ald. Manut. Notar. Expla. p. 802. Venet. MDXCI.” 7 This is the modern Reculver, about which John Batteley (Letter 808) had written a history, and prints of which his antiquarian friend Abraham Hill had in his collection. In the marginalia of Sloane’s copy Evelyn adds Batteley’s name to the list of historians and antiquaries on p. 245. 8 if small things can be compared 9 The Works of Virgil: containing his Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. Translated into English verse; by Mr Dryden (London, 1697) 1 John Batteley (1646–1708; ODNB). A graduate of Cambridge (BA 1666, MA 1669, DD in 1684) and fellow of Trinity College, Batteley served as chaplain to both Archbishops Sancroft and Tillotson. He was

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publish, before I had consulted so greate a lover, and judicious Collector of all thats Antient, and rare of that sort: I hope you have seene my Apologe for those Errata,2 and how they hap’nd to Escape the being Inserted, together with the rest: In the meane time, as to what you speake of the Hilt, or Capulum3 of the old Roman Swords, I do not remember that I ever saw, either Statue, Relievo, or Trophy without it. One needes go no farther than Trajans Column so accurately design’d by Villamena (of whose Widow, I purchas’d my Copy long-since, at Rome, and often compar’d with the Original)4 to find the Cross but very conspicuous in every one that has a Sword, and that both made broader, and for the proportion of the weapons length bredth, as long or longer than our Gallants were [sic] them at present: The same appeares yet of greater length in Perrieres Segmenta,5 nor do I see how they could possibly else have warded a down right blow: With my very humble Acknowledgements for your favourable Animadversions, I shall ever remaine Sir Your etc. Wotton: 4: February. –1697/8

Sidney Godolphin Letter 809 (809) February 6, 1698 f 115v

Epistle DCCCIX To my Lord Godolphin:

My Lord, The Bearer hereof Dr. Cade1 (formerly my Neighbour) a Modest, Learned, and every-way Accomplish’d Person in his Profession, and Worthy of your Lordships favour; incourages

2 3 4 5

made archdeacon of Canterbury in 1688, master of King’s Bridge Hospital (1689), and given a canonry at Canterbury Cathedral (1689). Batteley wrote Antiquitates Rutupinæ (about Richborough and Reculver in Kent), published posthumously in 1711, as well as a work on his birthplace, Bury St Edmunds. See Letter 809. These were published as an Advertisement at the end of Philosophical Transactions 20, no 240 (May 1698), 204. In it Evelyn explains more clearly that Spanheim’s objections are to the medal, not the city. Originally, a handle of any kind, the word came to mean “hilt.” A letter from Richard Bentley of 27 February 1698 (Add 78318: f 129 [27.2.1698]; Bentley, Correspondence, 165–6) confirms Evelyn’s points here while pointing out his misspelling of Batteley’s name. Franciscus Villamena engraved the illustrations for Alfonso Chacón (Ciaccone), Historia utriusque belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti, ex simulachris quæ in columna eiusdem Romae visuntur collecta (Rome, 1616; Evelyn Library, no 363). See also Plate 2. François Perrier, Segmenta nobilium signorum et statuarum (Rome & Paris, 1638; Eve.c.26). The 1687 library catalogue also lists Perrier, Icones et segmenta illustrium e marmore tabularum quæ Romæ adhuc extant a Francisco Perrier delineata incisa et ... restituta (Rome & Paris, 1645; Eve.c.27).

1 Salusbury Cade (c.1660?–1720; ODNB) was a physician (DM 1691) who lived in Greenwich until 1708, when he was appointed physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Evelyn records him as attending his

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me to beg your Lordships Countenance in Recommending him (with my most humble Service) to my Lord Marlborow:2 That now the Duke of Gloucesters3 Family is shortly to be settl’d, he may be receiv’d as his Highnesses Physitian; your Lordship will hereby Gratify a very deserving Man, and still add to the greate Obligations of my Lord etc. Wotton: 6: February. –1697/8

Henry Godolphin Letter 810 (810) February 8, 1698* f 115v

Epistle DCCCX To Dr. Godolphin Provost of Eaton.

Sir, Had you been in Towne1 when my Copys2 were distributed among my Friends, the small present which I presum’d to send you, had ben brought by your most humble Servant with an Apology for my Boldnesse, in obtruding upon the Provost of Eaton (who is himselfe so greate a Judge of that and all other learned Subjects) my meane performances: It were quite to Tire you out, should I relate on what Occasion I came to be ingag’d on a Topic, on which I could advance so little of my owne, to extenuate my presumtion: Yet give me leave to take hold of this opportunity, to discharge a debt owing to your selfe, and those of your Learned Relations, who condescend to Reade my Book. – ’Tis now neere fifty yeares past since. Gabriel Naudæus publish’d Directions concerning Librarys and their furniture, which I had Translated; minding to reprint it, as what I conceiv’d might not be unseasonable whilst Auctions were become so frequent among us, and Gentlemen every-where storing themselves with Books at those learned Marts; and because it was so very thinn a Volume, I thought of annexing a sheete or two of Medals, as an Appendant not improper.3 But being perswaded to say something of our Modern Medals relating to daughter Susanna in 1694 and (along with Evelyn) as involved with the Greenwich Hospital Committee in 1700 to which Evelyn seems to have recommended him (Add 15857: f 171 [18.2.1698]). 2 John Churchill, 1st duke of Marlborough (1650–1722; ODNB). 3 William, duke of Gloucester, the heir of Queen Anne was now eight years old. He died at the age of eleven of smallpox in 1700. Evelyn uses the word “family” in the sense of household. 1 Add 78299 ends here, with less than half of a page of text. The rest of the letter is supplied from Seven Letters of John Evelyn. It is also printed in Diary (1887), III, 373–5, which also provides the date. The manuscript letter, once housed at Eton (MS 12a), can no longer be located. 2 of the newly printed Numismata 3 This account reflects the interconnectedness of Evelyn’s translation of Naudé on libraries, Sculptura, and Numismata, a connection pursued by another of his correspondents in 1698, Charles Bunbury (Add 78318: f 132 [27.2.1698]). His correspondence about coins and medals continued beyond the publication of Numismata. A letter to the antiquary, Ralph Thoresby, on 21 December 1698, gives an account both of the book’s compilation and of Evelyn’s collecting (Add 78683: f 66). This led to an extensive correspondence with

The Letterbooks of John Evelyn

1149

our Country (as Franc and Holland had of theirs) I found it swell to so incompetent a bulk, as would by no meanes suite with that Treatise. Whilst I was about this (and indeed often, and long before) I had ben Importun’d to make a second edition of my Chalcography (now grown very scarse) and to bring it from 1662, where I left off, to this Time, there having ben so great an Improvement in Sculpture. This being a Task I had no Inclynation for (having of a long time given over Collections of that sort) I thought yet of gratifying them in some manner, with an apte Chapter in my Discourse of Medals, where I speake of the Effigies of famous persons, and the use which may be deriv’d of such a Collection, and that which follows it. ’Tis now a good while ago since first I put it into the hands of a Book-seller, with strict Injunction not to work-off a sheete ’til it had ben Revis’d by abler Judgments than my owne; and so it remain’d, whilst the Medals could be collected that were to be Grav’n, which tho’ hardly amounting to an hundred, were with difficulty enough procur’d in two-yeares time. This slow proceeding, together with my long, and frequent Excursions at this distance from Towne, made me absolutely resolv’d to abandon and think of it no farther, but give it up to the Book-seller to dispose of it for wast paper; when needs he would perswade me that he had such an accomplish’d Superviser of the Presse he imploy’d, as would do me all the Right I could expect from an able and learned man; and that now he had ben at such Charges for the Sculps, I should extreamely Injure him to with-draw my Copy, and what I had to annex, as certainely I should, but for that Consideration only. So as I had no Remedy left me, but by Inlarging the Errata to my greater Reproch. ’Twas very slender Comfort to me, the being told, that even the most incomparably learned Spanheime (whose glorious Work of Medals was not long since reprinted) scap’t not the presse without remarkable, and cruel Scarrs: But now I mention’d the noble Spanheim (to whose Judgement all deferr) I may haply (among too many other weaknesses) be Censur’d, for what I have said concening Etiminius, after what he has objected against that Medal [de praest. Numis: rep: 647].4 But if I was, and still am, unwilling to degrade our Renoun’d Citty of her so early Metropolitan Dignity (whilst I had any to stand by me) I cannot be so deepely concern’d, (and indeed asham’d) should any think me so Ignorant, as not long-since to know, that Obryzum signifys Gold of the most exalted purity and Test, or, as the Antients expresse it ad Obrussam exactum, which yet I know not how, escap’d me when I was gathering out the Errata. As for CONOB., tho’ I ever read it Constantinople etc, the extreame rudenesse of a Reverse, and Metal, I had shew’d me of that Coine, so perfectly resembling that of CVNO – might favour my conjecture –5 There is (in margine p.207) a Mistake of Richborow for Regulbium,

Thoresby (Add 78685: ff 55–61) on classical and medieval antiquities. William Wotton used the appearance of Numismata as an excuse to digress from his biography of Boyle into antiquities (Add 78685: f 108). 4 See Letter 807 and notes 4 and 5. 5 note from Bray in Diary (1887) III, 375: “In the following letter to Mr. Henshaw, the latter part of which is almost a transcript of the above, this sentence is thus expressed: ‘I found the period omitted, p. 22 which should have read, mixt and obrize sort also, which has on it a horse rudely design’d with the letters CON-OB. Constantinopoli obrizatum, which some will have to signify Constantinople only – others, some Prince of ours.’” Compare to the note in Sir Hans Sloane’s copy (Letter 807, note 1).

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w[h]ich also escap’d me. But Sir there are so many more and greater faults as put me out of Countenance, for which, and this tedious Scribble, I heartily beg your pardon, who am for infinite Civilitys Sir, Your most humble most obliged, devoted Servant Sir, be pleas’d to give my humble service, to Mr. Fleetewood,6 whose Castigations I ought also to revere.

J. Evelyn

6 William Fleetwood (1656–1723), bishop of Ely, published Chronicon Preciosum, or an Account of English Money, the price of Corn, and other Commodities for the last 600 years (London, [1707]).

Bibliography

Manuscripts British Library

This list contains only those volumes from the Evelyn Archive which are cited directly. See also the online catalogue of the archive prepared by Frances Harris on the B ­ ritish Library website, Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, vol. 2, and the ­online Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700. Evelyn Archive Add 78168–693 Sir Richard Browne Add 78189–263 Add 78221 Letters from John and Mary Evelyn George Evelyn Add 78291–5 Add 78291 Letters from John Evelyn Add 78295 Letters to and from Mary Wyche (daughter of George Evelyn) William and Jane Glanville Add 78296–7 Add 78296 Letters to William Glanville, Jane Glanville, and William Glanville Jr John Evelyn (1620–1706) Add 78298–429 Correspondence Add 78298–22 Letterbook I 1–405 1644–79 Add 78298 Add 78299 Letterbook II 406–810 1679–98 Add 78300 Letters from Mary (wife), daughters, and William Draper Add 78301 Letters from John Jr (son) and John (grandson) Add 78302 Letters from Richard (father), Richard (brother), and family Add 78303–4 Letters from George (brother) and family Add 78305 Letters from Jane (sister), William Glanville, and family Add 78306 Letters from Richard and Elizabeth Browne (in-laws), and Samuel Tuke, wife, and daughter Add 78307 Letters from Margaret, Sidney, Francis Godolphin Add 78308 Letters from John and Christian Berkeley Add 78309 Letters from Elizabeth Mordaunt, Ann Sylvius, Anne Spencer, Jael Boscawen

1152

Bibliography

Add 78310 Letters from Charles Spencer Add 78311 Letters from James Thicknesse, Thomas Henshaw, Philip Packer Add 78312–13 Letters from John Beale Add 78314 Letters from Ralph Bohun, Samuel Pepys, Benjamin Tooke Add 78315 Miscellaneous letters 1637–49 Add 78316 Miscellaneous letters 1650–9 Add 78317 Miscellaneous letters 1660–79 Add 78318 Miscellaneous letters 1680–99 Add 78319 Miscellaneous letters 1700–6 Add 78320 Letters related to the Commission for Sick and Wounded ­Seamen October 1664–September 1665 Add 78321 Letters related to the Commission for Sick and Wounded ­Seamen September 1665–May 1673 Diary Add 78323–25 “Kalendarium” Add 78323 Commonplace Books Add 78327–33 Add 78327 “Vademecum” Add 78328–31 “Loci communes” Add 78332–3 “Adversaria” Projects Add 78334–52 “Trades. Secrets & Receipts Mechanical” Add 78339 Add 78342–4 “Elysium Britannicum” Add 78351 Miscellaneous papers Verse and Drama Add 78353–9 Add 78353–6 Lucretius translation and commentary Occasional verse Add 78357 Add 78359 Miscellaneous literary manuscripts Devotional Manuscripts Add 78360–92 Add 78364 “A breife Account of divers Sermons” Add 78366 “Relation of what passed betwixt my Co K, the Deane of ­Peterborough and my selfe at Paris” Add 78367 “A Rationall Account of the True Religion” Add 78391 “Devotions of Mrs. Blaggs which I copied out at the Request of my Lady Sylvius & from whom I borrowed them afterwards & intend to Restore” Public Offices etc. Add 78393–401 Add 78393 Miscellaneous public affairs Inventories, Accounts etc. Add 78402–13 Add 78404 Inventories of Sayes Court, Wotton etc. Mary Evelyn Add 78430–9 Add 78431 Letters to Mary Evelyn from Richard Browne and John Evelyn Add 78432 Letters to and from John Jr and Martha Evelyn Add 78433 Letters from Susanna and William Draper Add 78434 Letters from William Glanville and William Glanville Jr Add 78435 Letters from Samuel Tuke, Mary Guldeford Tuke, and Mary Sheldon Tuke

Bibliography

1153

Add 78436 Letters from Elizabeth Packer Add 78438 Letterbook Mary Evelyn Jr Add 78440–1 Add 78440 Miscellaneous papers Add 78441 “Miscelania or a Book of several designes and thoughts of mine for the regulating my Life upon many occasions” John Evelyn Jr Add 78442–61 Add 78442 Letters from Richard Browne, John Evelyn, and to Martha Evelyn Add 78453 “Testamentum in Procinctu”: advice from Evelyn to John Jr on his departure for Ireland in 1692 Estate Papers Add 78585–610 Add 78610 Drawings and engravings of Wotton Add 78629 Maps of Deptford and Sayes Court Library Catalogues Add 78630–43 1687 library catalogue Add 78632 Upcott Manuscripts Add 78678–93 Add 78678 Miscellaneous letters A–H Add 78679 Miscellaneous letters I–Z Add 78683 Letters: “Authors and Antiquaries” A–F Add 78684 Letters: “Authors and Antiquaries” G–P Add 78685 Letters: “Authors and Antiquaries” R–W In addition, a substantial amount of Evelyn’s correspondence is contained in volumes compiled by William Upcott and acquired by the British Library at the time of the dispersal of his collection in 1844–6: Add 15857–8 Miscellaneous letters Add 15889 Letters from Anne Spencer Miscellaneous letters Add 15948–9 Add 15950 Working papers, including “Notes for the study of universal history” There are also Evelyn letters in the Robert Boyle archive (Add 4229), and in other volumes of miscellaneous correspondence. Bodleian Library, Oxford Ashmole Ms 1115 Letter to Elias Ashmole Ms Wood F.41 Letter to Anthony Wood Tanner Mss 27–8 Letters to William Sancroft Houghton Library, Harvard University Houghton Ms 992.2 “A particular of my estate” Houghton Ms 992.7 “Vade mecum” (commonplace book) The Queen’s College, Oxford Ms 231 “Instructions concerning erecting of a Library”

1154

Bibliography

Royal Society RS Cl.P/3i/ Materials relating to the history of trades RS Letter-Book, Supp. III Miscellaneous letters RS EL/E Miscellaneous letters and papers

Printed Materials a primary sources (evelyn)

1 Contemporary First Editions

See also Geoffrey Keynes, John Evelyn: A Study in Bibliophily with a Bibliography of His Writing. Of Liberty and Servitude. Translated out of the French into the English tongue. And Dedicated to Geo: Evelyn, Esquire. London, 1649. The State of France, As it stood in the IXth yeer of this present Monarch, Lewis XIIII. Written to a friend by J.E. London, 1652. An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus De Rerum Natura. Interpreted and Made English Verse by J. Evelyn Esq. London, 1656. 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 R.D.C.D.W.B.D.N. And now Transplanted into English by Philocepos. London, 1658. The golden book of St. John Chrysostom, concerning the education of children. Translated out of the Greek by J.E. Esq. London, 1659. A Character of England, As it was lately present-ed in a Letter, to a Noble Man of France. ­London, 1659. An Apologie for the Royal Party: Written in a Letter to a Person of the late Councel of State. By a Lover of Peace and of his Country. With a Touch At the Pretended Plea for the Army. London, 1659. An Apologie for the Apology of the Royal-Party. Published by the Same Hand, and to Prevent Mistakes. [London, 1659]. Not listed in Keynes, Bibliography. The Manner of Ordering Fruit-Trees. By the Sieur Le Gendre, Curate of Henonville. Wherein is treated of Nurseries, Wall-Fruits, Hedges of Fruit-Trees, Dwarf-Trees, High-Standers, &c. Written originally in French, and translated faithfully into English, at the request of severall Persons of Honour. London, 1660. A Panegyric to Charles the Second, presented to His Majestie The xxxiii. of April, being the Day of His Coronation. MDCLXI. London [1661]. Fumifugium: or, The Inconveniencie of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated. Together With some Remedies humbly proposed by J.E. Esq; To His Sacred Majestie, and To the Parliament now Assembled. Published by His Majesties Command. London, 1661. Instructions Concerning Erecting of a Library: Presented to My Lord The President De Mesme. By Gabriel Naudeus, P. And now Interpreted by Jo. Evelyn, Esquire. London, 1661. Tyrannus Or the Mode: in a Discourse of Sumptuary Lawes. London, 1661.

Bibliography

1155

Sculptura: or the History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper. With An ample enumeration of the most renowned Masters, and their Works. To which is annexed A new manner of Engraving, or Mezzo Tinto, communicated by his Highness Prince Rupert to the Authour of this Treatise. London, 1662. Μυστήριον τη̃ς Ἀνομίας That is, Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism; or, The new Heresie of the Jesuites … Together with The Imaginary Heresie, in three Letters … Never before published in English. London, 1664. Sylva, Or A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the Propagation of Timber In His Majesties Dominions. By J.E. Esq; As it was Deliver’d in the Royal Society the xvth of October, CIƆIƆCLXIII  … To which is annexed Pomona; Or, An Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees in relation to Cider … Published by express Order of the Royal Society. Also Kalendarium Hortense; Or, Gard’ners Almanac; Directing what he is to do Monethly throughout the Year. London, 1664. Pomona, or an Appendix concerning Fruit-Trees, In relation to Cider, The Making and Several ways of Ordering it. London, 1664. Kalendarium Hortense: or, the Gard’ners Almanac; Directing what He is to do Monethly, throughout the Year. London, 1664. A Parallel of the Antient Architecture with the Modern, In a Collection of Ten Principal Authors who have written upon the Five Orders  … To which is added an Account of Architects and Architecture, in an Historical and Etymological Explantion of certain Tearms particularly affected by Architects. With Leon Baptista Alberti’s Treatise of Statues. By John Evelyn Esq; Fellow of the Royal Society. London, 1664. The Pernicious Consequences of the New Heresie of the Jesuites against The King and the State. By an Advocate of Parliament. London, 1666. The English Vineyard Vindicated by John Rose Gard’ner to His Majesty, at his Royal Garden in St James’s. Formerly Gard’ner to her Grace the Dutchess of Somerset. With an Address, Where the best Plants may be had at easie Rates. London, 1666. Publick Employment and an Active Life Prefer’d to Solitude, and all its Appanages, Such as Fame, Command, Riches, Conversation, &c. In Reply to a late Ingenious Essay of a contrary Title. London, 1667. An Idea of the Perfection of Painting: Demonstrated From the Principles of Art, and by Examples conformable to the Observations, which Pliny and Quintilian have made upon the most celebrated Pieces of the Antient Painters, Parallel’d with some Works of the most famous Modern Painters, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Julio Romano, and N. Poussin. Written in French by Roland Freart, Sieur de Cambray, And rendred English by J.E. Esquire, Fellow of the Royal Society. London, 1668. The History of the Three late famous Impostors, viz. Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bei, and Sabatai Sevi … With a brief Account of the Ground, and Occasion of the present War between the Turk and the Venetian. Together with the Cause of the final Extirpation, Destruction, and Exile of the Jews out of the Empire of Persia. London, 1669. Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress. Containing Asuccinct Account of Traffick in General; its Benefits and Improvements: Of Discoveries, Wars and Conflicts at Sea, from the Original of Navigation to this Day; with special Regard to the English Nation; Their several Voyages and Expeditions, 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. London, 1674.

1156

Bibliography

A Philosophical Discourse of Earth, Relating to the Culture and Improvement of it for Vegetation, and the Propagation of Plants, &c. as it was presented to the Royal Society, April 29. 1675. London, 1676. Mundus Muliebris: or, the Ladies Dressing-Room unlock’d, And her Toilette spread. In Burlesque. Together with the Fop-Dictionary, Compiled for the Use of the Fair Sex. London, 1690. The Compleat Gard’ner; o, Directions for Cultivating and Right Ordering of Fruit-Gardens and Kitchen-Gardens; With Divers Reflections On several Parts of Husbandry. In Six Books. By the Famous Monsr. De La Quintinye, Chief director of all the Gardens of the French-King. To which is added His Treatise of Orange-Trees, with the Raising of Melons, omitted in the French Editions. London, 1693. Numismata. A Discourse of Medals, Antient and Modern. Together with some Account of Heads and Effigies of Illustrious, and Famous Persons, in Sculps, and Taille-douce, of Whom we have no Medals extant; and Of the Use to be derived from them. To which is added A Digression concerning Physiognomy. London, 1697. The Case of George Evelyn of Wotton, in the County of Surrey, Esq; With some Remarks thereon, by Iohn Evelyn, of Deptford, Esq; only Brother of the said George. [London?] [1698?]. Acetaria. A Discourse of Sallets. London, 1699.

2 Later Editions Aceteria: A Discourse of Sallets (1699). Ed. Christopher Driver. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1996. A Devotionarie Book of John Evelyn of Wotton, 1620–1706. Ed. Walter Frere. London: John Murray, 1936. Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn. Ed. William Bray. 4 vols. London: George Bell and Sons, 1887. The Diary of John Evelyn. Ed. E.S. De Beer. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955. Directions for the Gardiner at Says-Court. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes. London: Nonesuch Press, 1932. The Early Life and Education of John Evelyn 1620–1641. Ed. H. Maynard Smith. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1920. Elysium Britannicum, or The Royal Gardens. Ed. John E. Ingram. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. The History of Religion: A Rational Account of the True Religion. Ed. R.M. Evanson. 2 vols. London: Colborn, 1850. John Evelyn, Cook . Ed. Christopher Driver. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1997. John Evelyn in Naples 1645. Ed. H. Maynard Smith. Oxford: Blackwell, 1914. John Evelyn’s Translation of Titus Lucretius Carus De rerum natura: An Old-Spelling Critical Edition. Ed. Michael M. Repetzki. Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang, 2000. The Life of Mrs. Godolphin. Ed. Harriet Sampson. London: Oxford University Press, 1939. The Life of Mrs. Godolphin by John Evelyn. Ed. Samuel, Lord Bishop of Oxford. London: William Pickering, 1847. “London Revived. Consideration for Its Rebuilding in 1666.” Ed. E.S. de Beer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938. Memoires for My Grand-son. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes. Oxford: Nonesuch Press, 1926. Memoirs, illustrative of the life and writings of John Evelyn. Ed. William Bray. 2 vols. London: Colborn, 1819. The Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn. Ed. William Upcott. London: Colborn, 1825.

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Particular Friends: The Correspondence of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. Ed. Guy de la Bédoyère. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1997. Public and Private Life in the Seventeenth Century: The Mackenzie-Evelyn Debate. Ed. Brain Vickers. Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1986. Sculptura. With the Unpublished Second Part. Ed. C.F. Bell. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. Seven Letters of John Evelyn. Transcribed & ed. Frances E.R. Heygate. Oxford: Privately Printed, 1914. The Writings of John Evelyn. Ed. Guy de la Bédoyère. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995. b primary sources (post

1706)

Ashmole, Elias. Elias Ashmole (1617–1692). Ed. C.H. Josten. 5 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966. Bacon, Francis. Advancement of Learning. Ed. Michael Kernan. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. Bentley, Richard. The Correspondence of Richard Bentley, D.D. Ed. C. Wordsworth. 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1842. Birch, Thomas. The History of the Royal Society of London, for Improving of Natural Knowledge, from its First Rise. 4 vols. London: L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1756–7. Boyle, Robert. The Correspondence of Robert Boyle. Ed. Michael Hunter, Antonio Clericuzio, and Lawrence M. Principe. 6 vols. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2001. –  The Works of Robert Boyle. Ed. Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis. 14 vols. London: Pickering & Chatto, 1999–2000. Boyle, Robert, et al. Robert Boyle by Himself and His Friends. Ed. Michael Hunter. London: Pickering, 1994. Browne, Sir Thomas. Works. Ed. Sir Geoffrey Keynes. 2nd ed. 4 vols. London: Faber & Faber, 1964. Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Ed. Thomas Faulkner, Nicholas K. Kiessling, Rhonda L. Blair, et al. 6 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989–2000. Cary, Patrick. The Poems of Patrick Cary. Ed. Veronica Delany. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978. Cleveland, John. The Poems. Ed. Brian Morris and Eleanor Withington. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. Ed. Joel Elias Springarn. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908. Donne, John. The Satires, Epigrams and Verse Letters. Ed. W. Milgate. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967. Erasmus, Desiderius. On the Writing of Letters. Trans. Charles Fantazzi. In Collected Works of Erasmus 25, ed. J.K. Sowards, 1–254. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985. Fanshawe, Richard. The Poems and Translations of Sir Richard Fanshawe. 2 vols. Ed. Peter Davidson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations. 12 vols. Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons, 1903–5. Hamilton, Anthony. Memoirs of Count Grammont. Ed. Gordon Goodwin. 2 vols. Edinburgh: John Grant, 1908. Hartlib, Samuel. The Hartlib Papers. Sheffield: Humanities Research Institute, 2002. CD-ROM and online.

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Hobbes, Thomas. The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. Noel Malcolm. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. –  Leviathan. Ed. Noel Malcolm. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012. Hooke, Robert. Philosophical Experiments and Observations of the Late Eminent Dr. Robert Hooke S.R.S. London: W. and J. Innys, 1726. Household Accounts and Disbursement Books of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1558–1561, 1584–1586. Ed. Simon Adams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Historical Society, 1995. Howard, Thomas, 14th earl of Arundel. “Remembrances of Things Worth Seeing in Italy Given to John Evelyn 25 April 1646.” Ed. John Martin Robinson. [London]: Roxburghe Club, 1987. Howell, James. Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ: The Familiar Letters of James Howell. Ed. Joseph Jacobs. 2 vols. London: David Nutt, 1892. Hutchinson, Lucy. The Works of Lucy Hutchinson. Ed. Reid Barbour and David Norbrook. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012. Hyde, Henry. The Correspondence of Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon and His Brother Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester. Ed. S.W. Singer. 2 vols. London: S. and R. Bentley, 1828. Junius, Franciscus. The Literature of Classical Art. Ed. K. Aldrich, P. Fehl, and R. Fehl. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Lipsius, Justus. Principles of Letter-writing: A Bilingual Text of Justi Lipsii Epistolica Institutio. Ed. R.V. Young and M. Thomas Hester. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996. Locke, John. The Correspondence of John Locke. Ed. E.S. DeBeer. 8 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976–89. Luttrell, Narcissus. A Brief Relation of State Affairs. 6 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1857. Marinella, Lucretia. The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Defects and Vices of Men. Trans. and ed. Anne Dunhill. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition. Ed. Joseph Black. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Marvell, Andrew. The Prose Works of Andrew Marvell. Ed. Annabel Patterson et al. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Milton, John. Complete Prose Works. Ed. Don M. Wolfe et al. 8 vols in 9. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–82. –  Paradise Lost. Ed. Alastair Fowler. 2nd ed. rev. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2007. Montaigne, Michel de. Essais. Ed. Pierre Villey. 2 vols. Paris: PUF, 1978. Mountagu, Edward. The Journal of Edward Mountagu, Earl of Sandwich, 1659–65. Ed. R.C. Anderson. [London]: Printed for the Navy Records Society, 1929. Oldenburg, Henry. The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. Ed. A. Rupert Hall and Marie Boas Hall. 13 vols. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965–86. Pepys, Samuel. The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews. 11 vols. London: G. Bell and Sons, 1970–83. –  Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, 1679–1703, in the Possession of J. Pepys Cockerell. Ed. J.R. Tanner. 2 vols. London: Bell, 1926.

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Evelyn’s Correspondents

Names are given in the form in which they are used in the apparatus. Members of the ­nobility are identified by family name, with cross-references to titles. Women are identified by the name they are most commonly associated with, and cross-referenced. Book I: Letters I.35–I.42 Add 78298 Book II: Letters II.1–II.24 Add 79298 Book III: Letters 1– 405 Add 78298 Book IV: Letters 406–810 Add 78299 Albermarle, 1st duke of. See Monck, George Anderson, Richard, 480 Arlington, 1st earl of. See Bennet, Henry Arundell, Henry, 564 Ashmole, Elias, 232 Arundel, 14th earl of. See Howard, Thomas Aston, Francis, 474 Ayscue, George, 249 Barkstead, John, 131 Barlow Francis, 104 Barlow, Thomas, 92, 135, 330 Bartholin, Thomas, II.4, II.5, II.7 Basire, Isaac, 319 Bateman, Anthony, 217 Bathurst, Ralph, 286, 295, 303, 327, 367, 378 Batteley, John, 808 Beale, John, 166, 219, 311, 332, 379, 409 Bemde, John, 645, 678 Bennet, Henry, 191, 193, 243, 264, 321, 334, 388, 393, 417, 452, 464, 487

1655–75 1644–86 1645–79 1679–98

Benson, Samuel, 373 Bentley, Richard, 679, 720, 747, 751, 753, 755, 771, 782, 784, 804 Berenclow, Bernard Martin, I.39 Berenger, Thomas, 662 Berkeley, Christian, 371, 377, 380, 383, 423, 446, 465, 467, 483, 501 Berkeley, John, I.42, 374 Berkeley, Robert, 475, 492, 540, 547, 549, 561, 577, 590, 625 Bertie, Charles, 398 Blagge, Margaret. See Godolphin Blathwayt, William, 698 Bodvel, Ann, 7, 12 Bohun, Ralph, 506, 657, 742, 752 Borgi, Mr, II.1 Boscawen, Jael, 414, 461, 482, 484, 486, 499, 546, 570, 574, 585, 588, 621, 743, 777, 791 Bosse, Abraham, II.15, II.17, II.22

1174

Evelyn’s Correspondents

Bowyer, Anthony, 656 Boyle, Robert, 114, 158, 159, 161, 162, 188, 224, 228, 369 Breton, John, 355 Breton, Robert, 203 Bridgeman, William, 768, 797 Bristol, earl of. See Digby, George Bristol, countess of. See Digby, Anne Brouncker, William, 227 Broussel, Charles de, II.18 Browne (Montague), Elizabeth, 17 Browne, Elizabeth Prettyman, 53 Browne, Mary. See Evelyn Browne, Richard, 46, 48, 63, 90, 109, 132, 134, 169 Browne, Thomas, 165 Burgh, Conrad, 49, 130 Burnet, Gilbert, 425, 604 Butler, Amelia, 419 Butler, James, 196 Butler, Thomas, 382, 451 Capel, Henry, 399, 732, 744 Carey, Elizabeth. See Mordaunt Carey, Frances, 20 Carey, Philadelphia, 45 Carr, Elizabeth, 218 Carter, Francis, 266 Carteret, Elizabeth, 268 Carteret, George, 221, 251 Casaubon, Meric, 324, 325, 370 Cavendish, Margaret, 368 Chadwick, James, 726 Chamberlain, Charles, 658 Chapman, John, 599 Chardin, John, 741 Charles II, 168 Chesterfield, 2nd earl of. See Stanhope, Philip Chiffinch, Thomas, 235 Chiswell, Richard, 643 Churchill, John, 688 Clancarty, countess of. See MacCarty, Elizabeth Clarendon, 1st earl of. See Hyde, Edward

Clarendon, 2nd earl of. See Hyde, Henry Clarendon, countess of. See Hyde, Flower Clarke, Mr, 10 Clerke, Francis, 267, 271 Clifford, Thomas, 230, 239, 245, 316, 331, 342, 344, 345, 346, 347, 359 Colepeper, Thomas, 276 Colwall, Daniel, 441 Commissioners of the Navy, 108, 479, 709 Compton, Henry, 685 Compton, William, 190 Cooper, Anthony Ashley, 263 Cornbury, Viscount. See Hyde Cosin, John, 29, 59, 198 Cosin, John Jr, 41 Courten, William, 738 Coventry, William, 170, 192, 250, 259 Cowley, Abraham, 202, 204, 208, 279, 288 Craven, William, 269 Crayford, John, 1 Creech, Thomas, 445, 450, 455 Crisp, Nicholas, 95, 205 Crisp, Nicholas Jr, 637 Croone, William, 207 Cullum, Dudley, 667 [Cyparissa], 160 Danby, earl of. See Osborne, Thomas Davenant, William, 229, 305 Davenport, Christopher, 363 Digby, Anne, 420, 615, 638 Digby, George, 195 Digby, Kenelm, 197 Dolben, John, 339 Douglas, Anne, née Spencer, 427 Douglas, George, 282 Doyley, William, 254 Draper, Mrs, 733, 754, 769, 805 Draper, Susanna, née Evelyn, 620, 692, 716, 798 Draper, William, 749, 780 Dumaresq, James, 283 Dummer, Edmund, 580 Durel, John, 350

Evelyn’s Correspondents [Electra]. See Godolphin, Margaret Elwes, Gervase, 33 Earle, John, 246 Evans, John, 460 Evelyn, Edward, 299 Evelyn, Elizabeth Mynne, 64, 320, 329, 365, 430, 578, 579, 663 Evelyn, George,15, 54, 56, 85, 103, 123, 137, 143, 149, 222, 278, 496, 534, 601, 642, 646, 651, 660, 666, 680, 682, 695 Evelyn, George, nephew, 186, 210, 215 Evelyn, George, of Nutfield, 700 Evelyn, Jane. See Glanville Evelyn, John, Jr, 381, 405, 490, 600, 774, 787 Evelyn of Godstone, John, 72 Evelyn, Mary, 47, 60, 61, 62, 68, 80, 183, 505, 523 Evelyn, Mary, Jr, 444 Evelyn, Mary. See Wyche Evelyn, Mary Cotton, 5, 199 Evelyn, Richard, 21, 43, 139, 151, 220, 287 Evelyn, Susanna. See Draper Eyton, Kenrick, 8, 14 Fanshawe, Richard, 69 Fell, John, 297, 317, 442, 466, 468 Fitzgerald, Elizabeth. See MacCarty Fitzgerald, John, 457 Fitzroy, Isabella, 448, 693 Fountaine, Peter, 488 Fox, Stephen, 408, 410, 428, 437, 775 Fuller, William, 179 Gale, Thomas, 697 Garrard, Jane, 34 Gauden, Dennis, 338 Gibson, Edmund, 703, 713, 725 Glanvill, Joseph, 306, 310, 336 Glanville, Jane, 28, 32, 38 Glanville, William, 37, 44, 611, 644, 648, 731 Godolphin, Francis, 627, 633 Godolphin, Henry, 810 Godolphin, Jael. See Boscawen

1175

Godolphin, Margaret, 385 Godolphin, Sidney, 357, 396, 401, 403, 411, 413, 421, 440, 443, 449, 458, 476, 485, 489, 495, 498, 502, 519, 533, 545, 551, 552, 560, 566, 569, 592, 612, 635, 649, 652, 723, 734, 750, 762, 764, 767, 770, 781, 790, 802, 809 Godolphin, William, 416, 655 Goring, George, 51 Grafton, duchess of. See Fitzroy, Isabella Graham, Dorothy, 358, 376, 571 Griffith, John, 262 Guernier II, Alexandre du, II.16 Hales, Edward, 81, 150 Halford, William, 518 Hamilton, James, 340 Hanmer, Thomas, 335 Harbord, Charles, 98, 121 Hartlib, Samuel, 157, 167 Harwood, John, 618 Heath, Robert, II.2, 23, 153, 154 Henshaw, Thomas, 2, 128, 138 Hildyard, Henry, 50, 55, 71 Holden, Richard, 470, 562, 613, 760 Holmes, Robert, 351 Howard, Ann. See Sylvius Howard, Craven, 352 Howard, Dorothy. See Graham Howard, Elizabeth, 364 Howard, Henry (6th duke), 294, 318, 439 Howard, Henry (7th duke), 553, 558 Howard, Thomas, 3 Hungerford, Edward, 66 Hunt, Henry, 748 Hunt, Richard, 362 Hyde, Edward (1st earl of Clarendon), 65, 225, 260, 281, 290, 323 Hyde, Edward (3rd earl of Clarendon), 515, 526 Hyde, Flower, 395, 402, 522, 525, 542, 557, 594, 629 Hyde, Henry, 233, 236, 248, 253, 255, 272, 354, 394, 500, 520, 521, 524, 530, 541, 544, 568, 576, 634, 677

1176

Evelyn’s Correspondents

Hyde, Laurence, 537, 539 Hyde, Thomas, 510 [Incognitu], 597 Jenner, Thomas, 531 Juliano, Giovanni, II.12, II.23 Justel, Henri, 687 Justices of the Peace, Maidstone Assizes, 616 Keightley, Thomas, 16, 25 Keightley, Thomas, (1650?–1719), 478 Kendrick, Edward, 18 Kildare, 18th earl of. See Fitzgerald, John Lane, George, 343 Langham, John, 293 [Langton, G.], 22 Le Fèvre, Nicasius, I.35, II.14 Le Franc, Jacques, 120, 156 Legge, George, 528 L’Estrange, Roger, 237 Lewknor, Anne, 366 Littleton, Adam, 390 Lloyd, Thomas, 313 Lloyd, William, 724 London, William, 436 Lynch, Thomas, 473 MacCarty, Elizabeth, 477, 493, 573, 672, 796 Mackenzie, George, 289, 304 Maddox, Benjamin, 89, 97, 101, 111, 129, 140 Maginn, Patrick, 333 Maynard, John, 372 Millington, John, 42 Monck, George, 241, 252, 257, 261, 277 Montagu, Anne, II.19, 424 Moray, Robert, 302 Mordaunt, Charles, 384, 565, 617 Mordaunt, Elizabeth, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 96, 106, 115, 174, 194, 386 Mordaunt, Henry, 181 Mordaunt, John, 133, 173, 182, 213, 349 Morice, William, 265

Morland, Samuel, 737 Morley, George, 431 Morley, Herbert, 152, 163 Mountagu, Edward, 256, 301, 308 [N.N., Lord], 675 [N.N., Mr], 93 Nanteuil, Robert, II.21 Needham, Jane, 184 Needham, Jasper, I.38, 19, 24, 67 Neile, Paul, 328 Nieupoort, Willem, 155 Newcastle, duchess of. See Cavendish, Margaret Nicholas, Edward, 171 Norfolk, 6th duke of. See Howard, Henry Norfolk, 7th duke of. See Howard, Henry North, Francis, 469 Officers of the King’s Yard, 765 Oldenburg, Henry, 284 Ormond, 1st duke of. See Butler, James Osborne, Thomas, 356, 389, 555, 641 Ossory, countess of. See Butler, Aemilia Ossory, earl of. See Butler, Thomas Owen, Richard, 26, 391 Parke, Daniel, 705 Parr, Richard, 535, 550 Penn, William, 292 Pepys, Samuel, 273, 400, 412, 432, 438, 447, 463, 481, 494, 504, 509, 514, 516, 536, 554, 563, 567, 583, 595, 619, 622, 624, 628, 630, 636, 647, 668, 674, 696, 707, 710, 718, 721, 727, 776 Peterborough, earl of. See Mordaunt, Henry Pett, Peter, 84, 136, 144 Petty, William, 189 Phelips, Robert, 532 Pierce, Thomas, 211, 212 Place Jr, John, 763 [Platona]. See Bodvel Plot, Robert, 456, 689 Pope, Walter, 216

Evelyn’s Correspondents Port. Palatinat, Mr, II.10 Porter, Charles, 589 Povey, Thomas, 226, 559 Prettyman, William, 39, 454 Puckering, Elizabeth, 86, 105, 117, 124, 127, 148, 164 Quintinye, Jean de la, II.20 Radcliffe, Thomas, 40 Raines, Richard, 517 Rand, William, 91, 112, 326 Reynolds, Edward, 125 Richards, Edward, I.41 Robinson, John, 4 Rochester, 1st earl of. See Hyde, Laurence Rogers, George, II.3 Rousselle, Claude, II.13 Ruvigny, Henri, 789 Rycaut, Paul, 609 [S., Cousin E.], 36 [S., Cousin], 75 Sancroft, William, 418, 593, 614 Sandwich, 1st earl of. See Mountagu, Edward Savile, Henry, 353 Scott, Catherine, 9 Scudamore, James, 11, 13 Shaftesbury, 1st earl of. See Cooper, Anthony Ashley Slingsby, Henry, 471 Snatt, Edward, 116 Spencer, Anne, 397, 406, 422, 429, 434, 462, 491, 507, 511, 527, 529, 543, 575, 581, 582, 584, 586, 587, 591, 598, 603, 605, 607, 610, 623, 626, 631, 639, 650, 654, 659, 673, 702, 715, 735, 778, 785, 792, 799, 801 Spencer, Anne. See Douglas Spencer, Charles, 606, 640, 665, 683, 690, 711, 717, 722 Spencer, Richard, 172 Spencer, Robert, 433

1177

Spencer, Robert, Viscount Teviot, 35 Sprat, Thomas, 223, 300 Stanhope, Philip, 126, 141, 142 Stanley, Henry, 52 Stephens, James, 556 Stillingfleet, Edward, 307 Stokes, Richard, 309 Stonehouse, John, 415 Stoughton, Lawrence, 661 Stratton, earl of. See Berkeley, John Stratton, countess of. See Berkeley, Christian Strengfellow, William, 602, 608, 686 Strode, John, 231, 242 Strong, Edward, 729, 740 Sunderland, 2nd earl of. See Spencer, Robert Sunderland, 3rd earl of. See Spencer, Charles Sunderland, countess of. See Spencer, Anne Swan, William, 274 Sylvius, Ann, 348, 387, 404, 407, 497, 503, 538, 596, 681, 728 Talbot, Richard, 392 Taylor, Jeremy, 73, 74, 88, 94, 99, 102, 113, 118, 122, 180 Taylor, Jonathan, 459 Tenison, Thomas, 72, 632, 671, 676, 691, 694, 699, 706, 714, 719, 730, 736, 758, 766, 772, 779, 783, 786, 795, 807 Teviot, Viscount. See Spencer, Robert Thicknesse, James, 187 Thurland, Edward, 58, 107, 145, 341 Thynne, Henry Frederick, 508 Tillotson, John, 670 Titus, Silas, 234 Tonge, Ezerel, 291 Tooke, Benjamin, 708 Travers, Samuel, 745 Trimnell, Charles, 794 Triplet, Thomas, 100 Tuke, George, 119, 146 Tuke, Mary, née Papillon, 87 Tuke, Mary, née Sheldon, 453, 664, 684, 800

1178

Evelyn’s Correspondents

Tuke, Samuel, 27, 30, 147, 176, 178, 185, 201, 209, 280, 285, 298 Upman, Stephen, 426 Vanbrugh, William, 746 van der Does, Johan, 200, 472 van Goch, Michiel, 240 Venn, John, 548 Verrio, Antonio¸ II.24 Vyner, Robert, 375 Walker, John, 704 Walker, Obadiah, 110, 296, 312, 315, 322, 361 Waller, Edmund, 6, 31, 57, 70 Waller, Richard, 701 Warwick, Joan, 214 Warwick, Philip, 175, 206, 258

Wase, Christopher, I.36, I.37, I.40 Wilkins, John, 177, 275 Williams, John, 739, 761 Williamson, Joseph, 244, 314 Wood, Anthony, 653 Wotton, William, 712, 756, 759, 773, 788, 793, 803 Wren, Christopher, 238, 435, 806 Wren, Matthew, 270, 337 Wyche, Mary, 669 Wyche, Peter, 247 Wye, Roger, 757 Yarborough, Henrietta, 360 Zanchio, Mr, II.11 Unnamed addressees, II.6, II.8, II.9

Index

This index is necessarily selective. It can be used in conjunction with the electronic version of the text, published simultaneously by the University of Toronto Press, and with de Beer’s great (in both bulk and merit) volume-length index to The Diary of John Evelyn, either in print, or in the version available through Oxford Scholarly Editions Online. Entries for Evelyn’s correspondents list page numbers for their letters in bold. The page numbers are preceded by the letter number enclosed in parentheses. Page numbers in italics refer to figures and plates. References to “the Protestant lady’s library” refer to the list Evelyn provided to Anne Spencer in Letter 543. Biographical information is referenced under “about” and found at the beginning of an entry. Incidental mentions are indexed under “mentioned” and are found at the end of an entry. Abbot, George, 1019 Abbot, Maurice (mayor of London), 1019 Abbot, Robert, 1019 Aitzema, Lieuwe van: Saken van Staet en Oorlogh, 492 Albermarle, 1st duke of. See Monck, George Albrici, Bartolomeo, 688 Albury (Howard estate), xlii, 66, 125, 449; fire, 1128–9 alchemy, 136n10, 486. See also chemistry alcohol. See drinking and drunkenness Aldrich, Henry (d. 1683), 561, 865 Aldrovandi, Ulisse, 938 Allestree, Richard: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Allestry, James (publisher), 1120, 1125 Allington, John: visit from, 143 Alsted, Johann Heinrich: Encyclopaediae, xlvii, 234n5, 374n1 Althorp (Spencer estate), xxxvii, 650, 813, 853n1, 855–6, 856–7, 936, 962, 987n3, 1000, 1009, 1029, 1035n2

ambassadorial dispute ( France, Spain), 303–6, 310n2 Ambrose, St, 192, 851 Anabaptists, 181, 215, 497, 710. See also theology anatomy and physiology: Padua studies, 59. See also medicine and surgery Anderson, Richard: entry in letterbook index, xxiii; sale of farm (Hanson Grange), (480)739–40 Andrewes, Lancelot, 207; in the Protestant lady’s library, 807, 809 Anglo-Dutch Wars, First, 47–8 Anglo-Dutch Wars, Second and Third: Bergen expedition, 386, 519, 522, 523, 694; condition of the fleet, 379; deaths in, 510, 513; Desiderata (JE’s list), 523–4; Dutch to take care of Dutch prisoners, 399, 431; history of, books about, 472–4; history of, JE’s, xxvii, 492–4, 519–21, 522–4, 534–5, 636–8; history suppressed and lost, 522n2, 541n2, 636n1, 670–4, 692–6 (see also

1180

Index

Navigation and Commerce under Evelyn, John, books); levy on property owners, 410; Lowestoft battle, xxxii, 368n1, 524; plague (see plague/smallpox); Prize Office, 672; role as commissioner (see Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War). See also Dutch East India Company – war statistics: accidental loss of life of 300 men, 363–4, 363n8; inventory of supplies, 369, 426; number of prisoners, 387n2, 388; number of sick, 378, 379, 397–8; per diem paid for prisoners, 361; resources for sick (see Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War); surgeons treating sick, 379, 399 animals: cuckoos and nightingales, 159, 735; deer hunting, 232–3, 814, 839; experiments using, 582–3; horses, 562, 569, 763n1, 888–9, 918; possum, 1020; printing errors in books, 1127; tortoises, 735; venison (see food and drink); winter, damage of severe, 735 Anne, queen of Great Britain: education as princess, 688; religious tension, 787 Anne of Austria, 1045n7 Annesley, Arthur (1st earl of Angelsey), 913n77 Antipodes, 1023 Apuleius: Pudentilla, wife, 262 Aquinas, Thomas, 192, 927–8 architecture: Berkeley House, 743n1; books on, 1096–7; Clarendon House (Pratt), 408–9; contribution to history of, 899–900; hospital design, 1067–9; infirmary in Chatham, 409–10; informal instructor, JE as, 164, 180–1; interest in by JE, 50, 331, 348; rebuilding of St Nicholas, Deptford, 1088; Wren’s contribution to, 1144–5 Arenberg, duke of: garden at Enghien, 801 Aretino, Pietro, 145; Lettere, 978 Aristotle: JE’s edition, 920n3; Parva Naturalia, 920, 921nn10–11

Arlington, 1st earl of. See Bennet, Henry Armada, battle of, 672 Arnauld, Antoine: Eucharist controversy, 477 art and art collections: auctions, xlii, 917; contribution to history, 897–900; copies by Susanna E., 1034; JE’s exposition on, 896–7; list of learned and heroic persons (men and women), 440–1, 897–9; purchase of statues, 29–30; Raphael drawings (Howard), xliii, 730; role of JE, xlii–xliv; sale of painting by Paolo Veronese, 965. See also collectables; libraries and collections; portraits and portraiture; sculpture and statues Arundel, 14th earl of. See Howard, Thomas Arundel House (London), xliii, 817, 825, 910 Arundel Marbles (Marmora Arundeliana), xxviii, xlii–xliii, 444–8, 467, 482, 487–8, 551, 556n4, 707–8, 709. See also Howard, Henry (6th duke of Norfolk) Arundell, Henry (3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour): about, 832n1; business (possibly dowry), 431; Privy Seal, office and responsibilities of, (564)832–3 Ascham, Roger, 978 Ashmole, Elias: about 353n1; catalogue of the king’s treasures, 356n3, 501n33; coin collection of, 900–1; history of the Order of the Garter, research for, (232)353–4 Ashurst, Henry, 1104, 1105 Askew, Egeon, 710 Astell, Mary, 1111 Aston, Francis: winter damage severe, xlv–xlvi, (474)732–5 astronomy: comet and meteor sightings, 436, 674–5, 1015; eclipses of the moon, 741; eclipses of the sun, 464; eminent scholars of, 570–1; Halley’s comet, 696. See also science and experimentation; weather and natural phenomena atheism, 192, 193, 626, 682–3, 741, 754, 887, 987n3, 996, 1081 Athenaeus: Deipnosophistai, 71n2, 718 Aubrey, John, 960; Camden’s Britannia, 1005

Index auctions (sub hasta): effect on cultural history of, 907; of Heinsius’s library, 730n3; of library collections, xxi, xlii, 111, 895, 906, 913n77; print trade, 1046; of Robert Boyle’s books, 985; in Tunbridge Wells, 917n6. See also libraries and collections Augustine, St: Confessiones, 978; consolation rhetoric, 760; conversion of, 108n13, 851; De Civitate Dei (City of God ), 192, 260n3, 978; De Doctrina Christiana, 503n9; Enarrationes in Psalmos, 505; Meditationes, 978 Ausonius: “Ad nepotem Ausonium,” 435n4 Ayscue, George: letter compared to diary entry, xxxii; war report, distribution of sick and wounded, (249)378 Bacon, Francis: The Advancement of Learning, 1037; contribution to knowledge, 1081n15; letters of, 976–7; Naturall Historie, 1106; The New Atlantis, 205n8, 254n4; “Of Studies,” 1037; Resvscitatio, 958n4 Bagshot Park (Windsor), 864 Bahira, or “Sergius the Monk,” 471 Baillet, Adrien: La Vie de Monsieur DesCartes, 1078, 1079, 1082, 1090 Baker, Matthew (master carpenter), 1012n4 Balliol College, Oxford. See Oxford Balzac, Sieur de: Lettres, 978 Barbados, xlvi, 664–9 Barbaro, Daniello, 899 Barettier, Anna: shipping for JE, 29–30, 80n4 Barkstead, John: on behalf of Taylor, (131)222–3 Barlaeus, Caspar, 667 Barlow, Francis: Venus with an Organist (Titian), xliii, (104)184, 185p Barlow, Thomas: about, 156n13; answer to Cressy, 350; Bodleian Library, JE’s gifts to, xliii, (92)168–9, (135)226, 156, 156n9; draft of Naudé trans., 236; invocation of saints, xlviii, (330)491–2, 458n4, 459n8, 482n9; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808

1181

Baronius, Caesar: Annales Ecclesiastici, 458n7 Barrow, Isaac: in the Protestant lady’s library, 806 Bartholin, Thomas, (II.4)35, (II.5)36, (II.7)39–40 Barton, John, 125 Basil of Caesarea: consolation rhetoric, 760 Basire, Isaac: Eucharist controversy, (319)477–8 Baskett, Richard, 325 Bassano, Domenico: daughter Signora Emilia, 41 Bate, George, 197–8; about, 197n4 Bateman, Anthony (mayor of London): on behalf of servant, (217)332–3 Bates, William: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Bath, 585–6 Bathurst, Ralph, 432n1; donation ­negotiations, (378)565–6; honorary doctorate, (367)551; Howard donation negotiations, xliii, (295)445–6, (327)487–8, 474, 481, 551; John Jr in Oxford, (303)454; nephew as tutor, (286)432 Bathurst, Theodore: Calendarium Pastorale (Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar), 664–9 Batteley, John: Antiquitates Rutupinæ, 1146; Numismata and errata, (808)1146–7 Battle of the Boyne, 946n3 Baynards manor, xxxii, 82n1, 159n2, 548n3, 846n3, 847–8, 971n1, 974, 979 Beale, John: about, 252nn2–4; acknowledgment of dedications, (379)566–7; critique of radical Protestantism, (332)494–501; death of and epitaph, 713–14; eyesight, hearing, etc., (311)463–7; and Hobbes, 339n7; The Manner of Ordering Fruit-Trees (JE), (166)272–3; medical advice (“bloody strangure”), (219)334–6; recommended to Earle, 369–70; regular correspondent with JE, xviii; and Royal Society, xlv, 575n3; Salt-water Sweetned, 1081; scholastic

1182

Index

philosophy, 501n32, 504–5; unmentioned in diary, xxxii; writing and various ­occupations, (409)631–3, 778 Beaulieu, Luke de: as tutor, 748–9 Belasyse, John (1st baron Belasyse), 819n2, 832n7 Bellings, Richard, 355n5 Bemde, John: case before Chancery court, 962–3; a defence of a perceived offence, (678)994–6; suitor for Susanna E, (645)951–2, 918 Bennet, Henry (1st earl of Arlington): about, 304n1; accommodations at Whitehall, (452)701; ambassadorial dispute, (191)304–5; battle of Mons, (393)593; birth of Charles II grandson, (464)719–20; clerk of Council position/payment, (321)479–80; council for trade, 706–7; entry in letterbook index, xxiii, xxiii( f ); Euston Hall, 587–8; garden design, xlv–xlvi, (334)507–8, 334n5; gifts to library, xliii, (388)587–8; W. Glanville Jr recommended to, (487)747; H. Howard’s titles, 488; history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 473, 493; marriage of son-in-law’s tutor, 654–5; and Oldenburg’s books, xli, 588; E. Phillips recommended to, xli, 588; sinecures promised Mary E, (417)643; Tyrannus Or the Mode (JE), (193)306–8; vocabularies (JE), xlvii; war report, state of prisoners and sick, (243)367, (264)398–9, 367n2, 393–4; mentioned, 368 Benson, Samuel: regarding John Jr, (373)560–1 Bentinck, Willem, 800, 814n1 Bentivoglio, Cardinal: Lettere, 978 Bentley, Richard; about, 987–8n3, 1028n16; chaplain to the king, 1078; “ancients and moderns” controversy, 1133; assisted JE with printers, xli; bishop of Worcester, 1105; Cambridge University Press, (784)1119–22, 1097, 1120; The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism, 996, 1008n2; JE’s publishing concerns,

1120–1; JE’s recommendation for Bradley, (751)1073–4, 1076; lectures endowed by Boyle, xxxix, (679)996–7, (771)1104–5, (782)1117–18, 987–8, 1008, 1010, 1032, 1038, 1105–6, 1121; library at St James’s, (720)1040–1, (747)1070–1, (753)1075–6, (755)1078, (804)1142, 914n78, 1023, 1032, 1038, 1041n3, 1076; Numismata, 1076; A Proposal for building a Royal Library, 1142; mentioned, 1027, 1028, 1042, 1133 Bently, Richard (publisher), 929n1, 1120 Berenclow, Bernard Martin, (I.39)22–3, 237n4 Berenger, Thomas: marriage negotiations (Susanna E), (662)970–1, 970n7, 975 Berkeley, Charles (1st earl of Falmouth, 1630–65), 524 Berkeley, Charles (2nd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, 1662–81), 690n1 Berkeley, Christian (née Riccard): about, 558n1; Berkeley House, (483)743–4, 866; consolation for death of child, (380)567–8; consolation for death of son, (446)690–2, 763; death of Mary Jr, (501)763, 691n4; gift of book by Hakewill, (383)573; Jesuit education of son, xxix, (465)720–1, (467)724, 721–2, 725; marriage negotiations (Godolphin), (371)558–9; news and gossip, (377)564–5; trustee request, (423)650–1 Berkeley, George, 384 Berkeley, John (1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, 1607–78): about, 27n1; Great Fire, etc., (I.42)27–8; included John Jr in entourage to Paris, xxxix, 866; JE manages affairs of, (374)561–2, 558n2, 864–6; Nijmegen peace negotiations, 558–9, 566; at Versailles, 571 Berkeley, John (3rd Baron Berkeley of Stratton, 1663–97), 720n2 Berkeley, Robert (1607–78), (625)923–4, 640 Berkeley, Robert (of Spetchley, 1650–95): about, 735n1; acknowledgments,

Index (590)858–9; and the attempted rape of servant, (547)814–15, (549)816–17, (561) 827–8; garden at Enghien, (577)844–5; gardening and greenhouses, (492)751–2; gardens of Holland, (540)800–1; Pindaric poem, 594n1; winter, damage of severe, (475)735–6 Berkeley House, 743–4 Bermundsy, 1047–8 Bernard, Edward, xlii; catalogue of manuscripts, 1031, 1038; Heinsius auction, 730n3 Bertie, Charles: treasury debt to JE, 598–9 Besson, Jacques, 1119 Betterton, Thomas, 351 Beverning, Jerome, 800 Bible: Algonquian Bible, 1082n25; and the Apocrypha, 531; Lithuanian translation, 349; in the Protestant lady’s library, 806 – books of: Acts, 504, 920n9; Colossians, 192n16; 1 Corinthians, 107n7, 228, 262n8, 264, 556, 1076n4; Deuteronomy, 171n8, 579n14; Ecclesiastes, 680n3, 999, 1111; Ephesians, 263; Esther, 596, 745; Exodus, 798; Genesis, 162n9, 192n16, 487, 581, 626n4, 638n9, 740n3, 741, 798, 965; Habakkuk, 755n2; Hebrews, 506, 852n5, 927n9; Isaiah, 605n9, 755n2, 847n3, 880n3; Job, 1095; John, 89, 503n9, 504, 526n5, 1065n2; 2 Kings, 764, 931n15; Luke, 110n24, 210n4, 335n5, 596, 599n10, 745, 851n2, 1109n2; Mark, 635n4; Matthew, 515n1, 638n9, 847n3, 958n6, 959n8; Nehemiah, 248; Peter, 502n5; Proverbs, 818n1, 873; Psalms, 108n12, 278n1, 594n3, 755n2, 879n2, 880n3, 1142; Revelation, 88; Romans, 107n7, 506, 669n3, 851n2; Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), 575; Thessalonians, 876n28; 1 Thessalonians, 134n3, 134n9; 2 Thessalonians, 505; Timothy, 581, 715; 1 Timothy, 210n4, 383n6, 669n3 Birch, Thomas: Boyle’s works, 1090n6

1183

birds: cuckoo and nightingale, 159, 735. See also animals bishops: Cromwell’s measures against episcopacy, 160–1; promotions to bishop, 863–4; suspended, 810; as “the Starres,” 160n2; trial of, xxvi, xxxvii, 861–2 Bizot, Pierre: Histoire metallique, 1061, 1076 Blackmore, Richard: Prince Arthur, 1053 Blagge, Margaret. See Godolphin, Margaret Bland, Edward, 770n2 Blandford, Walter (bishop of Worcester), 659n3 Blathwayt, William: about, 1014n1; Parke recommended to, (698)1014, 1021; plant exchange, xlvi Blinth, Walter, 1107 Block, Agnes (Agneta), 800 Blomefield, Francis: The History of the County of Norfolk, 250n3 Boccalini, Trajano, 988 Bodleian Library: Catalogus universalis (Thomas James), 81; JE’s gifts to, xliii, 156, 156n9, 156n11, 168–9, 226; manuscripts from Middle East, 471; medal collection manuscripts, 1031; Selden’s library, 910. See also Oxford Bodvel, Ann: on a cold parting, (12)74–5; missing correspondence, (7)70–1 Bohun, Ralph: about, 432n2; deaths of JE’s daughters, (506)768; recommended to A. Bowyer, (657)964, 963; recommended to Tenison, (742)1064–5, (752)1075, 1040, 1105, 1118; tutor to John Jr, 432, 454, 571, 1040 Bolney Court, 68n2 Bond, Thomas: Bond St., 408 Bonnefons, Nicolas de: Le Jardinier François (trans. JE), 250n2 Bonwicke, John (Mr Bonnick), 181n4 Book of Common Prayer, 222n4, 505 books and authors: portraits of English authors (Clarendon’s collection), 904; quality of scholarly books, improvements, 423–6; recommendations of Italian authors,

1184

Index

164–5; recommended to Thurland, 190–3, 191n8; romances, 688. See also Evelyn, John; library of John Evelyn; plays, operas, masques, and ballets; publishing, printing, and bookselling Booth, Henry, 115, 119 Booth, Henry (1st earl of Warrington, 1652–94), 1009 Booth’s Uprising, 216n2 Bordeaux: Fronde in, 43 Bordeaux-Neufville, Antoine de: diplomacy and scandals, 280–3 Borel, Pierre, 219 Boreman, William, 720 Borgi, Mr, (II.1)29–30 Boscawen, Dorothy: marriage negotiations, 1065–6; mentioned, 762n3, 919n7 Boscawen, Edward, 918 Boscawen, Hugh: about, 842n9; mentioned, 842, 919, 926, 940 Boscawen, Jael: about, 639n1; advice on ­recompense for favour received, (414)639–40; Althorp visit, (585)854, (588)856–7; congratulations to brother (Godolphin), (484)744; consolation for death of sister, (791)1131; consolation for death of sister-in-law, (486)745–6; daughter’s marriage negotiations, (743)1065–6; on death of Mary Jr, (499)761–2; Godolphin’s resignation, (777)1112; greetings and news, (461)716, (546)813–14; illness of brother, (482)742; on JE’s nephew’s death, 952n1; marriage query and family news, (621)918–19; Privy Seal and social news, (574)841–2; trust fund for Francis Godolphin, (570)838–9, 838; mentioned, 926 Bosse, Abraham, (II.17)50, (II.22)55–6; about, 48n1; A Bosse au lecteur ..., 55–6; French contact, xxxviii; Needham recommended to, (II.15)48–9; Le Peintre converty aux precises et universelles regles de son art ..., 55–6; Traite des manieres de dessiner les ordres de l’architecture

antique ..., 55–6; Traite des pratiques geometrales et perspectives ..., 55–6 Bourdon, Sebastien, xliv; portrait (Mary E), 129n2 Bourne, Nehemiah, 194n1 Bowyer, Anthony: Bohun recommended to, (656)963 Boxhornius, Marcus Zuerus: Apologia pro Navigationibus Hollandorum, 692 Boyle, Francis (of Ballincrea), 1087n7 Boyle, Michael, 738 Boyle, Richard (1st earl of Burlington, 1612–98), 985, 1080, 1087 Boyle, Richard (1st earl of Cork, 1566–1643), 1082; related to Mary E, 1079–80 Boyle, Richard (c.1640–65), 524 Boyle, Robert (1627–91): about, 204n1; age at death, 1084; air pump (vaccuo Boyliano), 735–6; auction of books upon death of, 985; biographic project, xxvii–xxviii, xlviii, 1078n5, 1079–84, 1086–7, 1090–1, 1120n6, 1133, 1141n5, 1149n3; commission appointment of JE, (228)348–50; as eminent scholar, 570; “History of Trades,” (114)204–5, (158)252–3, 276n15; interest in science by JE, xlviii; letter of thanks, (369)555–7; letters edited, xxvi; on love and marriage, xxviii, (161–2)260–6, 1082; portraits of, 1083; recipe for varnish, (188)302; regular correspondent with JE, xviii; “Salomon’s House” letter, xix, xliv–xlv, (159)253–7, 271n10, 275n12, 276; snow pits of Italy, xlv, (224)343–4, 343f, 345p, 348; “thricenoble,” 435; mentioned, 897, 922 – works: The Aerial Noctiluca, 1081; Bible trans. (including Algonquian), 1082; A Continuation of New Experiments, 1081; An Essay about the Origine and Virtues of Gems, 1081; Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours, 1081; The Martyrdom of Theodora and Didymus, 1083; Medicinal Experiments, 1081; New Experiments and Observations

Index Touching Cold, xlv, 343, 343n1, 345p; New Experiments Physico-Mechanical, 1081; Salt-water Sweetned (Beale), 1081; Sculptura dedication, 204n1; Seraphic Love, 260, 556, 1082; Some Receipts of Medicine, 1081. See also Boyle lectures Boyle, Roger (2nd earl of Orrery, 1646–82), 451 Boyle lectures, xxxix, 987n3, 996–7, 1008, 1010, 1032, 1038, 1062, 1087, 1121; trustees, 1087n3. See also Boyle, Robert Brackett, Mr (unidentified), 858 Bradley, John, 1066, 1070, 1073–4 Bradshaw, George, 706 Bramhall, John, 294n5, 824n4 Bray, William, xx Brent, Robert, 562n11, 876 Brerewood, Edward: Enquiries, 246 Brest: attack on, 1028; naval school, 1067 Breton, John: Hunt recommended to, (355)535–6, 543–4 Breton, Robert, 316n1; death of, 512–13, 535–6; paid for burials, 403–4; tutor inquiry, (203)316 Brett, Edward, 395 Bridgeman, William, 821n3; Greenwich Hospital treasurer position, (768)1102–3, (797)1136–7; intervention, 1100; and Royal Society, 821 Bridlington Bay (Yorkshire), 739 Bristol, countess of. See Digby, Anne (countess of Bristol) Bristol, earl of. See Digby, George (2nd earl of Bristol) British Library, xix, xx Brocchi, Vincetio, 29nn1, 4 Brompton Nursery, 507n3, 802n10, 1017n3 Brouncker, Henry, 524, 561n6; council for trade, 706–7 Brouncker, William: about, 348n1; in AngloDutch War, 388, 395; as mathematician and scholar, 570; Parallel of Architecture (Evelyn), (227)348; and Royal Society, 461, 474, 1080

1185

Broussel, Charles de, (II.18)51–2 Browne, Elizabeth (Viscountess Montague): transaction with JE, (17)79; travel woes of, 127–8 Browne, Elizabeth Prettyman (motherin-law): death of, 133, 133n2; illness of, 79; portraits of, 97p; preparation to leave Paris, 115; return to England of JE, (53)121 Browne, Francis (3rd Viscount Montagu), 79n3; possible code name, 83n1 Browne, Mary. See Evelyn, Mary (wife, 1635–1709) Browne, Richard (father-in-law): about, 92n4; archives of, xx; chapel in Paris residence, 109n19, 648; clerk of the Council, 480n3, 525; death of, 701; dispatches, ambassadorial, 673; excluded correspondence, xxx; financial losses, 286, 647–8; France expenses and Prettyman law suit (see finances); introduced to Colonel Till, (48)117, 414n2; introduced to Paston, (90)166; and JE’s identity, xxix; lighthouse on Scilly Isles, 642; “little Britaine” (Paris residence), 92, 648; Lucretius project, (109)194–5; medal collection, 1031; “Officer at Deale” position, 355; portraits of, 96p; Restoration and advisable conduct, (169)278–9; return to England of JE, (46)114–15; Richard, son of JE, xviii, (63)131–2, (132)223–4, (134)225; Sayes Court, 1026; mentioned, 948 Browne, Thomas: about, 270n1; “Elysium Britannicum” (JE), (165)270–2, 250n1; eminent scholar, 570; The Garden of Cyrus, 271n12; Hydriotaphia, 251n5; Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 251n5; Religio Medici, 44 Bruce, Thomas (2nd earl of Ailesbury), 873–4; mentioned, 895 Brüggeman, Otto, 283 Buckingham Palace: mulberry garden, 334 Buda (Hungary), 811 Budé, Guillaume: wife’s assistance, 262

1186 Burckhorst, Jacob, 394n2 Burgh, Conrad: renew acquaintance, (130)221–2; return greetings, (49)117–18 Burnet, Elizabeth, 653n1, 801n12, 814n3, 924 Burnet, Gilbert (bishop of Salisbury): about, 653n1; Bohun recommendation, 1075; Boyle’s funeral sermon and biography, 1078n6, 1080, 1084, 1087, 1090–1; The History of the Reformation, 653; portrait urged, (604)881; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809; religious controversies, 683; research for History of the Reformation, (425)653–4; mentioned, 1141 Burnet, Thomas: Telluris theoria sacra, 991; The Theory of the Earth, 740n3 Burroughs, John, 310 Burton, Robert: Anatomy of Melancholy, 71n2, 262 Butler, Amelia (countess of Ossory): consolation for death of husband, (419)645–6 Butler, Elizabeth, 231n1 Butler, James (1st duke of Ormond), 565n3, 830; appointment sought, (196)309–10 Butler, Thomas (6th earl of Ossory): battle of Mons, 593; created Knight of the Garter, (451)700–1; dating of letters to, xxvi; death of, 645, 650; Garter king of arms, (382)572, 565n2; Tangier, 645n5 Buxtorfius, Johannes: Tractatus, 244–5 Cade, Salusbury, 1147–8 Calais: return to England of JE, 114–15 Calvin: letters of, 978 Cambridge: Trinity College library, 910–11 Cambridge University Press, 1097, 1117 Camden, William: about, 340n12; Annales, 500, 1061; Britannia, 340, 1005, 1018–19, 1031, 1047, 1054, 1092; parliamentary records collection, 904n38 Capel, Arthur (1st earl of Essex): Cassiobury in Hertfordshire, 1127; parliamentary records collection, 904; mentioned, 570, 1056

Index Capel, Henry (1st Baron Capel of Tewkesbury): about, 599, 1056n1; Bradley recommended to, (744)1066, 1070, 1073–4; Hosier recommended to, (399)599; John Jr recommended to, (732)1056; mentioned, 988 Cappel, Louis, 244, 248 Carey, Elizabeth. See Mordaunt, Elizabeth (née Carey) Carey, Frances, (20)82 Carey, John, 152n3 Carey, Philadelphia, (45)114, 150 Carey, Rebecca (née Lytton), 1050n9 Carr, Elizabeth (née Bennet): about, 333n1; making of sack-posset, xxxiii, (218)333–4; recommended as a tenant, 337–8 Carr, Robert, 333–4, 337–8 Carter, Francis: advice from JE on continental tour, (266)400; letter misdated, xxxix Carteret, Elizabeth, (268)403–4 Carteret, George: about, 337n1; on behalf of tenant Simon Smith, (221)337; commissioners of the Treasury, 685; war report, pleading resources for sick, (251)380 Cary, Henry (4th Viscount Falkland), 75 Cary, Lucius (2nd Viscount Falkland): portrait of, 904 Cary, Patrick, 62 Casaubon, Isaac, 88n4, 484–5, 911 Casaubon, Meric: about, 484n1; dating of letters to, xxvi; death of, 557n1; library sold, 911; Of the Necessity of Reformation, 350; printing of Lucretius, (370)557–8; Theophrastus and staves, (324–5)484–5, 1013; A Treatise Concerning Enthusiasme, 558 “Castellando,” (II.8)40 Catherine of Braganza, 948, 1000n1, 1138–9 Cato, Marcus Porcius, 803 Catullus, 207, 771 Cave, William: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Cavendish, Arabella, 1042n1

Index Cavendish, Christian (countess of Devonshire), 176n5 Cavendish, Margaret (duchess of Newcastle): biography of husband, 435n7; dating of letters to, xxvi; Hobbes and Royal Society, 342n18; mock panegyric to, xl, (368)552–5; Royal Society visit, 554n9; and Sorbière, 342n18 Cavendish, William (1st duke of Devonshire, 1640–1707): tutor recommendations, xxxix, 123, 124 Cavendish, William (1st duke of Newcastle, 1592–1676): biography, 552–3; A New Method and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses, 555; in Paris, 555n1; and Sorbière, 342n19 Cavendish, William (3rd earl of Devonshire, 1617–84), 123n2, 124n1, 342 Cecil, Anne (countess of Oxford), 898 Cecil, William (Lord Burleigh), 1007 Cesare, Mr, 40 Chacón (Ciaccone), Alfonso, 672, 981–2, 1147n4 Chadwick, James, (726)1049–50 Chamberlain, Charles: sale of painting ­negotiated, xliii–xliv, (658)964–5 Chandler, Richard: Marmora Oxoniensa, 566 Chapel Izod (Ireland), 785 Chapman, John (mayor of London): swelling of troops in Deptford, (599)872 Chardin, John, (741)1063–4; about, 888n5, 1063n1; Cowes recommended to, 888 charity and charitable works: “begins at home,” 44; distribution (Mordaunt), 584–5; support of parish poor, 890–1 (see also poor and poverty) Charles I: art collector, 965; art market, xlii; and Browne’s expenses, 649; ­commemoration of death, 289n1; ­complimented, 161n6; Execution of Charles I (Huybrechts), 163p; physician to, 297n4; popularity of, 604; religion of, 830; style of rule, 867; theatre during, 578

1187

Charles II: appeal to Morley by JE, xxx–xxxi, 266–9, 277n2; appointment from, 309–11; birthday, 145; birth of grandson, 719–20; Browne’s expenses and Prettyman lawsuit (see finances); catalogue of the king’s treasures, 356–7; commission to invite return, 278–9; cypher employed, xxx(n43), (168)277; death of, 753–4, 754–5; ­financial losses by JE, 286–7; historio­ grapher royal position, 469, 472–4; history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 472–4, 493, 522n2, 541n2; JE’s relations with administration, xxix, xxxi–xxxii; JE’s roles in court, xviii (see also Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War); London revived after the Great Fire, 427n4, 429p; marriage of Spencer son, 752n3; medal for Numismata, 1060, 1061–2n3; perpetual motion diagram, 462; physician to, 297n4; Pierce’s sermon, 324; religion of, xxx(n41); Restoration, JE’s account of, 268–9; Royal Society in contrast to court, 577; and Sayes Court, 948, 1026, 1104; style of rule, 867; Sylva dedication, 821n1; Tyrannus Or the Mode (JE), 306; to visit JE, 309n2. See also politics; Restoration; Whitehall Palace Charleton. See Courten, William Charleton, Walter: The darknes of atheism dispelled, 192; and Margaret Cavendish, 552n1 Charlett, Arthur, 1038 Charlton House, 158, 158nn2–3 Charron, Pierre: De la Sagesse/Of Wisedome, 275, 1122n20 Charter-house school, 789, 791, 803 Chatham: accommodating sick and wounded, 378; Dummer posting, 775, 777; Dutch raid, 523, 673; infirmary, 409–10, 411; plague, 381; ship launchings, 588 Chelsea College, 361, 365, 381–2 Chelsea Royal Hospital, 669–70, 1068; supervisor, 697–8

1188

Index

chemistry: alchemy, 136n10, 486; colours of burnt wood, 1017; experiments with mercury and gold, 105n3; gunpowder, 990n6; Irish asparagus and urine, 803; Le Fèvre’s publications, 17–18; phosphorus, 584; potassium nitrate or saltpetre, 989–90; printing errors in, 1127; Royal Society contributions, 436, 582–4; still and bain-marie, 71nn4–5; studies by JE, 104, 104–5n2. See also science and experimentation Chester, siege of, 39–40 Chesterfield, 2nd earl of. See Stanhope, Philip Chiffinch, Thomas: catalogue of the king’s treasures, (235)356–7 Chillingworth, William: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 chimney sweeper (ramoneur) anecdote, 920 China: books in translation, 313–14 Chiswell, Richard (publisher): about, 949n1; Kalendarium Hortense (JE), (643)949–50, 929n1; Sylva (JE), 1120 Christ Church, Oxford. See Oxford Christina, queen of Sweden, 281, 912 Christophilus, Richard, duke of Negropont, 318n2 Christ’s Hospital, 1024, 1068 Chronicle, xli Chrysostom, John: Golden Book, xxxi Churchill, Awnsham, 768, 1005n1 Churchill, John (1st duke of Marlborough), 1148 Churchill, John (publisher): Camden’s Britannia, (688)1005, 1019 Church of England: annuity for parish priest, 538–9; under attack, 513–15; bishop of London suspended, 810; chapel in Browne’s Paris residence, 109n19, 648; chapel of John Manners, 318n1; conversions to RC (see Roman Catholicism); educational institutions, 790; endowments for monasteries (Surrey), 1047–8; Eucharist controversy, xxvi, xlviii, 161, 477–8, 502–6, 513–15; faith and, 449–50;

inclusion of non-conformists, 603–6; invocation of saints, 457–9; JE as broker for clerical posts, xxxix; JE’s activities, xxviii–xxix; and Jesuit education, 721, 722–5; Laud’s execution, 1022; minister at Norwich, 210–11; Nag’s Head ordination, 823–4; Pierce/Cressy controversy, 324–7; and practice of Lent, 359–60; and radical Protestantism, 496–9; reformation history, 653–4; reform of, JE’s program for, 868; theological attacks on, 681–3; trial of the bishops (see bishops). See also politics; Protestantism; Roman Catholicism Ciaccone (Chacón), Alphonso, 672, 981–2, 1046, 1147n4 Cicero: Brutus, 249n18, 1127; collections of letters, 977; De Amicitia, 822; De Divinatione, 165n11; De Officiis, 1038; De Oratore, 155, 1007n3; and JE’s travels, 30–1; Letters to Atticus, 483, 862, 1041; Pro Quinto Roscio Comoedo, xlvii, 234–5; Tusculanum, 932n20, 947, 1000 Cisii, Pietro, 470–1 Civil War (English, 1642–51): JE’s travels during, xvii, xviii (see also continental travels, as educational; politics); ­mentioned, 958n3 Clancarty, countess of. See MacCarty, Elizabeth (née Fitzgerald) Clarendon, 1st earl of. See Hyde, Edward (1st earl of Clarendon) Clarendon, 2nd earl of. See Hyde, Henry (2nd earl of Clarendon) Clarendon, countess of. See Hyde, Flower Clarendon House, xliv, 408, 897, 903–4 Clarke, Mr., (10)73 Clarke, Timothy, 367, 436 Claude, Jean, 477 Clement of Alexandria: Opera græce, 1037 clerical libraries, 911–12. See also libraries and collections Clerke, Francis: about, 366n2; accounting of monies spent on caring for sick,

Index (267)401–2; complaint of slow payment (Rochester), (271)407; mentioned, 366 clerk of the Council. See finances Cleveland, John: Poems. By J.C., 372–3 Cleyn, Francis, xliii, 231 Clifford, Martin, 915 Clifford, Thomas: about, 351n1; AngloDutch Wars, (344)519–21, (346)522–4, 541; clerk of the Council payment, xxxi–xxxii, (347)525–6; commissioner, 350n9; commissioner, assuming role of, (230)351–2, 706; created Baron, (345)521; dating of letters to, xxv; death of, 541–2n3; embarked to Denmark, 386; history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, (316)472–4, (331)492–4, 534, 598n8; JE as tree inspector, 930; lease for Sayes Court, (342)516–17; resigned treasury, (359)541, 536n2; suppression of history of Dutch war, 672; war report, of prisoners and sick, (239)363–4, (245)368–9 clothing. See dress Clusius, Carolus, 460 Cocke, George, 388, 388n3, 537, 791n5 Cocke, William, 789n4, 803n14 Cockman, Thomas: De Officiis (Cicero), 1038 Cock Tavern: Oxford Kate, 146 Codex Alexandrinus (“Tecla”), 909 Codex Theodosianus, 501n34 coins. See medals, coins, and medallions Coke, Edward: library of, 911–12 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 431 Colclough, Mary, 746n1 Cole, Andrew (Treasury), 835n2 Colepeper, Thomas: council for trade, 706–7; Leeds Castle for prisoners, (276)412, 392, 394, 394n1 collectables: “Chinese Garment,” 93; Florence and Paris cabinets, 128; “golden case,” with aromatics, 140; gold saucer from Paris, 196; “Italian Collection,” 80n3; king’s museum of living creatures, 357; manuscripts from Middle East, 470–1; medals and inscriptions, 718, 899;

1189

“Mummies,” 412; transporting of, 46–7, 80, 140. See also art and art collections; gems, semi-precious stones, and jewellery; libraries and collections College of William and Mary (Williamsburg), xlvi, 1020n6 Collier, Frederick, 852 Collier, Jeremy, 1118 Collins, Mrs (Sayes Court), 999 Collyer, John, 111 colonization (English), xlvi colours: of burnt wood, 1017; in naval ­matters, xlviii, 770–2, 816 Colwall, Daniel: Royal Society, xxii, (441)679–81 Comber, Thomas: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808–9 Comenius (Komensky), Johann Amos: Orbis Sensualium Pictus, 274n7 comets. See astronomy commissioner of the Privy Seal: commissioners, 832n4; licensing “Popish-books,” 792–4, 795n2, 796; passed to Henry Arundell, 832–3; religion and educational institutions, 790; and G. Savile, 922; and R. Spencer, 811, 813 – JE served as, xxx, 710, 768, 769n3, 961; JE dismissed, 829; missed meeting, 792; payment from the first fruits, 858; resigned, 841–2, 843; Whitehall residence, 784–5 commissioners of the Navy: agreement regarding anchor forge, (709)1025–6; commissioners, 194n1, 1026n1, 1101n2; commissions revoked, 797n4; debts from care of prisoners, (479)739; imminent danger to dockyard, (108)194; intervention on behalf of Sherman, 1101. See also navy (England) commissioners of the Treasury: Browne’s expenses and Prettyman lawsuit, 647–9; commissioners, 647n1, 819n2, 826n5, 832n8, 941n5, 986n1, 1009n2, 1055n3, 1109; finalizing accounts, 442; JE’s case

1190

Index

before, 941, 948; John Jr as Treasury clerk, 835, 849, 955n1 – S. Godolphin as a lord commissioner, 595–6, 597n2, 634, 729; as first lord, 744–5; resigned, 1108, 1112, 1113n6, 1116 Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs, 810, 821, 871 Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War: inspection of the fleet, 533–4; JE’s appointment to, 346n1, 350, 706; JE’s occupation with, 632; JE’s role as commissioner, xviii, xxxvi, 1068; list of commissioners, 350n9; marshals, 352–3, 363n5, 399; mercenaries, 363n6; “Officer at Deale” position, 355–6; salaries, 677; St Michel, 828n1. See also Anglo-Dutch Wars, Second and Third – accommodation and resources: accommodation for prisoners, 378, 387–8, 392, 394–6, 394n1, 412, 413; attempted escapes, 364, 395, 413; Chelsea Hospital, 669–70, 697–8; complaints of slow payment, 407, 536–8; complaints of treatment, 405; conditions and supplies for troops, 426; debts from care of prisoners, 739; foot and horse troops to assist, 368; logistics of managing prisoners and sick, 368–9; no prisoners due to contrary winds, 367–8; pleading resources for sick, 378–87, 389–94, 397–8; ratio of sick to surgeons, 379; resources for sick, 369, 380, 394, 395, 397–8, 409–11; surgeon, 396n1; treatment of prisoners, 361, 363–4, 399, 431; visit to prisoners, 366; wives of men lost (the London), 363–4 Commission of the Peace, 828 commissions: deputy lieutenant of Surrey, 1011–12, 1016; infrastructure repairs (buildings, streets, etc.), 310n2 Compton, Henry (bishop of London): about, 644n4; Strengfellow ejected from Trinity, (685)1002–3, 1004; suspended as bishop of London, 810; and Tillotson, 810

Compton, William: ambassadorial dispute, (190)303–4 concubines: “Bouffoons, Parasites, Pimps and,” 905 condolence, letters of. See letters of condolence/consolation Conny, John, 396, 412 Constantinople: planned travels to, 59, 61 continental travels, as educational: Boyle’s experience, 1080; and communication skills, 920–1; experiences of the young, xxxix–xl, 628; failure of, 569, 720–1; George E Jr, 300–1; JE as advisor to, 164–6, 174–5, 180–1, 197–9, 219n6, 237–8, 329–32, 400, 573–4, 628; John Jr, 567, 568–71; and travel in England, 1007. See also education and learning – JE’s tour: with counterfeit pass, 83n2; England, return to, 103–5, 114–20, 121n2; England, shipping goods to, 80, 80n4, 122, 127–31; expenses of, 330; influence on life, xvii, xviii, xxxix; print collection, 1044–5; Spain, planned trip to, 68; Turkey, planned trip to, 59, 61. See also education and learning; France; Italy; Paris Convention Parliament, 892 Conway, Edward, 181n4 Cooper, Anthony Ashley (1st earl of Shaftesbury): about, 397n1; council for trade, 706–7; marriage negotiations, 489; war report, pleading resources for sick, (263)397–8; mentioned, 549, 598n5 Cornaro Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia, 897–8, 916n93 Cornbury, 940; gardens, 594n2; library, 904 Cornbury, Viscount. See Hyde, Henry (2nd earl of Clarendon) Cornwall, 925–6, 984 Corpus Hermeticum, 190n3, 192n11 Corvus, M. Valerius, 259 Cosin, Frances (née Blakiston), 126n4 Cosin, John: about, 92n1; arranges meeting with Keightley, (29)92; debt mediation,

Index (198)311–12; library of, xl, 126n3; library purchase, (59)126–7, 912; preaches in Paris, 109n19; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809; and religious identity of JE, xxix; son’s conversion to RC, 105–11 Cosin, John, Jr: conversion to RC, xxix, (41)105–11 cosmetics: ladies using, 580–1 Cotterell, Charles (1615–1712), 874 Cottington, Francis (1579?–1652), 647 Cotton, John: library of, 908 Cotton, Mary. See Evelyn, Mary Cotton (sister-in-law) Cotton, Robert: library of, 908n52; medals collector, 902; parliamentary records collection, 440n38 Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations, xviii, xlvi, 598, 1093, 1119; list of, 706–7. See also mechanics and mechanical knowledge Courten, William (aka Charleton): collector, 902; medals for Numismata, (738)1061 court of the King’s Bench, 1009n2 Coventry, Henry, 523 Coventry, William: about, 279n1; ambassadorial dispute, (192)305–6; honest men for the navy, (170)279–80; research on Anglo-Dutch Wars, 535; war accounting, 442; war report, lacking resources for sick, (250)378–9, (259)391–2, 393 Cowley, Abraham: about, 315n1; The Adventures of Five Hours (Tuke), (204)317, (208)320, 314–15n1; death of, 451; elegies for, 451; “The Garden,” 416nn3, 595n5, 929n1, 950n3; language arts committee, 915; panegyric on Royal Society (invitation), xlv, (288)434–7, 575n3; Pindaric dedication, xxvii, (279)415–19, 931–4; seeds and gardening, (202)315; mentioned, 929 Cowse, James: nephew of, 888 Cox, John, 667–8 Cradock, Zachary, 1001

1191

Cranbourn (Windsor), 749n4, 813, 838, 839, 918, 925, 956 Cranmer, Thomas, 1051 Craven, William: complaint of treatment of prisoners and sick, (269)404 Crayford, John: continental travels by JE, (1)59, 60f Creech, Thomas: about, 689n1; Lucretius translation, (445)689–90, (450)699–700, (455)704–5 Cressy, Hugh: Barlow’s answer to, 350; and Pierce’s sermon, 324–7 Crete (Candia), 39, 61 crime and justice: intervention on behalf of ship’s carpenter, 1099–100; pleas on behalf of servants, 332–3, 562–3; reform of system, 869–70; reforms proposed, 1094. See also law Crisp, Nicholas (c.1599–1666): about, 151n3; dockyard extension (Sayes Court), (95)172, 151; Mr French recommended to, (205)317–18 Crisp, Nicholas, Jr: leasing arrangements, (637)943–4 Cromwell, Oliver: disorder caused by, 254n5; ill health, 228n3; measures against episcopacy, 160–1, 160n1; Sorbière’s defence of, 340, 340n10; tyrant, 604; usurper, 392 Croone, William: as tutor, JE broker of, xxxix, (207)319–20 Crosse, Thomas, 969–70 Cullum, Dudley: heated greenhouse, xlvi, (667)980–1, 980f, 1017 Cuperus, Gilbertus: Apotheosis vel Consecratio Homeri, 771 customs office, 1102 Cutler, John, 512 [Cyparissa]: about, 257n1; gardener as the ideal husband, xlviii, (160)257–60, 834 Cyprian: Opera, 581, 978 D’Acres, R., 1119 Danby, earl of. See Osborne, Thomas

1192 Davenant, William: death of, 455–6; George Mackenzie letter, (305)455–6; Tuke recommended to, (229)351 Davenport, Christopher: invocation of saints, xlviii, (363)544–5, 457, 482n9, 491 d’Aviler, Augustin-Charles: Cours d’architecture, 1096 de Bie, Jacques: La France metallique, 1092 de Caus, Salomon, 1119 Declaration of Right, 883n6 de Commines, Philippe, 1110 deer and venison. See food and drink Deering, Edward: commissioner of the Treasury, 647n1 de la Tour de Gouvernet, Esther, 811 de Lionne, Hugues, 670 della Casa, Giovanni (archbishop of Benevento), 498, 525 della Porta, Giambattista: Magiæ naturalis libri viginti, 331n4, 436–7n12 de Massue, Henri (1st marquis de Ruvigny), 920, 1128. See also Ruvigny, Henri Denham, John, 362, 1120 Denmark: and Anglo-Dutch Wars, 535; in celebratory poem, 719–20; fishing rights, 692–5; as place of exile (in jest), 785; prelude to war, 831; siege of Hamburg, 811 Denny, William, 824 Deptford: life expectancy, 1049–50; mills on Ravensbourne, 890n3; rebuilding of St Nicholas, 1088–9; taxes for poor, 726–8, 890–1, 893, 954–5, 1088–9; Woolpicker Lane, 788, 796n2 – dockyards: anchor forge proposed, 1026–7; cleaning of the stairs, 796–7; extension (Sayes Court), 151, 172; imminent danger to, 194; and poverty in, 726–8, 954, 1088–9; troops, 872. See also Sayes Court, Deptford De re rustica (Cato, Varro, and Columella), 1107n9 de Ruyter, Michael Adriaanszoon, 523 de Sandras, Courtilz: The French Spy, 281n6

Index Descartes, René, 927, 1078, 1079, 1082, 1090 d’Estrades, Godefroi, 120n3, 304n3; and Mary E’s portrait, 129–30, 129n2 D’Ewes, Simonds, 902, 904n38 de Wolff, Pieter, 800–1 Dieppe, 84, 130 “Dies Irae” (hymn), 177n9, 181n5 Digby, Anne (countess of Bristol, d. 1697): about, 589n4; death of, 1122–3; Donough MacCarty’s troubles, (638)944; ­family and friends, greetings, (420)646–7; parliamentary affairs (1689), (615)892; property negotiations (Chelsea), 630n2, 633–4, 657n2; selling of earl’s library, 589; mentioned, 922, 962, 966, 1114 Digby, George (2nd earl of Bristol): about, 309n1; Charles II to visit JE, (195)309; garden design, xlv–xlvi; library of, xli–xlii, 430n1, 589–90, 913 Digby, Kenelm: about, 62n8, 104n2; catalogue of printed books, (197)310–11; chemistry program, 104; library of, xlii, 430, 913; Private Memoirs, 1030; “the Vegetation of Plants,” 291; mentioned, 62 Diodati, Giovanni: in the Protestant lady’s library, 806 Dion Cassius: Romanarum historiarum libri XXV, 1037 “Discours sur les Reflexions,” 1111 Dixon, Matthew: portrait of M. Godolphin, 527n6, 1034n4 Dodwell, Henry (the elder): Prælectiones academicæ, 1013 Dolben, John: condolences for death of Breton, (339)512–13; death of, 791n4 Dolby, Thomas(?), 1059–60 Donatus, Ælius: Life of Virgil, 950n4 Donne, John: letters of, 977; “Satire IV,” 458 Dormer, Robert, 816–17 Dorp, Phillipp van, 695 Douglas, Anne (née Spencer, 1666–90): about, 655n1; death of, 936; education, 805; lady of the bedchamber, 774; ­religious tension, 787; thanks to, (427)655

Index Douglas, George (1st earl of Dumbarton): days before James II’s flight, 874; regiments’ supplies and conditions, (282)426 Douglas, James (4th duke of Hamilton), 874 Dover: Berkeley’s departure from, 560n2, 562 Dover Street residence: MacCarty’s temporary residence, 1080; proximity to Trinity Chapel, 1008; wintering in, 988 Downing, George, 535, 677 Doyley, William: commissioner, xxxvi, 350n9, 368; personal investments, 383; war report, update on plea for resources, (254)385–6 Draper, Mrs, (754)1077, (769)1103, (805)1143; about, 1057n1; consolation for death of grandchild, (733)1057–8; mentioned, 1072, 1115 Draper, Susanna (daughter, 1669–1754): Bath with mother, 956; children, 1033n2, 1049, 1052n4, 1057nn2, 4, 1059, 1077n2, 1115; drawing, 916–17, 1034, 1072, 1073; drawing and Tunbridge rhyme, (620)916–17; escape from fire, (798)1137; JE providing for, 526n4, 594n4; marriage negotiations, 919, 952n2, 969–70, 974–6; marriage of, 997–8, 998–9, 1001n6, 1008, 1021; only surviving daughter, xviii, 842n4; preparations for birth of child, (716)1033–5; at Sayes Court, 1018, 1023; travels after marriage, (692)1008–9; mentioned, 1138 Draper, William (son-in-law): birth of child and finances, (780)1115; financial affairs, 1109; Greenwich Hospital, (749)1072, 1102–3; key to library, 1034n9; marriage to Susanna E, 974n1, 997, 998–9; at Sayes Court, 1023, 1026n2; mentioned, 1070 dreams and dreaming, 920–1, 943 dress: commode/headdress, 1131; fashion in French court, 91; rich dress and adornments, 580–1; and Tyrannus Or the Mode, 307; white and green ribbons, 145

1193

drinking and drunkenness: of coachman, 888, 918; “liquid adornment of the cellar,” 35; making of sack-posset, xxxiii, 333–4; posset-drink (medicinal), 150; “sack and half-water,” 150; Anne Spencer’s son, xxxvii. See also food and drink Dryden, John: Siege of Granada, 578n12; Works of Virgil, 1146 Dublin: Trinity College library, 912 duc d’Orleans: garden at Blois, 51–2 Ducie, William, Viscount Downe, 23–4 Du Clos, Samuel Cottereau, 17, 19, 46, 47, 48, 49; about, 19n5 Dudley, Robert (1st earl of Leicester): papers of, 673 Dudley, Robert (1574–1649): Dell’Arcano del Mare, 636n3, 637 Dugdale, William: Antiquities of Warwickshire, 20; The history of St. Pauls Cathedral in London ..., 19–20; Monasticon, 1047 duke of York. See James II Dulwich: Edward Alleyn’s College of God’s Gift at Dulwich, 1067–8 Dumaresq, James, (238)426–7 Dummer, Edmund: about, 772n18; ­complimented, 772; manuscripts, (580)848; post to Chatham, 775, 777 Duncon, Eleazar, 89n2 Duncumb, Mr, 1099 Dunstable, 855 Du Pin, Louis Ellies: A new history of ­ecclesiastical Writers, 1037; (trans. Wotton), 1087n10 Duppa, Brian, 710 Duras, Louis (2nd earl of Feversham), 564; days before James II’s flight, 873–4 Durdans House (Surrey), xxxvii, 384 Durel, John: religious controversies, (350)530–1; Sanctæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, 530 Dutch East India Company: Bergen expedition, 386, 519, 522, 523, 694; prize ships taken, 387n2, 390–1, 394, 398,

1194

Index

524. See also Anglo-Dutch Wars, Second and Third; East India Company Earle, John: Beale recommended to, (246)369–70; and JE’s confessional identity, xxix; and Thomas Pierce, 326 earthquakes and volcanoes, 989–93 “Eastern Strangers,” two, 543 East India Company: JE’s investment, 215, 216, 431, 712n5; new company formed, 1142n2. See also Dutch East India Company Edgar, King, 693 Édit de Nantes, xxx, 627n6 education and learning: ancient and modern compared, xlix, 575–6, 672, 1036–9, 1106–7; beyond universities, 275–6 (see also Royal Society); books on childhood education, 274–5; Boyle’s contribution to, 1080–2; broker for tutors (see Evelyn, John); charitable provision for, 789, 791, 803; employment of professional readers, 307; expense of a physician’s, 197–9; girl child prodigy, 803–4, 837; of grandson John, 1125; Jesuit influence, 721, 722–5; knowledge of God, evidence of, 927–8; mathematics, 570–1; religion, 790; school versus tutor for child, 748–9; for seamen and navigation, 1068–9; through modern languages, 672; travel in England as, 1007; as a twig is bent, 1125n5 – Evelyn family: Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn, 559n1, 569, 608n1, 706; of George E Jr, 123, 300–1, 329–32; of John Jr, 316, 362–3, 432, 454, 518, 559–60, 560–1, 569–71, 608–11; John at Eton, 1012n2; of Mary E, 116n1; Mary and enamelling, 128–9; of Mary Jr, 759–60; music tutor, 688; of Susanna E: drawing, 916–17 – of JE: chemistry studies, 104, 104–5n2; early education 706; Eton, 1012; in Padua, 37

– JE as instructor and guide, 174–5, 180–1, 197–9, 219n6, 233–5, 237–8, 544–5, 625–8; his encouragement of, 75, 672; his transmission of knowledge, xlvi–xlix, 374–7, 577n8; JE in praise of, 26, 36, 517–18; JE’s letter as instructional essay, xxxvii, xlvi, 190–3, 374n3; JE’s list of “Learned and Heroic Persons of England,” 440–1; JE’s the Protestant lady’s library, 805–10; JE’s “Salomon’s House” (mathematical college), 253–7; as tutor, 164, 219. See also continental travels, as educational Egypt, 462; hieroglyphs, 61–2, 65p [Electra]. See Godolphin, Margaret Elford’s coffee house, 885 Elizabeth, Princess Palatine (“La Grecque”), 898 Elizabeth I, 281–2, 695; style of rule, 867 Elwes, Gervase: losses from shipping by JE, (33)99–100 employment: out-of-work seamen, 243n1; workmen unpaid, 1109. See also poor and poverty Enghien (Belgium): garden, 844–5 English. See languages, English engravings, etchings, and prints: debasement concern, 881; dedication of Hollar print, 66n5, 67p; JE’s print collection, 1044–7; list of things worth collecting, 1046; in Numismata, 1025, 1061, 1076n10; purchase of prints by JE, xliii, 230–1; of Trajan’s Column in Rome, 1046. See also libraries and collections Ephesus, Council, 458n4, 482, 491, 544–5 Epicharmus, 207 Epictetus: Enchiridion, 213n5, 358–9, 358n5; as a slave, 292 epistles and epistolary rhetoric. See letters and letter writing Erasmus, Desiderius: collections of letters, 977; De Conscribendis Epistolis, xxxviii; Moriae Encomium, 988

Index Ernley, John: commissioner of the Treasury, 647n1, 819n2 Estienne, Charles (Stephanus), 377n12, 1107 Estienne, Henri (Stephanus), 1126n5 Eton, 748–9, 1012, 1125n4, 1148. See also education and learning Euboulos, 71 Euston Hall (Henry Bennet’s estate), 587, 747 Evans, John: The Case of Kneeling at the Holy Sacrament, (460)715; introduced to Sancroft, 644 Evelyn, Edward (first cousin, once removed, 1626–92): death of, 983n4; marriage negotiations, 243n1, (299)450–1 Evelyn, Eleanor (mother, 1599–1635), xvii, 183, 313 Evelyn, Elizabeth (daughter, 1667–85): about, 526n4, 594n4; elopement and smallpox, 765nn1–4, 767–9; visit to Elizabeth Mynne, 658 Evelyn, Elizabeth Mynne (wife of brother Richard, c.1628–92): about, 132n10; Baynards and Woodcote (Richard E’s estate), 971n1, 974, 979; behaviour of son-in-law, (663)971–4; birth of JE’s son, (64)132; children, 230; dating of letters to, xxvi; deaths in family, xxxii, 846, 972; George E’s estate, 968; kindness to goddaughter, (430)658–9; letters of consolation, xxxvii, (578)845–6, (579)847–8, 972; misunderstandings and rumours, (320)478–9, (329)490–1, (365)546–9, 549–50, 846, 847–8 Evelyn, George (brother, 1617–99): about, 66n4; advice on son, (56)123; Baynards estate, xxxii, (666)978–9, 846n3, 847–8, 978–9, 1011; birth of child, 121n1, 153n4; on birth of son, (85)157; birth of JE’s son, 132; commission of Deputy Lieutenant, (695)1011–12; consolation for death of son, (103)182–3, (646)952–3, 941n6; as conveyor, 119, 176; estate of, (651)957, (660)967–9; gift for birth,

1195

(123)213–14; grandchild, (534)794, (601)877; greetings from Paris, (15)78; and Thomas Howard, 66; illness and death of, xviii, 979n5, 1032, 1033; illness of Mary Cotton, (137)228–9; illness of son, (642)948–9; instructor and guide, JE as, xlvi, xlvii, (143)233–5; marriage anniversary, 69; marriage negotiations, (278)414–15, 434n7; marriage of Susanna E, (680)997–8, (682)998–9; mention in letter of vindication for slight, 169; only surviving brother, 813; planned to visit by JE, (54)121–2; politics, xxx; position for Taylor, 203n1; possible code name, 83n1; stand for parliament, xxxviii, (496)756; tenant recommended to, (222)337–8; a “trifle,” settlement of, (149)241–2; tutor for son, 322–3; mentioned, 956, 975, 1010 Evelyn, George (of Nutfield, 1678–1724): deputy lieutenant of Surrey, (700)1016, 1011; estate of George E, 968 Evelyn, George (son, 1657–8), 209–10, 213n1 Evelyn, George, Jr (nephew, 1644–76): about, 123n1; continental tour, xxxix, (186)300–1, (215)329–30; death of, 941n6; living with JE, 123–4; Pope ­recommended to, (210)322–3 Evelyn, Jane. See Glanville, Jane (sister) Evelyn, John (grandson, 1st baronet of Wotton, 1682–1763), 1121–2, 1125 Evelyn, John (nephew, 1653–91), 157; death of, 949, 950–1, 952n1, 997 Evelyn, John (of West Dean, 1601–85), 336n6 Evelyn, John, Jr (son, 1655–99): about, 266n5; accounts with father, 969; advice, admonition, concern, xxxix, (381)568–71, (405)608–10, 678, 866n13; Althorp visit, 855n1; archives of, xx; and attorney general, 853; children, 674n2, 698, 813; continental tour, xxxix, 567, 1045; days before James II’s flight, xxxviii, (600)873–7; educated with Henry Howard, 1011n4; education, legal, 559–60; education of

1196

Index

son, (787)1124–5; furniture, 1108–9; Godolphin’s resignation, (774)1108–9; ill-health and death of, xviii, 265–6, 270, 432, 1101–2, 1125, 1136, 1138, 1140, 1141, 1143; inheritance from uncle, 955–6, 967n1; Ireland, 982n2, 986, 988, 1108n1, 1129; journey to Oxford, 454; learning of, 275, 432; letters of recommendation from father, 559–60, 849–50, 880, 988–9n1, 1056, 1128–9; marriage, 591, 641–2, 647n5; marriage negotiations (sister’s), (490)749–50; message from Capel, 1074; missing letters, (513)xxx(n41); at Sayes Court, 1021; translations by, 595n5, 705n3, 708–9; Treasury, 835, 849, 955n1, 958n2, 986; mentioned, 948, 1070, 1104 Evelyn, John (1620–1706): age of, 1139; ambitions: Garter king of arms, 572; autobiographical notes, xvii–xviii, 706–10, 878–9, 961; biography, xix, xxxiii; character, xxxii–xxxiii, xxxiii–xxxiv, 527–8; closure to year and “approaching Revolution,” 878–80; commissioner of the Privy Seal (1685) (see commissioner of the Privy Seal); confessional and political identities, xxviii–xxx; family politics, 478–9, 490–1, 546–9, 652–3; gunpowder patent, 990n6; handwriting of, xxiv, liii; honorary doctorate, 518n6, 551; languages, xviii–xix (see also languages); as lateRenaissance humanist, xlviii; marriage, 706, 1139 (see also Evelyn, Mary [wife, 1635–1709]); and mechanical arts, xli; as a planter of cabbages/coleworts, 897, 958; portraits of, xliv (see also portraits and portraiture) – children, xviii, 236n4, 327–8, 332, 526, 594, 610, 676, 678, 785, 1057; child prodigies, 804; death of daughters, xviii, 757–69; last surviving daughter, 842 (see also Draper, Susanna [daughter]); marriage negotiations, 783. See also individual children, particularly Elizabeth, John Jr, and Mary Jr

– as broker and executor: in ambassadorial dispute, 303–6, 310n2; Bemde (on behalf of ), 692; breach of censor (on behalf of Taylor), 222–3; Browne’s expenses and Prettyman lawsuit (see finances); Cock(e) (on behalf of ), 789n4; debt mediation, 311–12, 773–4; Evans (on behalf of ), 644; of financial support, 197–9, 218–19, 325; Isabella Fitzroy (Grafton) (on behalf of ), 1009–10; Fowler (on behalf of ), 635, 638–9; Mr Greene (on behalf of ), 778; Knight (on behalf of ), 406; lighthouse on Scilly Isles, 642; list of lighthouses, 632; of marriage, xxxviii–xxxix, 147–8, 151–5, 159–60, 170n4, 175, 211–12, 242–3, 414–15, 433–4, 450–1, 489, 586, 591, 631n4, 656–8, 663–4, 687–8, 749–50, 783, 786, 918–19, 969–70, 974–6, 997, 1065–6, 1123–4; for Oakwood Chapel, 1054–5; petition for Deptford poor, 726–8; Pierce’s sermon, 323–7; property sale negotiations, 630–1; refused request to be, 1055; Sherman (master carpenter) (on behalf of ), 1099–100; in support for Charles II, xxviii, xxx–xxxi, 266–8; servant, 332–3; Tuke (on behalf of ), 351; for tutors, xxxix, xli, 19–20, 75, 123, 124, 196, 197–9, 300, 319–20, 443, 528–9, 748–9 – as trustee for: Berkeley, 650–1; brother Richard, 651; Howard, 532–3, 545–6, 651; Mordaunt, 651. See also letters of introduction and recommendation – books: active literary profile, xviii–xix; British Library holdings, xx–xxi; list of writing, drawn up by JE, 707; Acetaria, 631; An Apologie for the Royal Party, 267n2, 707; The Compleat Gard’ner, 1086n1; “Discourse of Medals,” 707; Fumifugium, xviii, 302n2, 707, 852–3, 966n3, 1093n10; The History of Religion, 109n16; The History of the Three late famous Impostors, 470n1, 707; An Idea of the Perfection of Painting, 424n7, 930; Kalendarium Hortense (see also Sylva below),

Index 415–19, 426n1, 442n3, 460, 602n2, 666n3, 707, 751n1, 930; —8th edition, 949–50, 950n3, 958n1; —number of printings, 929; The Life of Mrs. Godolphin, 760n5; The Manner of Ordering Fruit-Trees, 273n2; Memoires for My Grand-son, xxviii, 276n15; Mundus muliebris, 819n3; Navigation and Commerce, 492n2, 494n8, 520, 522n2, 541n2, 598n8, 636n1, 670n2, 692, 694; —suppression of, 670–2; Numismata, xli, 424n7, 718n9, 895–6n1, 895n2, 899n16, 900n19, 994n3, 1006; —errata, 1145–7, 1148–50; —instructions to printer, 1025, 1029, 1076nn9–10; —letter to S. Godolphin, 1091–2; medal by François II, 1061; medal of Charles II, 1060, 1061–2n3; —presented, 1141; —to printer, 1022–3, 1120; —proofs, 1105, 1117–18; A Philosophical Discourse of Earth (Terra), 566n2, 707; Pomona, 822n3; Publick Employment and an Active Life, xviii(n4), 435n2, 707; Robert Boyle, memoir of, 1078; Sculptura, xviii, xliii, 184n1, 204nn1, 6, 290n8, 339n5, 467, 707, 881n3, 900n19, 907n49, 930, 1148n3; —editions of, 894–5; —retold episode from, 1045n7; —“things worth the collecting” (list), 1046; Sylva, xviii, xxvii, 252n3, 291n9, 331, 335, 389, 484n4, 586n3, 595n5, 632, 707; —dedications, 821n1, 929n1; —development of local forests, 1093n11; —“Discourse concerning Forest-trees,” 289n2; —in portrait, xliv; —printings/editions of, 680, 929–30, 1120, 1125; —sent to Cavendish, 552; —with “The Garden” (Cowley), 929n1, 950n3; Tyrannus Or the Mode, 76n4, 306–8, 670n4, 707; Unum Necessarium, 162n10 – commonplace books: “De forma Locorum Communium,” xlvii; JE’s use of, 245; “Loci communes,” xlvi(n110), 234n5; on old and new learning, xlviii–xlix;

1197

“Vademecum,” xlvii; vocabularies for, xlvii – dedications: to Barlow, 236; to Boyle, 204n1, 339n5; to Charles II, 821n1; to Cowley, 315n1, 415–19, 460n6; to Henshaw, 31n3, 61n2; to Howard, 288n4; to F. Hyde, 929–34; to H. Hyde, xlv, 905; of medical information, 104–5n2; to Mordaunt, “Prince of Planters,” 834; of a Pindaric (to many), xxviii, 279, 415–19, 929–34; to Somers, 1039n3; to Anne Spencer, xxviii; to Wren, 1120, 1144–5; to Wriothesley, 334n2, 822; —to JE: by Barlow, xliii, xlviii, 184, 185p; by Beale, 567n3; by Cowley, 315n1, 416n3; by Fanshawe, 178n4; by Hollar, xliii, 66n5, 67; by Rand of Gassendi trans., xlviii, 167–8, 201n1, 486, 927n4; by Wase, 20n5, 25n3; by Williams, 1062; by Wotton, 1133 – diary, xix, xxii, xxii(nn21–6); almanac notes, 71n4; compared to letterbooks, xxxii–xxxiii; relationship to letterbook, xxvii – drawings, designs, etc.: dedication to Henshaw, 64p; frontispiece, History of the Royal Society, xlv, 434n1, 438p; hieroglyphs, 65p; Naples from Mount Vesuvius, 33p; Sayes Court, 200p; Wotton House, see colour plate vol. 1 – letterbooks, xxv( f ), xxviii( f ), xxix( f ), 60f; compared to diary, xxxii–xxxiii; confusion of three volumes, xxvii(n35); dating of letters, xxv–xxvi; description, xix–xx, xx(n13); edited letters, shaped materials, xxvi–xxvii, xxx–xxxii, xxx(n41), xxxii–xxxiii, xxxvi–xxxviii, xliii, lii; index to, xxiii, xxiii( f ), xxiv, xxiv( f ), xxviii, 17, 18f, 38f, 57n2, 70n2; intellectual self-portrait, xlvii; letters of 1665, xxxvi–xxxvii; letters of 1688, the annus mirabilis, xxxvii; lists and catalogues, xxxvii; plan for, xxvii; textual history of, xxi–xxxiii; as transmission of knowledge, xlvi, xlviii–xlix

1198

Index

– poetry and rhymes: for The Adventures of Five Hours (Tuke), 314–15n1, 317n1, 322n13; on birth of child, 696; upon birth of grandson to Charles II, 719–20; comic political, 321; epithalamion (Graham), 563; “Farewell to Rome,” 61n2; hate of ingratitude rhyme (to E. Puckering), 187–9; mock-epic pilgrimage rhyme, 926; “On his Majesty’s happy Returne,” 293n11; “On Sir Charles Littleton’s Carrying his Lady to Jamaica: 1662,” 308; Pindaric, xxvii, 415–19; rhyme to A. Sylvius (playful), 1052–3; to sack-posset, 334; Tunbridge Wells rhyme (to daughter), 917 – miscellaneous writing: ballad on M. Cavendish’s Royal Society visit, 554n9; in Burnet’s History of the Reformation, 653; Camden’s Britannia, columns for, 1005, 1018–19n1, 1092; “A Catalogue of Fruit Trees,” 950n3; A Character of England (1659), xxvi–xxvii; “Damage Done to His Garden,” 732n2; The Dignitie of Man etc., 707; “Discourse on modern languages,” 672n11; “Elysium Britannicum,” xxxi, xlv, xlvii, xlviii, 219nn6, 9, 250n1, 252nn2–4, 259n13, 269n2, 270–2, 295n3, 331n5, 400n1, 419n7, 452, 460, 468, 484n4, 508n2, 542n2, 586n3, 594n4, 631–2, 707, 801n11; The English Vineyard Vindicated, preface to, 834n9; epitaph (Beale), 714–15; “The Historie of Staves,” 557n4, 707; “History of Trades,” xli, xlv, xlvii, 204n6, 253, 253n3, 276n15, 331n5, 370–1n2, 400n1; “A new Conservatory, or Greenhouse,” 950n3; A Panegyric to Charles the Second, 293, 295n2; “A Rationall Account of the True Religion,” xxxi, xlvii, 190n1 – translations: intentional omissions, 195; list of, drawn up by JE, 707; Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (Naudé), xli, xlv, 227n2, 236, 707, 905–6, 930, 1148; Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism, 349, 354, 354n4, 358n2; The Compleat

Gard’ner (Quintinye), 53n1; De la Liberté et de la servitude (La Mothe le Vayer), xxxviii, 707; The Golden Book of St. John Chrysostom, 236, 358, 707, 760n4; An Idea of the Perfection of Painting ( Fréart), 288n4, 707; Le Jardinier François (de Bonnefons), 249n1, 250n2; Lucretius project, xxxviii, 22–3, 171n7, 176, 177nn1–2, 194–5, 201–2, 207n4, 227, 466n15, 689–90; Lucretius, An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius, 19–20, 21–2, 137, 167n1, 171, 177–8, 177n2, 179p, 189, 194n2, 201, 557, 707, 1126; Lucretius, proofreading complaints (Triplet), xxxi, 22n4, 201–2, 424n7, 557–8, 689; Mystery of Jesuitism, various texts exposing, 349, 349n8, 354, 358n2, 384n7, 411n2, 707; A Parallel of the Antient Architecture ( Fréart), 50, 164n4, 180n4, 331n5, 343n1, 348, 349, 362–3, 552, 707, 899n18, 930; A Parallel dedication to Wren, 1120, 1144–5; A Parallel reprint proposed, 1096; of religious commentary (anonymously), 349; of Sorbière, 339n5; The State of France, xxxviii, 81n2, 114n3, 219n6; of Edmund Waller’s verse, 70n4 Evelyn, John Stansfield (son, 1653–4), 134n3, 140n2, 183n4 Evelyn, Martha (daughter-in-law, née Spencer, c.1661–1726): about, 591n1; children, 674, 698; illness, 1139–40, 1141, 1143; injured, 876n30; marriage settlement, 641–2, 676; property of, 739–40n2; at Tunbridge, 917 Evelyn, Mary (née Caldwell, sister-in-law, d. 1644), 66n4 Evelyn, Mary (niece). See Wyche, Mary (niece) Evelyn, Mary (wife, 1635–1709): about, 116n1; accompanied JE, 149n2; archives of, xx; arrangements to return to England, xliv, (47)116, (60)127–9, (61)129–30, (62)130–1; birth of Mordaunt child, (183)297, 296n1; on Margaret Cavendish, 552n1; character defended/described by JE, 144–5; children, xviii, 129–31, 134n3,

Index 140n2, 188n4, 212n2, 213–14, 327–8, 332, 386, 386n3, 569, 658; death of mother, 133n2; finances, (68)136–7, (80)150–1; letter edited, xxvi; marriage, 83; marriage negotiations (Susanna), (523)783; move to England, 115, 126; narrative skills, 920–1; offence perceived by Bemde, 994–6; poem for The Adventures of Five Hours, 314–15n1, 317n1; portraits of, xliv, 54n1, 93n4, 95p, 129n2, 145; queen’s expected visit, 540; receipt books, 1015; related to Boyle, 1079–80; sinecures promised, 643; smallpox, (505)767–8; title page of An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius, 177n2, 179p; travel to Bath, 956, 957; travel with the Tukes, 21–2; —on Mary Tuke, 702 – health: circulation problems, 187n3; conflicts of the stone, 1032, 1033; “cough and defluction,” 1077; fainting, 855, 856–7, 860; impetigo, 17–19; improved, 925, 1114; medicinal waters, 45–6, 1028, 1038, 1039n4, 1040n7 (see also Tunbridge Wells); with “the new distemper,” 849; paralytic attack, 918; “worse state of body,” 825 Evelyn, Mary, Jr (daughter, 1665–85): about, 386n3; birth, 386n3, 404n10; death of, xxxvi, 687n2, 757–61, 768, 822–3, 1050; education, 759–60; funeral, 763; love and marriage advice, (444)687–8, 749–50, 757–8; miscellany of, 759, 761–2; provided for, 526n4 Evelyn, Mary Cotton (sister-in-law, d. 1664): about, 24n4, 69n1; children, 69n1, 157n2, 182–3, 312–13, 414; consolation for death of child, (199)312–13; death of, 336–8; godparent gift, 213–14; illnesses, 228; marriage, (5)69, 66n4; mentioned, 23–4, 78, 121–2, 242 Evelyn, Richard (brother, 1622–70): about, 81; children, (140)230; consolation for death of sister, xxxvi, (43)112–13; consolation for death of sister-in-law, (220)336; death of, xxxii, 489; illnesses

1199

(and tension with brother), 478–9, 489, 490–1, 547; JE in Paris during brother’s illness, (21)82–3; marriage negotiations, (151)242–3, (287)433–4; mentioned, 137, 177 Evelyn, Richard ( father, 1590–1640), xvii, 132 Evelyn, Richard (son, 1652–8), xviii, 131n2, 137n4, 223–4, 225, 227; autopsy, 295n2; birth and naming, 131–2 Evelyn, Susanna (daughter). See Draper, Susanna (daughter) Evelyn of Godstone, John ( first cousin, 1591–1664): christening of John Stansfield, (72)140–1; mentioned, 188n6 Evertsen, Cornelis, 363, 364nn2–3 Exclusion Crisis, 595n1, 596, 603n1, 632n7. See also politics experimental philosophy, xviii, 499, 501n32 Eyton, Kenrick: about, 71n1, 456n1; greeting, possibly coded, (8)71–2; lighter side of JE, xxxiii; political climate as “the plague,” (14)76–7 Fabretti, Rafaello, 1046 Fagel, Gaspar, 800 Fagg, John, 127n3, 268n4 Family of Love (sect), 136n7 Fanshawe, Richard: about, 137n1; dedicatory epistle, 178n4; dispersal of brother’s collection, 903; and Lucretius translation (“the Bratt”), (69)137–8, 201n6; Querer por solo Querer (trans.), 854n3; translation of Il Pastor Fido (Guarini), 138nn8–9; mentioned, 178 Fanshawe, Simon, 903 “Farello,” (II.6)37 Farindon, Anthony: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 fashion. See dress Faversham, 537, 873 Fazellus, Thomas: Rerum Sicularum scriptores, 466 Featley, Daniel: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809

1200

Index

Fell, John: attacks on Church of England, xxix, (442)681–3; bishop of Oxford, 565, 720; Howard donations, (297)448, (317)474–5, 430n2, 481, 488; Jesuit ­influence, xxix, (466)722–3, (468)725, 724; Opera (Cyprian), 581n19, 1038 Fenton, Edward: Voyage Intended towards China, 673 Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Further Austria, 39–40 Fermor, William, 549 Fiennes, Frances (née Whitehead), 366 Fifth Ottoman-Venetian war (Guerra di Candia), 39, 61 Fillingham, Bartholomew, 385, 385n1 finances: appeal on behalf of J. Needham, 197–9; auctions, xlii, 730n3 (see also auctions); bequests to Royal Society, 680n6; budget for foreign plants, 1020n5; commonbook fiscal vocabularies, xlvii; compensation to wives for soldiers dead, 363–4; debt mediation, 311–12, 773–4; East India Company investment, 215, 216, 431, 712n5; Fox in need of money, 1109; fraudulent officers, 442; French payments to English politicians, 830; JE’s instructions to Mary E, 116, 127–9; JE’s payments for care of sick and prisoners, 369, 380, 381n4, 383, 387n2, 390–2, 395, 397–8, 401–2, 407, 537; libraries “by the yard,” xlii, 430; library of John Cosin, sale of, 126–7, 126n3; loans to JE, 212n1, 515–16; loan to Stanhope, 216; losses by JE during Interregum, 76, 286–7; lottery winnings, 918n3; management of (advice to John Jr), 570–1; mills owned by JE, 890n3; Mint irregularities, 728–9; purchase of school position, 791; receipt books, 1015n3; reform of English, 869; safe passage for payments, 46–7, 127; sale of horse, 242; security for “Officer at Deale” position, 355. See also taxation and taxes – annuities and salaries: for cashier and ­accountant, 562n2; for chaplain, 885;

for commissioner of Irish treasury, 1056n3; for endowments for monasteries (Surrey), 1047–8; for headmaster, 19–20; for hospital treasurer, 1043n1; for JE’s steward, 1115n3; for library keeper, 1041n3; for marshals, 352–3, 399; for Oakwood Chapel, 1054; paid to control stage plays, 360; paid to Sorbière, 339–40, 340n9; for parish priest, 538–9; payment to servant, 128n6; per diem paid for prisoners, 361; for physicians, 296, 336; for scholars, 469; for secretary, 285; for tutors, 362–3; to various commissioners, 676–7; workmen unpaid, 1109 – Browne’s expenses and Prettyman law suit, xxvii, xxxi–xxxii, 103n1, 151n2, 170n2, 286–7, 541n1, 593–4, 647–8, 647n2, 675–8, 684–6, 703–4, 797–800, 818–19, 857–8, 1129–30; clerk of the Council position, 480, 525, 598, 649; Prettyman’s debt to the Crown, 941n4, 942n3; settled, 880 – costs of: book bindings, 45–6, 904–5, 909; burials, 403–4; citrus-wood table, 718–19; collections, 902, 904–5; expenses of continental tour, 329; extension of dockyards (Sayes Court), 172; libraries, 590, 904–5, 906–7, 912n72; in marriage arrangements, 414, 433, 564, 658, 662–3, 663n1, 749–50, 975–6, 1123–4; marriage settlements, 641–2, 676, 997; medals and coins, 909n58; paintings, 964–5; parish relief, 726–8; a physician’s education, 197–9; printing, 633; proposed “Salomon’s House,” 255–6; “recovered men,” 534; tulips, 507; type for St John Chrysostom, 903n31 – legacies and trusts: Baynards and Woodcote (Richard E’s estate), xxxii, 82n1, 159n2, 548n3, 846n3, 847–8, 971n1, 974, 979; Berkeley affairs, 561–2, 864–6; daughters’ inheritance rights, 870, 941n6; George E’s estate, 955–6, 957, 967–9; legacies (Howard), 533, 545–6; trust fund, investment report for, 712–13, 838–9, 843

Index – property: cost of poor relief, 727–8, 890–1, 893, 954–5; lease of Sayes Court land, 948; leasing arrangements and costs, 943–4; levy on property owners, 410; relating to manor at Warley, 125, 151n2; renovations and income from Berkeley House, 743–4; right-of-way (Woolpicker Lane), 788; sale negotiations, 431, 630–1, 633n1, 634; sale of farm, 739; Sayes Court, 128, 516–17, 1026, 1104–5 – subscriptions to: build Greenwich Hospital, 1072, 1098–9, 1117; rebuild St Nicholas, 1088–9, 1088n1; timber sale at Wotton, 969, 1050n10 Finch, Daniel (2nd earl of Nottingham), 1080 Finch, Heneage (1st earl of Aylesford), 953, 1028, 1032, 1090, 1128 fish and fishing: English dominion over the seas, 693–4; experiments with, 466; Newfoundland fishing convoy, 640; winter, damage of severe, 735. See also food and drink Fitzgerald, Elizabeth. See MacCarty, Elizabeth (née Fitzgerald) Fitzgerald, John (18th earl of Kildare): woodcarver recommended to, (457)711 Fitzroy, Charles, 719nn5–6 FitzRoy, George, 785 Fitzroy, Isabella (duchess of Grafton): about, 588n11; birth of child and comet, (448)696–7, 719; husband’s chief clerkship, (693)1009–10; mentioned, 747 Flamsteed, John, 674–5, 696, 741; master for proposed seminary, 1068 Flanders: peace, 43 Fleetwood, William, 1150 Flines, Philips de, 800 Florence. See Italy Flournois, Pierre, 922 food and drink: asparagus, 460; coffee roasting, 885n3; continental, learned from tour of, 400; costs for “Salomon’s House” proposal, 255–6; Myristic, 798; plants ( fruits and vegetables) from Spain, 460;

1201

“plum-pie, pottage, and Brawne,” 1042; red pepper, 460–1; Sorbière on English, 340–1, 342n19; venison, 188, 216–17, 231–2, 269n1, 430, 752, 813–14, 839, 945, 987n3, 1033, 1059. See also drinking and drunkenness; fish and fishing Fountaine, Peter: letter of vindication for slight (Mr N.N.), (93)169–70; plant solicitation, xlvi, (488)747–8 Fowler, Ann (née Cowse), 888n6 Fowler, Edward: about, 639n5; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809; The Resolution of this Case of Conscience, 639 Fowler, Robert, 399, 401–2, 401n1 Fowler, Thomas, 635n3, 638–9; favour compensated, 639–40 Fox, Stephen: about, 412n5; advisor to Sylvius, 607; commissioner of the Treasury, 647n1, 649, 684, 819n2, 1109; days before James II’s flight, 873–5; elected, 966; finances, 712, 838–9, 1109; finances/Greenwich Hospital, (775)1109–10; marriage negotiations, xxxix, (428)656–7, 657–8, 662–3, 663–4; office of paymaster, 564; property sale negotiations (Chelsea), (408)630–1, (410)633–4, 657n2; Royal Hospital Chelsea, (437)669–70, 697–8; in search of, 857 Foy-Vaillant, Jean, 900 France: ambassadors, 280–1, 304–6, 304n2, 310n2; and Anglo-Dutch Wars, 535; cultural rivalry with England, 914; Édit de Nantes, xxx; and England’s dominion over the seas, 692–6; and English corruption, 905; mediation/broker role (JE), xxxviiixxxix; Mercure historique, 830–1; prelude to war, 831; religious (and political) tensions, 605–6; reuniting religions, 477 – JE’s continental tour of, xviii, xxxix; Beaugency on the Loire, 220; Tours, 164, 180, 300. See also continental travels, as educational; Italy; languages, French; Paris Franco-Dutch War: battle of Mons, 593

1202

Index

François, René (pseud. for Étienne Binet): Essay des merveilles de nature, 372n6 Frazier, Mr, 730n2, 802n1, 982 Fréart de Chambray, Roland: Idée de la perfection de la peinture; Parallèle de l’Architecture (see Evelyn, John, books) Frederick II (duke of Mantua), 965 French letters, 45–56. See also France; languages, French friendship: defined in discourses, 288; discussion of, 212–13; with Margaret Godolphin, xxix, xxxi, 527n6, 676, 812, 860; of married couples, 264; “that noble Plant,” 214 Frizell, William, 965 Frobisher, Martin: journal of, 673 Frogpoole (house), 328 Fronde, 43, 47, 126n2; Condé’s siege of Paris, 127n2 Fulham, George, 1123–4; quality of sermons, 1142 Fulham, Katherine (née Evelyn, grand­ daughter of George E), 1123n2, 1142 Fuller, William, 294n1; concerning Wase, (179)293–4 furniture: Florence and Paris cabinets, 128; “Italian Collection,” 80n3; Japan India cabinet, 1108–9; for John Jr from JE, 1108–9; shipping instructions from Rome, 80. See also collectables Gale, Thomas: about, 863n5; as bishop, 863–4; Camden’s Britannia, 1005; dean of York, 1134; information and book titles exchanged, (697)1013; local virtuoso, 901; mentioned, 897, 943, 987, 1023, 1027, 1039, 1042 Galen: De Usu Partium Corporis Humani, 471 Galen, Christopher Bernard von, 524 Gamons Mill, 890 gardens. See horticulture and gardening Gardiner, James (bishop of Lincoln), 1086, 1105

Gardner, Timothy, 355, 355n2 Garrard, Jane: about, 99n2; assistance to Needham, 219; gift of ring to JE (lost to pirates), (34)100, 99–100; gift to Mary E, 128; mentioned, 165n12 Garter king of arms, 572 Gassendi, Pierre: Epicurean philosophy introduced, 1126; Epicurus’s atomism, 927; Life of Peiresc (trans. Rand), xlviii, 167, 201n1, 220, 1079, 1082 Gastrell, Francis, 1105n4, 1117n1, 1117n3, 1118 Gataker, Thomas, 531 Gauden, Dennis: about, 510n2, 766n4; Berkeley affairs, 865; and JE’s daughter’s elopement, 766n4, 796; Sayes Court, 1026; tenant of JE, 890; victualling office for the navy, (338)511–12, 510–11 Gaudy, William, 562n12 Gaywood, Richard: portrait (JE), 184n2, 186p; Venus with an Organist (Titian), xliii, 184n2, 185p Gazette (London). See London Gazette Gellibrand, Henry, 960 Gellius, Aulus: Noctes Atticae, 932nn17–18, 1036n5, 1111n14 gems, semi-precious stones, and jewellery: catalogue of the king’s treasures, 356–7; engraved ring, 223; purchase of pearls, 128; rich dress and adornments, 580–1; ring lost to pirates, 99–100. See also collectables; gold and silver Gentili, Alberico: De Legationibus Libri Tres, 280n1 Gentleman’s Magazine, The, 370n2 Geopondes (writers about cultivation), 1107 George, prince of Denmark, 776n3 Gerard, Gilbert, 783 Gerard, Mary: debt mediation, 311–12; selling books, 126n3, 912n73 German letters, 42 Gerrard, Mark: portraits in Clarendon’s collection, 904n36

Index Gesner, Conrad: Bibliotheca Universalis, 1036; Catalogus Plantarum, 1036n8; De quadrupedibus viuiparis, 466; Historia Animalium, 1036n8 Gibbons, Grinling, 711, 1096 Gibson, Edmund: Camden’s Britannia, (703)1018–19, (713)1030–1, (725)1047–8; concerning medals, 1031 Gibson, Richard (naval clerk), 739n2 Gifford, Jack, 66 Gilbert, William, 960 Giovio, Paolo, 458, 896n5 Glanvill, Joseph: about, 456n1; critique of radical Protestantism, 494–501; Essays on Several Important Subjects, 586n3; Plus Ultra (and other texts), (306)456–7, (310)463, (336)509–10, 497; rector in Bath, 586 Glanville, Jane (sister, 1616–51): about, 91n1; children, (28)91, (38)102–3, 113–14; death of, xxxvi, 112, 113–14; request for medicine, (32)98–9 Glanville, William (brother-in-law, 1618– 1702): about, 91n4; on behalf of [Fowler], 635, 638n2; consolation for death of Jane Glanville, (44)113–14; conveyance of letters, (37)102; death of Mary Jr, 765n3; George E’s estate, 957; illness of nephew, (644)950–1; JE’s response to favour requested by, (731)1055; landholders owing poor relief, (648)954–5; misunderstandings and rumours, 547–8, 549–50; nephew recommended by JE, (611)888–9, 889; Paris introductory letters for, xxxviii, 53, 54; recommendation to Tenison, 1055; mentioned, 877, 949, 975 Glanville, William, Jr (nephew, c.1650–1718), 91, 113–14, 747, 1062; JE’s Greenville Hospital appointment, 1043n1; recommended to S. Godolphin, 1141 Glorious Revolution (1688), xvii, 892. See also politics Glykos the Athenian, 899 Goddard, Jonathan, 289

1203

Godolphin, Francis (2nd earl of Godolphin): about, 601n2, 639n1; in Deptford, 918n2; education, 748–9; living circumstances, 716n2; management of trust for, 712, 838–9; as “Massie,” 813, 842, 919, 1112; mock-epic journey to Cornwall, (627)925–6, (633)938–40, 919; mentioned, 1035n4 Godolphin, Henry: about, 748n3; Eton, 1012; Numismata and errata of, (810)1148–50; mentioned, 919, 926, 940n8 Godolphin, Jael. See Boscawen, Jael Godolphin, Margaret: about, 527n6; and Berkeley affairs, 865, 866; compared to Mary Jr, 759–60, 761–2; and Stephen Fox, 564n9; and John Jr, 27n4, 560n2, 569; marriage negotiations, 558; marriage to Sidney, 558n2; only letter in letterbooks, xxxii, 575n1; portrait of, 527n6, 745n3; Royal Society defended (excesses of stage plays), xlv, xlviii, 360n8, (385)575–84; spiritual friendship with JE, xxix; star as symbol for, 601n4; mentioned, 527, 542 – death of, 595n1; effect on Sidney and JE, 595–6, 597, 601, 629–30, 634–5n1, 691n3, 722; and finances of JE, xxxi, 676; letters on anniversary of, xxxvi, 691n3, 722n2, 745, 746, 759n2, 812, 860 Godolphin, Penelope: about, 842n7; death of, 1131; mentioned, 842, 926, 1112 Godolphin, Sidney (1st earl of Godolphin): about, 538n1; anniversary of Margaret’s death, (545)812, (592)860, 634–5n1; annuity for parish priest, (357)538–9; on behalf of Fowler], (411)634–6, (413)638–9, 635n3; Boys with Pelota (Murillo), (750)1073; Browne’s expenses and Prettyman suit, xxvii, xxxi, xxxi–xxxii, (421)647–9, (440)675–8, (443)684–6, (502)764, (519)780, (551)818, (552)818–19, 594, 676, (790)1129–30, 798 (see also finances); commissioner for Chelsea Hospital, (449)697–8; on consolation (rhetoric

1204

Index

of ),  xxxvi, (498)759–61; consolation for death of Charles II, (495)754–5; death of Margaret and return to public life, (396)595–6, (401)601, 597, 1116; final days before James II’s flight, 874; Hales recommended to, (734)1058, 1055; illness of, 742; JE’s Greenwich Hospital appointment, (723)1043; Jesuit influence, 723; licensing “Popish-books,” (533)792–4; lord chamberlain to the queen, 759; lord of the Treasury and baron, (485)744–5; marriage to Margaret, 558n2; Mary (yacht), 588; Mint irregularities, 729; Osborne case, (770)1103–4; petition for John Jr, xviii, (566)835, (649)955–6, (767)1101–2, 838n6, 1140; petition on behalf of Glanville, (612)889, 888, 1141; political and monetary reform, (762)1091–5; programmatic letters, 603–6, 867n1, 1091–5; Protestantism expanded (Tories), xxx, (403)603–6, 867n1; recommendation sought for Cade, (809)1147–8; reflections on life lived, (652)958–9; regarding John Jr, (649)955–6; religious policies of the king, xxx; rumour of marriage, (635)941–2; secretary of state appointment, (476)736–7; Slingsby and the Mint, (560)826–7; subscription for Greenwich Hospital, (764)1098–9; the Treasury, 647n1, 744, 812n2, 819n2, 955n1, 959n7, 1129; Treasury, resignation from, (781)1116, 1108, 1112, 1113n6, 1116; trust fund, for Francis, (458)712–13, (569)838, 712n2, 839; tutor for Francis (Beaulieu), (489)748–9; various petitions and protections, (802)1140–1; mentioned, 935n4, 988–9n1, 1131 Godolphin, William: about, 642n1; on behalf of Bemde, (655)962–3; lighthouse, Iles of Scilly, (416)642; visit from, 895n5; mentioned, 926, 1112 Goffe, Stephen, 323–4, 326 gold and silver: experiments with mercury and gold, 105n3; “golden case,” with

aromatics, 140; gold saucer from Paris, 196; goldsmith and enamelling, 128–9; transporting of, 46–7 Golding, Mr: marriage negotiations, 1065 Goltzius, Hubertus, 900 Gondomar, Count (Diego Sarmiento de Acuña), 246 Goodiricke, Henry (2nd baronet), 892 Goodman, John: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Gorges, Richard: council for trade, 706–7 Goring, George (1st earl of Norwich): thanks to, (51)119–20 Gouldman, Francis: dictionary, 350 Grafton, duchess of. See Fitzroy, Isabella Graham, Dorothy (née Howard): about, 540n1; a friend, 804; marriage congratulations (epithalamion), (376)563; queen’s expected visit, (358)540; venison, (571)839 Graham (Grahme), James, 540n2, 873 Gravesend: accommodating sick and wounded, 378, 388, 537 Great Fire (1666): books destroyed, 439, 908–9n54; description, post-fire, 419–21; Hollar’s map of, 422p, 427–8; Londinum Redivivum, 429p; monument to, 1144; Stationers’ Company, xli, 423 Greene, Mr (unidentified), 631, 778 Greene, Robert: Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay, 829n5 Greene, Thomas, 562n2 greenhouses. See horticulture and gardening Greenwich Hospital: apothecary recommended, 1063–4; commissioners, 1053, 1098; W. Draper as treasurer, 1137; Glanville on committee, 954n1; JE’s appeal for donors, 1098–9; JE’s plans for, 1067–9; JE as treasurer, xviii, 1043n1, 1053, 1064, 1069–70, 1072, 1102–3; school for seamen, 1068–9; workmen unpaid, 1109. See also hospitals Gregory of Nazianus: Oration VII, 760

Index Gresham College. See Royal Society (and Gresham College) Greville, Fulke (1st Baron Brooke), 947 Griffith, Captain, 115 Griffith, John: march of prisoners, (262)396, 388 Grotius, Hugo: De Jure Belli ac Pacis, 280n1; Epistolæ ad Gallos, 165nn9–10, 183n5, 234, 235n7, 377, 760, 978, 1037–8; Mare Liberum, 637n7, 694, 947n9; Poemata, 227n6; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808; wife’s assistance, 262 Guernier II, Alexandre du: about, 49n1; drawing instructor for Mary E, 128; Needham recommended to, (II.16)49–50, xxxix Guilford, 1047 Gunning, Peter: The Holy Fast of Lent (sermon), 359 Gunter, Edmund, 960 Guy, Henry, 780 Guy of Warwick, 158n4 Gwyn, Nell, 898n12 Haddock, Richard, 1100 Hakewill, George: on God in the government of the world, 573 Hale, Matthew, 570 Hales, Edward (1630–96, captain): condition of poor, 537; recommended to S. Godolphin, 1058 Hales, Edward (1645–95): about, 590n3; days before James II’s flight, 873; jailed at Maidstone, 876; mentioned, 590 Hales, Edward (c.1626–83): about, 151n1; marriage negotiations, xxxix, (81)151–2, 148n2, 152n3; sale of horse, (150)242 Hales, John: library of, 912, 912n72 Hales, Matthew: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Halford, Frances (née Cecil), 779 Halford, William: response to request for favour, (518)779 Hall, Francis ( Francis Line), 1083

1205

Hamburg, 811 Hamilton, James: defence of Church of England, (340)513–15 Hammond, Henry: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Hammond, William, 1019, 1047 Hanmer, Thomas: about, 508n1; ­collections of, 902; gardening (esp. tulips), (335)508–9 Hanson Grange, 739–40 Harbord, Charles: about, 175n1; marriage negotiations, (98)175, (121)211–12; as tree inspector, 930 Harley, Edward, 441 Harrington, James: The Wayes and Meanes, 275 Harris, John, 1121n13, 1135 Hartlib, Samuel: about, 251n1; regular correspondent with JE, xviii; Royal Society founding, xliv–xlv, (167)273–6; Samuel Hartlib his legacy of husbandry, 1107; writing project (possibly “Elysium Britannicum”), (157)251–2, 272 Harvey, Stephen, 951 Harvey, William, 583 Harwood, John: Sculptura (JE), (618)894–5 Hatsell, Henry, 194n1 Hatton, Christopher, 212n1 Hay, James (1st earl of Carlisle): portrait of, 904 health. See illnesses Heath, Robert: about, 30n1, 84n1; continental travels, (II.2)30–1; Hebrew vowel points, xlvii, (153)244–6, (154)247–9, 682n2; JE in Paris, (23)84–5; mentioned, 206 Heinsius, Nicholas, the elder (1620–81), 730 Henrietta Maria (exiled court), xxix, 90n3, 109n19 Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, 909 Henry IV, of France, 692–3 Henshaw, Thomas: about, 61nn1–2; arrange visits, (138)229; dedication to, 31n3, 64p; hieroglyphs, (2)61–2; introduced to Paston, (128)217–18; local virtuoso,

1206

Index

901; “The History of the Making of Gunpowder,” 990n6; mentioned, 41n3, 314n3, 497 Herbert, Edward (Jacobite earl of Portland, 1645–98), 876 Herbert, George, xlviii Herbert, Henry, 202 Herbert, Philip (4th earl of Pembroke, 1584–1649), 440 Herbert, Philip (5th earl of Pembroke, 1621–69), 443 Herbert, Philip (7th earl of Pembroke, 1653–83), 443 Hercules’s foot, 699–700 Hermes Trismegistus. See Corpus Hermeticum Herodotus: Histories, 258n2 Herringman, Henry (publisher), 451 Hervey, John, 539, 562, 902, 1054 hieroglyphs, 61–2, 65p Hildyard, Anne, 119 Hildyard, Henry: about, 119n1; arranging delivery of collectable, (71)140; on conveying messages, (50)119; England, shipping goods to, (55)122; finances, 136, 516; introduced to O. Walker, 196 Hill, Abraham: local virtuoso, 901; visits JE, 679n2 Hills, Henry, 793n7 Hippocrates, 136n9; “Regimen IV or Dreams,” 921 historical research: ancient world navies, xlviii, 770–2; for Ashmole’s history of the Order of the Garter, 353–4; for book on Anglo-Dutch Wars, 519–21, 522–4, 534–5, 541n2, 670–4, 904n38 (see also navigation and commerce under Evelyn, John); fine arts history, xliii; historiographic royal position, 469, 472–4; for “History of Trades,” xli, xlv, xlvii (see also Evelyn, John); instructional essay, ancient history, xxxvii, 374–7; JE as “an Historian,” 982n7; numismatics as, 1091–2; papers, maps, letters, books on (British) sea

navigations, battles, etc., 636–7, 670–4, 692–6 (see also navigation and commerce under Evelyn, John); on reformation of Church of England, 654–5; Surrey’s local history, 1047–8 Hoare, Richard: about, 128n6; amanuensis, xlvii, 128n6, 234n5; death of, 128n6, 273n2; salary, 128 Hoare, William (doctor), 335–6, 347, 406 Hobbes, Thomas, 91n5, 340n11, 342, 342n18, 500–1, 927, 1083; Sorbière’s translations of, 339 Hogers (Hogerius), Theophilus: Binæ orationes habitæ, 472n1 Holbein, Hans, 898n13 Holden, Richard: about, 727n1; acknowledgment of plea, (562)828–9; death of Elizabeth E, 767; JE’s poor tax overpayment, (613)890–1; rebuilding of St Nicholas, Deptford, (760)1088–9; relief for poor in Deptford, (470)727–8; mentioned, 985, 1059 Holinshed, Raphael: Chronicles, 853 Holland: fishing rights, 692–5; gardens of, 800–1, 814n1; greenhouses, 751–2; prelude to war, 831; quality of books, 1096–7; and shipments of books, 111–12; soldiers in William’s invasion, 874; unite with England, 870; Utrecht, 883, 887, 925. See also Anglo-Dutch Wars Hollandina, Louisa, 93, 205n1 Hollar, Wenceslaus: dedication of Van Dyck print, 66n5, 67p; frontispiece An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius, 177n2, 179p; A Map or Groundplott of the Citty of London, 422p, 428, 428n5; Thomas Becket engraving, 1051 Holles, Denzil, 535 Holmes, Robert: history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 473; as intermediary, (351)532 Holy Cross Day, 814 Holy Land, 462 Homer: Iliad, 771; Odyssey, 176, 771, 938

Index Hooke, Robert: about, 384n10; devising new riggings, etc., xxxvii, 384; letter readdressed, xxvii; Micrographia, 1030; plants from Barbados for Royal Society, xlvi, (435)664–5; Royal Society experimentation, 584n27 Hooker, Richard: portrait, 440; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Hooker, William, 404n2 Hopkins, E., 194n1 Horace: Ars Poetica, 137n4, 207, 293, 322n12, 494n6, 699n7, 704n2; Epistulae, 31–2, 434, 1001n5; Odes, 307n5, 596n2; Satirae, 136n8 Hornius, Georgius: Accuratissima orbis antiqui delineatio, 768 horoscope, 150n3 Horst, Gregorius (the Elder), 299n2 Hortensius, Quintus, 822 horticulture and gardening: after Sylva published, xlv (see also Evelyn, John); agricultural technologies (sembrador), xlvi, 452–3; air pump for severe weather, 735–6; ambitions of JE, xviii; “Anatomy of Trees” (Evelyn), xlvi, 289–91 (see also Evelyn, John); ancients and moderns compared, xlix; benefits of, 220–1; “brothers of the spade,” 834; collecting in Tangier, 296; collecting in Virginia, budget for foreign plants, 1020n5; commonbook vocabularies, xlvii; continental experience of, 332; as a diversion from politics, xxxvii, 862–3; “Elysium Britannicum” references, 250–3, 270–2, 400 (see also Evelyn, John); flowers, expense of, 542; garden at Enghien, 844–5; gardener as ideal husband, xlviii, 257–60; garden of John Danvers, 634n3; gardens of Holland, 800–1; “Gardning and Husbandry” of ancients and moderns, 1106–7; gift of berry plant, 224; greenhouses (heated), xlvi, 751, 980–1, 980f, 1017; greenhouse for myrtles, 1034; of Ireland, 782n1, 785–6; JE’s contributions to, 929–30; JE’s

1207

plantation/grove, 1085, 1110; Nieupoort’s new residence, 249–50; Pindaric poem, 415–19; plant and seed distribution by JE, 51–2, 224, 315; plants from Barbados for Royal Society, 664–9; plants with sedative effects, 274; Prince of Planters, 834; publications by JE, xviii (see also Evelyn, John); public value of gardens, 822; “Salomon’s House” proposal, 255; Sayes Court, xlv–xlvi, 200p, 255n11, 1023; staves, 484; transporting and importing difficulties, 667–8; water pump, 1061n1; Wimbledon House, 309; winter, damage of severe, xlvi, 732–6 – individual plants: aloë, 219–20, 460, 734; anemone, 135, 735; asparagus, 460; beets, 1127; Black Walnut (Juglans nigra), 668; brazil wood or ebony, 289; Castanea Equina (Horse Chestnut), 508; cedar, 719, 733, 736, 1127; chestnuts, 732–3; citrus wood of Tangiers, 718–19; cork, 733, 736, 834; date trees, 274; elm, 732; elm trees proposed for Sayes Court, 1026; Eugenia jambos (Syzigium), 733; evergreens from the continent, 197, 331, 734, 1107, 1127; flowers, various varieties, 507–8, 1106–7; fruit trees, 461, 734, 1085, 1110; gourds and melons, 461; Holm or Holly oak (Quercus ilex), 460, 734, 834; Irish asparagus and urine, 803; Juniperus Bermudiana, 668, 733, 1127; Jupiter’s Beard (Anthyllis Barba jovis), 460; lentiscs (evergreens from Italy), 331; maples, 290; mulberry garden (Buckingham Palace), 334; myrtles, 1034, 1107; oak, 219n11, 335, 732–3; Phillyria, 197, 197n2; plane tree, 933n22, 1106; pomegranate, 460; printing errors in books, 1127; Quercus alba, 733; quince and cherries, 461; red pepper, 460–1; Sassafras officinale (medicinal), 1020, 1021; “Sea Purslain” (Atriplex halimus), 733; “Spanish Cardôns” (cardoons), 460; spice plants from Asia, 665, 666n1, 667–8; trees,

1208

Index

cultivation of various, 1127; tulips, 135, 507, 734–5, 1106; tulip, Agate Hanmer, 509; walnuts, 290, 732; winter, damage of severe, 732–6 Hosier, Frank: recommendations for, 599, 600 hospitals, 669–70, 1024, 1026, 1047–8. See also Greenwich Hospital Hotman, Jean: The Ambassador, 281–2 Hottinger, Johann Heinrich (the elder), 478n4 Hounslow Heath, 790, 802 Howard, Ann. See Sylvius, Ann Howard, Charles (1st earl of Carlisle, 1629–85), 433 Howard, Charles (2nd earl of Berkshire, 1615–79), 561 Howard, Craven: legacy, (352)533, 532; suit against father, 545; mentioned, 1052 Howard, Dorothy. See Graham, Dorothy (née Howard) Howard, Edward (2nd earl of Carlisle, 1646–92), 433n4 Howard, Elizabeth (née Dundas, d. 1679): about, 545n1; death of, 607; estate settlement, (364)545–6 Howard, Elizabeth (née Stuart, d. 1674): about, 68n6; greetings, 68 Howard, Henry (6th duke of Norfolk, 1628–84): about, 288n4, 412n6, 902n28, 910n61; Arundel House, 910; comet, mention of, (439)674–5, 696n5; dispersal of Howard collection, 902–3; donation of library, (318)475–6, 430n2, 474–6, 910; donation of marbles (inscriptions), xxviii, xliii, (294)444–5, 445–8, 467, 481–2, 707–9; gardens, xlv–xlvi; generosity to JE (possibly), 288n4; in Padua, 41n3; Raphael drawings, xliii, 730; statue of Athena, 566n5; titles for monument, 481–2, 487–8; tutor for household, xxxix, 319 Howard, Henry (7th duke of Norfolk, 1655– 1701): about, 731n6, 910n61; Arundel House, 910; commission for JE’s relatives, 1011n1, 1016n3; and George E, xxxviii, 756; Vincent recommended to, (553)820, (558)824–5; mentioned, 731, 754

Howard, Henry Frederick (3rd earl of Arundel, 1608–52), 68n6, 118n7 Howard, Robert (1626–98), 588; days before James II’s flight, 875 Howard, Thomas (14th earl of Arundel, 1585–1646): about, 66n1, 902n28; Albury, estate of, 125 (see also Albury (Thomas Howard estate)); collections and JE’s role, xlii–xliii; continental travels, (3)66, (3)68; dispersal of collections, 902; painting of Thomas Becket, 1051 Howard, William (1st Viscount Stafford, 1614–80), 902–3 Howe, John: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Howell, James: about, 469n2; Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ, xxxiv, 977; historiographer, 469, 474 Huet, Pierre Daniel (bishop of Avranches), 683 Huguenots, 831 Hunayn ibn-Ishaq (’Abū Zayd’ hunayn ibn ’Ishāq al-’Ibādī) (aka Johannitius), 471 Hungary, 811 Hungerford, Edward: about, 134n1; daughter Elizabeth, 175n3, 211n1; Mary E’s pregnancy, (66)134 Hungerford, Francis (MD), 876 Hungerford, Susan (née Prettyman), 134, 134n2, 211n2, 956 Hunt, Henry: about, 384n11; barometer, (748)1071; devising new riggings, etc., 384–5; Royal Society’s Operator, 1004 Hunt, Richard: education recommendations, (362)543–4, 536n2; recommended to Breton, 535–6 Hussey, John: about, 687n2; suitor for Mary Jr, 687–8, 749–50, 758n2 Huybrechts, Peeter: engraving, 161; Execution of Charles I, 163p Huygens, Constantijn, 465 Hyde, Anne (duchess of York): conversion to RC, 659–60 Hyde, Edward (1st earl of Clarendon, 1609–74): about, 133n1; Another Part

Index Of The Mystery of Jesuitism (JE), 354; children, 358; commissioners of the Treasury, 685; death of JE’s mother-inlaw, (65)133; exile and impeachment, (323)482–3, 905; handwriting, JE’s, xxiv; JE’s dedication to in Naudé trans., 905–6; and Pierce’s sermon, 324n7, 326; portrait collection proposed, xxxvii, xliv, (290)440–1, 897, 903, 905; Prettyman law suit, 1130; quality control of scholarly books, xli, (281)423–6; request of favour (commission), (225)346–7; and Royal Society, 905, 905n42; Sorbière and, 340–1, 340n11, 341n14; war report, state of prisoners, (260)393–4, 401n2; mentioned, xvii, 293n12, 338n4 Hyde, Edward (3rd earl of Clarendon, 1661–1723): about, 775n1; days before James II’s flight, 875; marriage negotiations, (526)786; master of the horse and father’s travels, (515)776, 781n1; military duties, 776, 804, 811 Hyde, Flower (countess of Clarendon): about, 594n1; gardening, (395)594–5; gardening (and politics), xxxvii, (594)862–3; gift of Kalendarium Hortense (JE), (402)602; girl child prodigy (etc.), (542)803–4, 837; Ireland and its gardens, (522)782, (525)785–6, 802; JE’s achievements, (629)929–31; Nag’s Head ordination, (557)823–4; Pindaric dedication, xxvii, 415n1, 595n5, (629)929–34; mentioned, 940n2, 993 Hyde, Henry (2nd earl of Clarendon, 1638–1709): about, 354n1, 382n1; Anglo-Dutch Wars, (354)534–5, 904n38; Another Part Of The Mystery of Jesuitism (JE), (233)354–5; arrested, 940n3; children, 358; collections (coins, books, portraits, etc.), 903, 904, 904n38; days before James II’s flight, 875; greetings and petition for unknown, (677)993–4; Lent and the excesses of theatre, (236)358–60; lord deputy of Ireland, (568)837; lord lieutenant of Ireland and travel to,

1209

(521)781–2, (524)784–5, 776n2, 781, 865; Lord Privy Seal, 765n4; Mary E’s relation recommended to, (520)781; Mary Jr’s funeral, (500)763; money owed JE, (394)593–4; petition for friend of John Jr, (576)843–4; in praise of Clarendon House (Pratt), (272)408–9; Prettyman debt and visit to Cornbury, (634)940–1; social and political news (to Ireland), (530)789–90, (541)801–3, (544)810–11, 793n1, 837n2; study of ancient history and research, xxxvii, (248)374–7; war report, pleading resources for sick, xxxvi–xxxvii, (253)381–4, (255)387–8, 385n2; mentioned, 1025 Hyde, Laurence (1st earl of Rochester, 1641–1711): about, 640n7; Browne’s expenses and Prettyman suit, (537)797–8, (539)799–800, 780, 818–19, 1129–30; commissioner of the Treasury, 647–8, 677, 684, 685–6, 764, 1130; dismissed, 812n2; mentioned, 640 Hyde, Robert, 340n13 Hyde, Thomas: about, 773n1; Catalogus impressorum librorum bibliothecæ Bodleianæ, 637, 910, 911; debt of Wase, (510)773–4, 815 Hyde Park (London), 144 Iamblichus: De mysteriis Aegyptiorum, 192n17 illnesses: ague (from too much fruit), 658; Boyle’s health, 1083–4; circulation problems, 187n3; cold and sweats, 212n2; “Colick” and “stone,” 742; flux, 1140; impetigo, 17–19; letter of consolation for, 37; from London smoke, 966; paralytic attack, 918; recovery in Portugal, 1000–1; rectal ulcer (Louis XIV), 831; risks of travelling in Italy, 165; Sayes Court life expectancy, 1049–50; scarlet fever, 133n2; stone in the bladder, 478n3, 490 – of JE: bedridden, 646; a cold, 593, 966, 967, 1007; “Cold after Physick,” 891; dizziness, 747; “double Tertian,” 278–9n5;

1210

Index

dry-gripes, 825; enlarged gland in neck, 120; fall from coach, 204n4; fits, 655, 679; indisposition, 152, 152n2, 644, 918; kidney stones, 1073, 1075, 1125; lameness, 1098, 1110, 1113, 1119; preventative medicine, 204n3; reaction to sugar of steel, 888; recovery, 121–2; and Restoration, 278–9n5. See also medicine and surgery; plague/smallpox; Tunbridge Wells [Incognitu], (597)867–70; letter edited, xxvi; political and religious reform, xxx(n42), xxxvii, 606n10 indexes: for letterbooks (see Evelyn, John); for Numismata, 1025; standards for, 425 Interregnum (1649–60): Browne’s expenses and Prettyman law suit (see finances); Catholic chaplains, 283; A character of England (1659), xxvi–xxvii; financial losses during, 912n72, 958n3; JE’s description of, 144–7; and JE’s identity, xxix; “Publique Calamity,” 958; travels during, by JE, xvii (see also continental travels, as educational) Ireland: appeal to chief justice, 737–8; Richard Boyle’s relationship to, 1079–80; deputy postmaster, 1140; illness, 1101–2, 1140; John Jr, 982n2, 986, 988, 1108n1, 1129; lord chancellor, 857; lord deputy of, 837, 871n3; lord lieutenant, 776, 781–2, 784–6, 789–90, 801–3, 810–11, 865, 1056, 1128; secretary of state for, 982; travel to deterred, 1001; William’s expedition to, 922, 935 Italian letters, 29–41, 44, 56–7 Italy: academy of language arts, 914; earthquakes and volcanoes, 990–2; Livorno, plants from, 834; snow pits of, 343f, 345p – JE’s continental tour of, xviii, xxxix, 29–30, 29–31, 30–1, 34–5, 37, 59, 61–2, 63p, 64p, 66; coronation of the pope, 353–4; Florence, 29–30, 896n5; furniture, 80, 80n4; Naples, 30–1, 31n3, 33p, 64p, 990–2; Padua, 34, 37, 41n3, 59, 66,

898; Phlegraean Fields, 991n13; Rome, 29–30, 30–1, 61–2, 63p, 80, 408, 571; the Uffizi, 357n4, 896n5; Venice, 35, 59 (see also continental travels, as educational; France) Jacobites, xxx Jacobs, Richard (captain), 122n3 Jamaica: England’s dominion over the seas, 694; natural history, 731; plant solicitation from, xlvi, 731, 747–8 James, Thomas: Bodleian Library catalogue, 81 James I, 578 James II: Commission of Ecclesiastical Affairs, 810; days before James II’s flight, xxxviii, 873–7; foundering of ship, 660; JE’s relations in administration, xxxi–xxxii; Lord Privy Seal, 832n2; male heir, 868; naval commissions, 797n4; and parliament (1685), 756; presented book to, 81; and religion, xxx; succession to throne, 753–4, 830; travels, 842n11; troop confusion, 872n2 Janichius, Georgius: and travels in Italy, 59 Jansen, Cornelius: portraits in Clarendon’s collection, 904n36 Jeffreys, George (1st Baron Jeffreys), 774n2, 785, 828n2, 833n11 Jenkins, Leoline, 537 Jenner, Thomas: education for son, (531)791 Jermyn, Henry (1st earl of St Albans, 1605–84), 278, 685, 920, 966n11; ambassadorial affray, 306n2 Jermyn, Henry (Jacobite 1st earl of Dover, 1636–1708), 819n2, 920 Jerome, St: Epistulae, 171nn5–6, 978; Lettres, Divisées en Trois Livres, 978 Jesuits: and conversions to RC, 108 (see also Roman Catholicism); influence, xxix, 721, 722–5; translations by French, xxxvii; and trial of the bishops, 861; warning against intrigues, xxxvii, 88. See also Roman Catholicism

Index Jewel, John: defence of, 823–4; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Jews, 909, 1000 Jones, David: The Secret History of White-hall, 1121 Jones, Katherine (née Boyle, Viscountess Ranelagh), 1084 Jones, Richard (earl of Ranelagh): Berkeley affairs, 561, 865 Jonson, Ben: The Alchemist, 105n4; Epicoene, 528n7; Sir Politic Would-Be in Volpone, 922, 1095n15 Josephus, Flavius: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Jovius, Paulus (Paolo Giovio), 458, 896n5 Judah ha-Nasi, Rabbi, 248 Juliano, Giovanni, (II.12)44, (II.23)56–7 Junius, Franciscus ( Francis Du Jon), 117, 117n3, 372, 910 Junius, Patrick, 909–10 Justel, Henri, (687)1004–5; libraries and Royal Society, 909; local virtuoso, 901; and Pepys in Paris, 915; viewed Sheldon’s collection, 903 Justices of the Peace, Maidstone Assizes: taxes for poor relief, (616)893 Juvenal, 83n4, 142n5, 254n6, 287n4, 680n4 Keightley, Thomas: about, 78n1; conversion to RC, xxix, (25)86–9, 92; greetings, (16)78–9 Keightley, Thomas (1650?–1719): about, 738n1; Packer recommended for favour, (478)738 Ken, Thomas, 717 Kendrick, Edward: shipping instructions, (18)80 Kendrick, Katherine (née Evelyn), 80 Kensington, 1078 Kéroualle, Louise de (duchess of Portsmouth), 780 Kerseboom, Johann: Boyle portraits, 1083n32 Kievit, Jan, 102n1 Kildare, 18th earl of. See Fitzgerald, John

1211

Killigrew, Charlotte (née de Hesse), 643 King, Edmund (physician), 825 Kircher, Athanasius: Mundus subterraneus, 990; Musurgia Universalis, 465; Oedipus Ægyptiacus, 62, 62n6 Kneller, Godfrey: about, 881n5; portrait of Burnet, 881; portraits of JE, xliv, 896 Knight, John (1622–80), 406, 739 Lactantius: Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII, 192–3n17 Laelius, Gaius, 822 Laertius, Diogenes: “Life of Epicurus,” 142n7 Lambard, William, 1126 Lambert, John, 268–9 Lancaster, William, 1002n5, 1004n3 Lane, George: education of son, (343)517–18 Lane, James (2nd Viscount Lanesborough), 988n1 Langham, John: Phillips recommended as a tutor, xli, (293)443 [Langton, G.], (22): travels by JE, 83–4 languages: Edmund Waller’s verse in translations, 70; education through modern, 672; Glottical College, 275; Hebrew vowel points, xlvii, 244–9; JE’s facility in various, 30–1; learning through travel, 628 – Arabic, 470; two “Eastern Strangers,” 543 – English, xxxvi; and history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 520; on the improvement of, xxviii, 370–3, 622–3, 914–15, 1096; individual words: —“biographer,” “biography,” 376n10; —intermesses, 1036; —“morigeration,” 254, 254n3; —“Phillyria,” 197n2 – French: codifying of, 372n5; French letters, 45–56; and history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 520; language arts, 914; tutor for, 749; words adopted into English, 373. See also France – German, 42 – Greek, 115, 375–6 – Italian, 164–5

1212 – Latin: ancient history, study of, 374–6, 946n4; grammar as model for English, 371n4; and history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 520; and international book trade, 423n2; Latin letters, 17–28; letter writing in, 976n2; taught by Jesuits, 721; teaching of, 920 – Spanish, 56–7 La Roch, 101n2 La Rochefoucauld, François de, 1111n7 Latin letters, 17–28. See also languages, Latin Laud, William: execution of, 1022; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 law: eminent scholars of, 570–1; Middle Temple and Lincoln’s Inn, 559n1, 569, 608n1; reforms proposed, 1094. See also crime and justice law suits: Prettyman (see finances) Lechford, Richard, 478n2 Leeds Castle, 392, 394–5, 394n1, 412, 413, 426 Le Fèvre, Nicasius: about, 17n1; chemistry course, 71n5, 104–5n2; favours repaid, (II.14)46–8; and gift from Bosse, 55; impetigo remedy, (I.35)17–19; introduced as friend in Paris, 48–9; Traicté de la Chymie (A compleat body of chymistry), 17–18 Le Franc, Jacques: about, 210n1; minister at Norwich, (120)210–11; writing project (possibly “Elysium Britannicum”), (156)250–1, 272n14 Legge, George (1st Baron Dartmouth): about, 717n2; command of the fleet, 922; rightof-way (Woolpicker Lane), (528)788–9, 796n2; to Tangiers, 717–18 Leigh, Edward: A Treatise, 311 Leith Hill, 149 Lely, Peter, 982; art collection, 730n4, 903, 982n4; portraits by, 903, 906 Leopold Wilhelm, Archduke, 84 Lepanto, battle of, 672 Le Roy, Mr, 45–6

Index L’Estrange, Roger: about, 321n11; Aesop’s Fables, 483n2; jailed at Newgate, 876–7; on printers and stationers, 424n6; war report, treatment of prisoners, (237)361 letters and letter writing: delayed and diverted letters, 56, 78, 83n1, 86, 89, 341n14, 713; delivery of letters, 46–8, 89, 102, 119, 156n8, 176, 206, 270, 294, 716, 859; epistolary circles, xxxviii–xlix; father’s advice and admonition, 568–71, 608–10; a flying seal, 994; French letters, 45–56; German letters, 42; Italian letters, 29–41, 44, 56–7; Latin letters, 17–28; letter as survey and catalogue of collections, xxxvii, 895–916; letters as instructional essay, xxxvii, xlvi, 190–3, 190n1, 374n3; as literary genre, xxxiii–xxxviii, 976–8; misuse of (leaked), 106, 106n3, 109n19; programmatic letters, 603–6, 867–70, 867n1, 1091–5; recycling of, 237n4, 238n7, 254n5, 271n10; Spanish letters, 43 letters of condolence/consolation, 850–1; for conversion of Robert Spencer, xxxvii, 850–2; for the Great Fire, 419–20; rhetoric of, xxxv–xxxvi, 759–61 – for deaths of: Charles Berkeley, 690–2, 763; Berkeley child, 567–8; Robert Breton, 512–13; Thomas Butler, 645–6; Mr Cesare, 40; Charles II, 754–5; Mary Colclough, 745–6; Mary Cotton E, 336; William Davis, 840–1; Anne Digby, 1122–3; Anne Douglas, 936–7; Draper grandchild, 1057– 8; John E (nephew, 1653–91), 952–3; Richard E, 847–8; Evelyn baby (of George and Mary), 182–3, 312–13; Mary E’s goddaughter, 98; Jane Glanville, 40, 112–14; Margaret Godolphin, xxxvi, 634–5n1, 759–61, 812, 860; Penelope Godolphin, 1131; Elizabeth Howard, 607–8; Anne Montagu (née Evelyn), xxxvii, 845–6; Montagu child, 652–3; Robert Needham, 298–9; Robert Spencer Jr, xxxvii, 850–2; James Stephens’ son, 822–3; Mary Tuke, 419–20; Samuel Tuke, 702

Index – for illness: Richard E, 490–1; “Farello,” 37 letters of introduction for: charitable assistance, 840; friends in Paris, 53–5; Hildyard, 196; Paston, 166, 217–18; Till, 117; two “Eastern Strangers,” 543 letters of recommendation for: apothecary for Greenwich, 1063–4; “Baily,” 303; Beale, 369–70; Bland, 770; Bohun, 963, 1040; Bradley, 1066, 1073–4; Burton (unidentified), 508; Cade, 1147–8; Cowes, 888–9; Dolby, 1059–60; Evans, 644; Mr French, 317–18; friends in Paris, xxxviii, xxxix, xli; W. Glanville Jr, 747; Hales, 1058; Hosier, 599, 600; Hunt, 535–6, 543–4; John Jr, 559–60, 849–50, 880, 955–6, 1056, 1128–9; Mary E’s relation, 781; Morehouse, 1114; Needham, xxxviii, xxxix, 48–50, 197–9, 347; Packer, 737–8; Parke, 1014; Phillips, xli, 443; Poeton, 139; Pope, 322–3; Postlethwayt, 1134; Rowland, 285; servant, 101; Spelman, 284–5; Strengfellow, 891–2, 937; tenants, 322–3; Tuke, 351; Vincent, 820, 824–5; Wase, 124, 469–70; Wells, 295–6; woodcarver, 711; C. Wren, 894. See also Evelyn, John: as broker and executor L’Evesque, Noas, 1113 Levita, Elija, 244, 247 Lewes Free School (Sussex), xvii, 206, 247n3, 706 Lewknor, Anne: misunderstandings and rumours, (366)549–51, 547n1, 548 Lewknor, Jane, 971–2n1, 1010 Lewknor, John, 971n1 libraries and collections: auction of Heinsius’s library, 730n3 (see also auctions); catalogue of English books, 310–11; catalogue of the king’s treasures, 356–7; clerical libraries, 911–12; of John Cosin, 126–7, 126n3; Cotton library, 908n52; creation and dispersal, xli–xlii, 430–1, 474–6, 587–8, 589–90, 1041n4; Kenelme Digby’s library, 430; history (Wase), 21–2; of E. Hyde (Clarendon), 905; of

1213

letters (including Cabala: sive Scrinia sacra), 976n3, 977; letters as survey and catalogue, xxxvii, 307; in letter to Pepys (619), xix, xxi, xxxvii, 825–916; ­libraries “by the yard,” xlii, 430; library of Arundel House (Howard), 430n2; library of Paris (listed), 907–8, 907–8n51, 909; parliamentary records collections, 440; of Pepys, 907; of prints, xliii; the Protestant lady’s library, 805–10; public (and university) libraries, 869, 907–8, 913–14; of C. Spencer, 1006–7; at St James’s Palace, 908–10, 1023, 1028n16, 1041n3, 1142; Tenison’s library, 813, 869n16. See also art and art collections; collectables; engravings, etchings, and prints; library of John Evelyn; portraits and portraiture library of John Evelyn: books of ancient history for research, 374–7; books of “Pliny and Porta, and Alexis ... [and] Verulame,” 436; books on metals, 1107; Cavendish books acquired, 552, 555; collected from continental tour, 331; collections of letters, 307n6; Florus, editions of, 424n5; French historical writings, 341n17; greatest scientists of the ancient and modern worlds (listed), 575–6; historians and biographers, categories of, 376, 376n8; JE as a planter of cabbages/ coleworts, 897; JE’s “Effigies of famous persons,” 907n48; Justinus, editions of, 424n4; Latin and Greek historical writing, 374–5n5; The Life ... of James Ussher (Parr), 795, Littleton and Justinian in, 518, 590; loss of, 99–100; Lucretius editions, 689n5; Opera (Cyprian), 581n19; papers, maps, letters, books on (British) sea navigations, battles, etc., 637–8, 670–4, 692–6; plays and playwrights in, 578n12; “Polish Office,” 93; print collection, 1044; and the Protestant lady’s library, 805–10; Seneca, editions of, 424n5; shipments gone astray, 111–12; Tempesta works in, 587n4; translations

1214

Index

by John Jr, 705n3; use in archiving and retrieving knowledge, 374n3. See also Evelyn, John; libraries and collections Linford (Hertfordshire): medicinal waters, 1028 Lipsius, Justus, 1126 Lister, Martin, 1020 Litcott, John, 793n1 Littleton, Adam: Linguæ Latinæ Liber Dictionarius Quadripartitus, (390)590 Littleton, Anne, 150n2 Livy: The Roman history written in Latine by Titus Livius, 768 Lloyd, Thomas: “Elysium Britannicum” (JE), (313)468 Lloyd, William (bishop of St Asaph): about, 645n4; at death of Butler, 645; print collecting, xliii, (724)1044–7; mentioned, 891, 927n5 Locke, John, 926–7, 1093n7, 1111, 1125n5; Human Understanding, 1028; Reason and Religion, 1028; reply to Stillingfleet, 1124 Londinum Redivivum: after Great Fire, 429p London: earthquake recorded, 993; Fumifugium, 707, 966n3 (see also Evelyn, John); increase of buildings, 1093; smoke of, 886, 966; wintering in town (see weather and natural phenomena). See also Great Fire (1666); individual places London, George: about, 802n10; Brompton Nursery, 802; mentioned, 1049 London, William: plants from Barbados for Royal Society, xlvi, (436)666–9, 664–5 London, William ( fl. 1653–60): catalogue of English books, 310n1 London art market. See art and art collections London book trade. See publishing, printing, and bookselling London Gazette, 653, 917, 985n4, 1028 Long, Robert, 685 Louis XIV, 91n5, 605, 719, 830, 831; in praise of, 27–8; return from Bordeaux, 84 love and marriage: advice to daughter, 687–8, 749–50, 970; broker for, xxxviii–xxxix

(see also Evelyn, John); broker proxy for Pepys, 777; discussions, xxviii, 260–5; elopement, 765, 766–7, 779n1; in marriage negotiations, 976; newlyweds and conscription, 852; permission for tutor to marry, 654–5; Tukes newlyweds, 21–2; underage marriage, 869 Lowe, Gabriel, 23–4 Lower, Richard: Royal Society research, 436 Lucan: De Bello Civili, 1076n6 Lucas, Anthony, 877; recommended to Tillotson, 984 Lucian: Toxaris, 212n4 Luckh, Johann Jacob: Sylloge numismatum elegantiorum, 1025 Lucretius: De Rerum Natura, 176n6, 249n17, 499n26; and F. Strada, 85; threats to religion, 170–1, 176–7, 195n8, 690; translation by Creech, 689–90, 699–700, 704–5; translation by JE (see Evelyn, John) luxury commodities, xl, 670 Lynch, Thomas: plant solicitation, xlvi, (473)731, 748 Lynd, Humphry: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Lyttelton, Henry, 114n2 MacCarty, Donough, 749–50, 751n4, 841, 966, 986; troubles of, 944n3, 945 MacCarty, Elizabeth (née Fitzgerald, d. c.1698): about, 737n1; consolation for death of husband, (573)840–1; on John Jr’s illness, (796)1136; marriage of son, xxxix, (493)752–3, 750–1; Packer recommended for favour, (477)737–8; related to Boyle, 1080; troubles of son, (672)986, 944, 945; mentioned, 859, 925, 966, 1018 MacCarty, Elizabeth (née Spencer, 1673–1704): about, 750n2; marriage and its troubles, 750–1, 752–3, 944, 945; mentioned, 937 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 201

Index Mackenzie, George (of Rosehaugh): “Caelia’s Country House and Closet,” 455; death of Davenant, (304)455; A Moral Essay, (289)439, 435n3 Maddox, Benjamin: about, 49n5, 164n1; on behalf of J. Needham, (111)197–9, (129)218–21; as correspondent, xxxix; dating of letters to, xxv; instructor and guide, JE as, (97)174–5, (101)180–1, (129)219–21; in letter of introduction, 49; purchase of prints, xliii, (140)230–1; recommended reading for, (89)164–6; recycled letters, 238n7 Maginn, Patrick: about, 502n1; dating of letters to, xxvi; Eucharist controversy, xxix, xlviii, (333)502–6, 513; scholastic philosophy, 501n32, 504–5 Maidstone prison, 876 Maimbourg, Louis: Histoire du Calvinisme, 659 Maitland, John (1st duke of Lauderdale), 706–7; library of, 913 Mancini, Hortense (duchesse de Mazarin), 564 Mandelslo, J.A. von, 274 manufacturers, 1093, 1119 Maplet, John, 75; about, 75n4 maps and cartography: map from Bohun, 768. See also library of John Evelyn Maratti, Carlo: Triumph of Vespasian, Arch of Titus, Rome, 31n3, 63p Marinella, Lucretia, 554; list of women of renown, 553n6 Markham, Gervase, 1107 Marmora Arundeliana. See Arundel Marbles Marolles, Michel de (abbé de Villeloin), 1045 Marprelate controversy, xlv, 496, 501n35 marriage. See love and marriage Marsham, John: Chronicus Canon, 682–3 Martial: Epigrams, 315, 327, 819n4 Martyn, John (publisher), 632nn9–10, 1125 Marullus, Michael, 896n4 Mary II, 828n9; death of, 1040n5, 1041n4, 1044

1215

mathematics: eminent scholars of, 570–1 May, Hugh, 743n1 Maynard, John: John Jr recommended to, (372)559–60 Mazarin, Cardinal Jules, 282, 287n1, 291, 307; annuity paid to Sorbière, 339–40, 340n9 Meadows, Dorothy (née Boscawen), 1112 mechanics and mechanical knowledge, 204–5n6, 1089; “History of Trades” (see Evelyn, John); reform of trade and licensing, 1093–4; water drawing, 1119. See also Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations medals, coins, and medallions: cataloguing collections/JE’s collection, 1031; compared to portraits, 898–900; Henry, Prince of Wales’s collection, 909; interconnectedness of JE’s publications, 1148n3; list of those honoured on, 900; medals for Numismata, 1060–1, (see Evelyn, John); numismatics, 900, 900–1n22, 1006; reform of the mint, 1091–5; rial, 1006n2. See also collectables Medici, Anna de’, 39–40 medicine and surgery: advice to brother by JE, 123; blood letting (phlebotamy), 120, 497; Chelsea Royal Hospital, 669–70, 697–8; cordial by de Mayerne, 187n2; “Daffys Elixir,” 1113, 1119; dissections before the king, 367n2; emetic, 120, 150; eminent scholars, 570–1; eye-glasses and eye care, 463–7; health care and grooming aids, 465; hearing aids, 466–7; hospitals in Surrey, 1047–8; impetigo remedy, 17–19; infirmary in Chatham, 409–10; medical words adopted into English, 372; medicinal waters, 45–6, 1028, 1143 (see also Tunbridge Wells); medicine from insect kermes or scarlet garin, 98–9; oak bark medicine, 335; and radical Protestantism, 497; Royal Society contributions, 436, 582–4; Sassafras officinale, 1020, 1021; sugar of steel

1216

Index

(scurvy), 888; use of depilatory, 217; war statistics (see Anglo-Dutch Wars, Second and Third). See also hospitals; illnesses; science and experimentation Medlicot, Thomas, 641 Mendoza, Bernardino de, 282 Mercure historique (ed. Bayle et al.), 829–31 meteors. See astronomy Mews, Peter (bishop of Winchester), 1124 Michelangelo, 899; “Last Judgement” (print), 587 Middle East: manuscripts from, 470–1; travels to, 462 Middle Temple, 910. See also education and learning Middleton, Charles, 873 military history: colours in navies of ancient world, xlviii, 770–2. See also historical research Millington, John: shipments from Paris, (42)111–12 Milton, John: An Apology Against a Pamphlet call’d A Modest Confutation, 160n2. See also Phillips, Edward Minucius Felix, Marcus: Octavius, 192 Moabites, 605 Molins, William, 47 Molyneux, William: Sciothericum Telescopicum, 837 Monck, George (1st duke of Albemarle): about, 365n1; and Audley End, 431; regarding prisoners (Anglo-Dutch Wars), 368n4, 388, 397; restoration of Charles II, 266, 268–9, 278; Sylva (JE), (257)389; war report, treatment of prisoners, xxxvi, (241)365, (252)381–2, (261)394–5, (277)413; mentioned, 347, 352, 421 Montagu, Anne (née Evelyn): about, 52n1; consolation for death of daughter, (424)652–3; death of, xxxii, 845–6, 971n1, 972; George E’s estate, 968; greetings, (II.19)52–3; marriage negotiations, 433–4, 548–9 Montagu, William, 971n1, 972–3, 979

Montaigne, 897n7 Montpellier, 99, 219–20 Moray, Robert: about, 439n1; death of, 633; Royal Society, (302)453, 1080; mentioned, 439, 441 Mordaunt, Charles (1658?–1735): about, 573n1, 834n1; brother of the spade, (565)834; continental travels, (384)573–4; education, 528–9; C. Wren recommended to, (617)894 Mordaunt, Elizabeth (née Carey, 1632/3–1709): about, 147n1; An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius (JE), (106)189; birth of child, 296n1; charitable works, (386)584–5; children, JE trustee for, 880n5; death of, 629; marriage negotiations, xxxix, (76–9)147–150, (82–3)152–5, 151n2; marriage to Mordaunt, (115)205–6; news of J. Mordaunt, (96)173–4; Penthea, 173n1; poem of Littleton going to Jamaica, 1662, (194)308; portrait of, 93n3; Rowland recommended to, (174)285, 284n1; and son, 574 Mordaunt, Elizabeth (née Howard, 1603–71), 246n19 Mordaunt, Henry (2nd earl of Peterborough, 1621–97): Wells recommended to, (181)295–6 Mordaunt, John (1st earl of Peterborough, 1599–1643), 246n19 Mordaunt, John (1st Viscount Mordaunt of Avalon, 1626–75): about, 173n2; gift of berry plant (anniversary), (133)224–5; to be godparent, (213)327–8; birth of child, (182)296–7; Melestris (pseudonym), 174n3; Spelman recommended to, (173)284–5; tutor for son, (349)528–9; mentioned, 153n5, 154n1, 173–4 More, Henry: An Antidote against Atheisme, 193; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Morehouse, Mr (curate of Wotton), 1114 Morice, William: resources for care of Dutch prisoners, (265)399

Index Morin, Jean, 245 Morison, Robert, 51–2 Morisot, Claude Barthélemy: Orbis maritimi, 693 Morland, Samuel: medals for Numismata, (737)1060–1 Morley, George (bishop of Winchester): about, 324n6; conversion of duchess of York, (431)659–60; and Pierce’s sermon, 324n6, 326; mentioned, 385n14 Morley, Herbert: about, 127n3; account of Restoration by JE, xli, 268–9; An Apologie for the Royal Party (JE), 267n2; appeal to declare for Charles II, xxviii, xxx–xxxi, (163)266–8; assistance with border customs, 127, 130n1; petition on behalf of out-of-work seamen, (152)243; reference to letterbook, xxii; relationship with JE, 267n2 Morley, William, 268n4 Mountagu, Edward (1st earl of Sandwich): about, 378n1, 387n1; agricultural technologies (sembrador), xlvi, (301)452–3; Anglo-Dutch Wars, xxxii, 378n3, 524; Spanish horticulture, (308)459–61; war report, accommodation of prisoners, (256)387–8; war victory, 387, 387n4; mentioned (Royal Society), 706 Mountagu, William, xxxii Moxon, Joseph: A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie, 372n8 Munting, Abraham van, 668n11 murder and extraterritoriality and diplomatic immunity, 280–3 Murillo, Bartolo: Boys with Pelota, 1072, 1073; Invitation to a Game of Argolla, 1034 museums. See libraries and collections music: band of musicians, 717; French songs, 129; Irish harp player, 73; Mary Jr’s proficiency, 759; as a metaphor in praise of education, 36; praise of performance of Signora Emilia (Domenico Bassano), 41

1217

Namatianus, Rutilius Claudius: De Reditu suo, 135n4 Nanteuil, Robert: about, 54n1; introduced to W. Glanville, (II.21)54–5; portraits: —of Elizabeth Prettyman Browne, 97p; —of Richard Browne, 96p; —of JE, xliv, 54n1, 85, 94p, frontispiece (v1); —of Louisa Hollandina, 93n5; —of Mary E, 95p; Naples from Mount Vesuvius (JE’s drawing), 31n3, 33p, 64p. See also Italy Narborough, John, et al.: An Account of several late Voyages, 1022, 1023 Navarre, Marguerite de, 554n8 navies (ancient): uses of colour, xlviii, 770–2 navy (England): damage done to wharf, 337; dockyards (see Deptford); and English sea navigations and rights, 636–7, 692–6; inspection of the fleet, 533–4; JE’s list of honest men, 279n1; occupied Tangier, 564; reference for clerk of, 600, 600n3; reform of, 869; school for seamen, 1068–9; secretary of the Admiralty, 636n2, 923; use of domestic plantations, 1119; victualling office/board, 510–12, 1058. See also commissioners of the Navy Neale, Thomas, 729n3 Needham, Jane: consolation for death of husband, (184)298–9 Needham, Jasper: about, 22n1, 81n1; conveyor of letter, 156n8; debt mediation, 311–12; introductions in Paris, 48–9; letters of recommendation from JE, xxxviii, xxxix, 48–9, 197–9, 218–21, 347; Lucretius project [crossed out], (I.38)22–3; and Maddox, xxxix, 23, 48–9, 174, 218–21; poem for The Adventures of Five Hours, 314–15n1, 317n1; portrait of JE from Paris, xliv, (24)85–6; regular correspondent with JE, xviii; seeking physician’s education, 197–9; supplier of books to JE, xl, (19)81; as tutor, 164n2, 197n1; Wotton House, (67)135–6 Needham, Robert, 298 “Negros,” 1001

1218

Index

Neile, Paul: marriage negotiations, (328)489 Nevill, John, 120 Newcastle, duchess of. See Cavendish, Margaret Newcomen, Matthew, 294 Newfoundland: fishing, 640, 695 Newgate prison, 876–7 Newmarket race-course, 640 New River, 844 newspapers and magazines: Gentleman’s Magazine, 370n2; London Gazette, 653, 917, 985n4, 1028; Newes Published for Satisfaction and Information of the People, 361n1; newssheets, 76 Newsted, 1048 Newton, Isaac, 897 Newton, John, 570 Nicaea, second council of, 459 Nicholas, Edward, 278, 685; extraterritoriality and diplomatic immunity, (171)280–3 Nicholas of Cusa, 1127 Nichols, Richard, 523 Nicholson, Francis, 1021 Nicolas de Parival, Jean: Les Délices de la Holland, 472n1 Nicolson, William: English Historical Library, 1111, 1128 Nieupoort, Willem: and Burgh, 221–2; design of new residence, (155)249–50; mentioned, 178 [N.N., Lord]: encoded (support for John Jr), (675)988–9 [N.N., Mr]: letter of vindication for slight, (93)169–70 Norfolk, 6th duke of. See Howard, Henry (6th duke of Norfolk, 1628–84) Norfolk, 7th duke of. See Howard, Henry (7th duke of Norfolk, 1655–1701) North, Francis (1st Baron Guilford): about, 726n1; Berkeley affairs, 865; relief for poor in Deptford, (469)726, 727–8 Norway: fishing rights, 694; timber imported to England, 1093–4, 1119 numismatics. See medals, coins, and medallions

Oakwood Chapel and parish, 538–9, 1054 oaths, 215 Officers of the King’s Yard, (765)1099–1100 Oldenburg, Henry: about, 427n1; assistant to print trade (for JE), 424n7; death of and library of, xli, 588, 633; Great Fire, London after, (284)427–8; and John Jr, 567; and Royal Society, xlv; mentioned, 53, 456 Olearius, Adam: Voyages and Travels, 274 Olympic Games, 938n2 Onkelos, 248 Onslow, Denzil, 876 Onslow, Richard, 978–9, 1011 Order of the Garter, 353–4, 572, 700–1 Ormond, 1st duke of. See Butler, James Osborne, Peregrine (Viscount Dunblane), 814n3, 816n2. See also rape, attempted Osborne, Thomas (1st earl of Danby): about, 536n1; annotation by JE, xxvii; and Berkeley affairs, 561n8, 864–5; fall of ministry and impeachment, xxx, 595n1, 598n1, 632n7; lease of Sayes Court land, (641)948, 1103–4; library, earl of Bristol, xli, (389)589–90, 430n1, 913; opponent, 588n6; payments for care of wounded, (356)536–8; praises of great houses, xxxv; suppression of history of Dutch war, 672; Sylva, presentation of, (555)821–2; treasury administration, 562n2; mentioned, 1129 Ossory, countess of. See Butler, Amelia Ossory, earl of. See Butler, Thomas Otho, Johannes, 900 Oughtred, William, 118, 118n7, 160, 571, 960 Outer Hebrides, 990 Ovid: Ex Ponto, 926n10; Metamorphoses, xl, 81, 486, 683n10, 796n5; Tristia, 26, 84n5, 229n5, 906n44 Owen, John: Of the ... Power of the Scriptures, 244n2, 247 Owen, Richard: conveyance of enclosed, (26)89; marriage negotiations, (391)591 Oxford: Balliol College, xvii–xviii, 1019; Boyle’s contributions, 1080; Christ

Index Church, xix, 448, 466, 496, 498, 565, 722, 911; and Commission for Ecclesiastical Affairs, 871; debts of Wase, 773–4, 815; in defence of Church of England, 682; donations negotiated, xlii–xliii, 444–8, 467, 474–5, 487–8, 551, 707–8; honorary doctorate for JE, 518n6, 551n1, 707–8; John Jr’s journey to, 454; libraries, 910–11 (see also Bodleian Library); New College, 432n3; parliament relocated during plague, 387, 398; Susannah E’s travels to, 1009; Trinity College, 432, 432n3 Oxford Kate: The Cock Tavern, Bow Street, 146 Packer, Isabel, 923–4; delivery of letter, 994 Packer, Philip: about, 139n1; concerning Ireland, 737–8; death of, 828; as trustee for Berkeley, 651 Packer, Temperance, 828, 952–3n2 Padua. See Italy Painters Hall, 369n7 Palissy, Barnard, 1107 Palmer, Dudley, 633 Palmer, Roger (1st earl of Castlemaine), 462 Panciroli, Guido, 138n7 panegyrics: about, xxxiii; to Robert Boyle, 1084, 1087, 1090; to T. Butler, 572; to M. Cavendish (mock), xl, 552–5; and consolation rhetoric, 760; to H. Howard, 476; A Panegyric to Charles the Second, 293, 295n2, 707; on Royal Society, xlv, 434–7, 575n3; to C. Spencer (mock), 946–7; topos of mock, 261; to C. Wren, 1144 parabolic burning mirror, 45–6 paradox, exercise in, xlviii, 257–8n1; and Tyrannus Or the Mode, 307 Paravicini, Rebecca (née Fountaine), 431 Paris: book supply in, 81; Boyle’s experience of, 1080; concern over state of, 56–7; Condé’s siege of, 127n2; cultural competition with London, xxvii, 914n81; England, preparations to return to, 103–4; English resident’s residence, 92, 109n19, 648; gold saucer from, 196; introductions

1219

for friends, xxxviii, xxxix, xli, 48–9, 53–5, 75; JE’s servant, 101; libraries of, 907, 914n81; as place of exile, 68, 77, 83, 84–5; scientific academy, 291n2; shipments from, xliv, 85–6, 111–12. See also continental travels, as educational; France Parke, Daniel: about, 1014n2; exchange with Virginia, xlvi, (705)1021–2; recommended to Blaithwayt, 1014, 1021; mentioned, 1019 Parker, Samuel: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Parliament: Convention Parliament, 892; corrupt elections, 1094; Hyde (Clarendon) impeachment, 482–3, 905; JE’s attendance at, 882; limits to members’ commissions, 1058; Osborne (Danby) impeachment, 595n1, 598n1, 632n7; parliamentary records collections, 440, 440n38; prorogued, 882–3 (see also politics); prorogued and dissolved, 922; Test Act, 536n2, 632n7 Parr, Richard: about, 795n1; illness/death of, 963, 964; The Life ... of James Ussher, (535)795–6, (550)817 Paston, Robert: about, 166n1; conveyor, 270; letters of introduction, 166, 218 Paston, William: collections of, 902 Patin, Charles, 900 Patrick, Simon: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Paul the Deacon (Paulus Warnefridus), 1127 Paulmier de Grentemesnil, Jacques Le: Exercitationes, 467 Pearson, John: in the Protestant lady’s library, 806 Peiresc: Life of Peiresc (Gassendi; trans. Rand), xlviii, 167, 201n1, 220 Pell, John, 570–1; Idea of Mathematics, xlix, 1036 Penn, William: query into fraudulent officers, (292)442 Penny Post, 888 Penthea, 173–4. See also Mordaunt, Elizabeth (née Carey)

1220

Index

Pepys, Samuel: about, 409n1; Anglo-Dutch Wars, 541n2; annotation by JE, xxvii; “Arcano del Mar,” 636; arrest and imprisonment, (630)934–5, 632n7, 717n5, 916n91; battle with Turkey, 790; and Bentley’s treatise, 997; book auctions, xlii; Burnet’s Theory of the Earth, (481)740–1; Christ’s Hospital, 1024, 1068; cleaning of the naval dock stairs, (536)796–7; “Copernicus Sphere” and Trajan’s Column, (668)981–2; death of Charles II, (494)753–4; Diary VIII, 553n5; Dummer posting, (514)775–6; elopement, revenge for, (504)766–7; Eton, (696)1012; on first meeting with JE, xxxiii; foundering of ship, (432)660; greetings, (636)942–3, (647)953–4, (674)987–8; ideas and book titles exchanged, (707)1023–4, (710)1027–8, (776)1110–11; “impendent Revolution,” (595)863–4; improvement of English language, 370–1n2, 372n5, (622)920–1, 914–15, 915n90; infirmary in Chatham, (273)409–10; JE as proxy for, (516)777; knowledge of God, evidence of, (628)926–8; letters edited, xxvi; libraries and collecting, xix, xxi, xxxvii, 430n1, 440n1, 589n1, (619)895–916, Memoires relating to the state of the Royal Navy of England, (624)923, 942n4; Mercure historique, etc., (563)829–31; missed meeting with JE, 57–8; missing letters, (512)xxx(n41), (512)774n3; Navalia, 1111; plea for newlyweds, (583)852–3; portraits of (arch)bishops, (727)1051; portraiture, xliv; praise for work, (567)836; regarding navy commission, (400)600; report of attempted rape, 814, 816; research on British sea navigations and rights, (412)636–8, (447)692–6; research on naval history, xlii, (438)670–4, 670–4; Royal Society business, (554)820–1; secretary of the Admiralty, 636, 916n91, 923, 934; uses of colours in navies, xlviii, (509)770–2;

voyage to Tangiers, (463)717–19; winter entertainments, (721)1041–2; witnesses to letter, xxvi; words and things/ancients and moderns, xlix, (718)1036–9 Percy, Algernon (10th earl of Northumber land), 237, 695; portrait of, 904 Percy, Henry, 237n3 Percy, Jocelyn, 237–8 Perrier, Francis, 1046, 1147 Peterborough, earl of. See Mordaunt, Henry Petit, Samuel, 275n10 Petre, Edward, 876n40 Pett, Peter: about, 155n1; Bodleian Library, JE’s gifts to, xliii, (84)155–7, (136)227–8, 168–9, 226; navy commissioner, 194n1; translation by JE for T. Barlow, (144)235–6 Petty, William: about, 303n1; “Baily” recommended to, (189)303; devising new riggings, etc., xxxvii, 384–5; “Glottical Colledge,” 275n10 Phelips, Robert: about, 792n1; licensing “Popish-books,” (532)792, (532)793n1; and Privy Seal, 832 Philips, Katherine, 898 Phillips, Edward (nephew of Milton): about, 440n2; assistant to print trade (for JE), xli, 424n7, 1024n3; New World of English Words, 372n5; as tutor, xli, 316n2, 362n2, 443, 588 Philosophical Transactions. See Royal Society (and Gresham College) Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, 1127 Pierce, Thomas: about, 323n1; assistance for Snatt, (211)325; infallibility of the Scripture, 384n8; The Primitive Rule of Reformation (sermon), (211–12)323–7 Pignoria, Lorenzo: Vetustissimae Tabulae ..., 62 Pillars of Hercules, 30–1 pirates: in English Channel, 99; theft and return of Mary E’s portrait, 129–30

Index Place, John, Jr (publisher): reprint of Parallel of the Antient Architecture, (763)1095–7, 1120 plague/smallpox: Black Death, 42; consequences of, 915; death of Mary Jr, 386n3, 757, 767–8; deaths at Sayes Court, 1050; deaths, number of, 383n3; deaths, of individuals, 687n2, 690n1, 765n1; descriptions of, xxxvi–xxxvii, 382–4, 386, 403; extinction of, 404n9, 431; parliament in Oxford, 387, 398; pest-ships, 381–2, 381n3; risks of travelling, 165; as slippers from London, 403. See also illnesses Plato: Laws, 259; seraphic love, 260 [Platona]. See Bodvel, Ann Plattes, Gabriel, 1107 plays, operas, masques, and ballets: The Adventures of Five Hours (Tuke), 25, 299n2, 314n1, 322; notes on “dramatic poetry,” 578n12; playgoing in the Interregnum, 146; regulation and censorship of plays, 869; The Siege of Granada (Dryden), 578n12; theatre during Lent, 359–60; two-sided view of, 578–9; The Virtuoso (Shadwell), 575–7, 582n23. See also books and authors; theatres Pliny: “Anatomy of Trees” (JE), 290; death, 990–1n3; Historia Naturalis, 259n5, 718–19, 772, 917n5, 991, 1107; inclusion among great scientists, 576n7; JE’s editions, 436n12 Pliny the Younger: among collections of letters, 977; Epistulae, 262–3, 946n5; JE’s editions, 977n7; letters of condolence, xxxv; in praise of women’s virtues, 262–3 Plot, Robert: about, 705n1; autobiographical notes by JE, xvii–xviii, xliii, (456)705–10, 960–1; coins and medals (numismatic), (689)1006; honorary doctorate, 551n2; mentioned, 1025 Plutarch: “Life of Alexander the Great,” 705n3, 709; “Life of Cato the Younger,” 292; “The Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” 745

1221

Pococke, Edward, 470, 543 Poeton, John: recommended to Waller, 139 Polemann, Joachimus: Novum lumen medicum, 273 politics: 1679–81 crisis, 718n7; Battle of Buda (Hungary), 811; battle of Mons, 593; bishop of London suspended, 810; bishops’ trial, 861–2; Clifford’s resignation, 536n2, 541–2n3; comic political rhymes, 321; commentary, 1686 Mercure historique, 829–31; Convention Parliament, 892; corruption, 905, 1094; court news and gossip, 320–2; currency crisis, 1092, 1108n1, 1109; elections (1685), 756; and the excesses of stage plays, 359–60; Exclusion Crisis, 595n1, 596, 603n1, 632n7; exile (self-imposed), 31–2, 44, 76–7, 78, 83, 84–5; extraterritoriality and diplomatic immunity, 280–3; fishing rights (dominion over the seas), 693–6; and gardening, 862–3; and history of Anglo-Dutch Wars, 522n2, 541n2, 636n1, 670–4, 692–6 (see also Anglo-Dutch Wars); Hyde (Clarendon), fall and exile of, 482–3, 905; James II’s flight, 873–7; and JE’s return to England, 103–4, 104–5, 114–20; lord deputy of Ireland, 837; measures against episcopacy, 160–1; mediation/broker role with France, xxxviii-xxxix; misuse of letter (leaked), 106, 106n3, 109n19; news while JE in Italy, 35; Nijmegen peace negotiations, 27–8, 558–9, 560n2, 566; occupying JE, 632; parliament prorogued, 882–3; political and monetary reform proposed, 1091–5; political climate as “the plague,” 76–7; political reform, JE’s program for, 867–70; and the practice of Lent, 359–60; pretenders to thrones, 138n6; Protestant inclusion (Tories), xxx, 603–6; and radical Protestantism, 499; reform of trade and licensing, 1093–4, 1119; secretary of state appointment, 736–7; suppression of Book of Common Prayer, 222n4; Test

1222

Index

Act, 632n7; travel with counterfeit pass, 83n2; Whigs, xxx(n42); William III, 863n3, 883n6. See also Charles II; Church of England; Protestantism; Restoration; Roman Catholicism; Royalists – revolutions, various mentions of: “Changes and Revolutions,” 873, 887; Glorious Revolution (1688), xvii, 892; “impendent Revolution,” 893; “likely Revolution,” xxxvii-xxxviii, 863–4, 867, 878–80; “to see greater Revolutions,” 905 Poliziano, Angelo, 978, 1127 poor and poverty: accommodated in hospitals, 1067–8; conditions during wars, 537; and Deptford dockyards, 726, 954, 1088–9; employment for, 243n1, 1093; hospitals in Surrey for, 1048; hunger, cold, and Black Death, 42; reform of care of, 869; taxation supporting, 890–1, 893, 954–5, 1088–9; Trinity Hospital, Deptford, 1026 Pope, Walter: continental experience, JE’s advice, (216)330–2; as tutor, xxxix, 300n3, 322–3, 330–2 Popish Plot. See Roman Catholicism Porter, Charles: about, 857n1; Prettyman’s debts, (589)857–8, 941n4, 942n3, 948–9 Port. Palatinat, Mr, (II.10)42 portraits and portraiture: Bosse’s books about, 55; Clarendon’s collection, list of, 903–4; cost of, 906; “Effigies of famous persons,” 907n48; by Holbein, 898n13; JE’s engagement with, xliv, 903–4; “Learned and Heroic Persons of England,” 440–1, 896–9, 903, 905–6; list of learned and heroic persons (men and women), 897–9; portraits of (arch)bishops, 1051; proposed portrait gallery, xxxvii, xliv; suppression of identity in, 897, 898–9; of virtuous women, 897–8 – of JE: appointments to paint, 881; by Gaywood, 184n2, 186p; by Kneller, xliv, 896; by Nanteuil, 85, 94p, frontispiece(v1); by van der Borcht, 66n5 – of Mary E, 145; by Bourdon, 129–30, 129n2, 145n5; by Nanteuil, 95p, 145n5

– specific portraits: Elizabeth Prettyman Browne (Nanteuil), 97p; Richard Browne (Nanteuil), 96p; Margaret Godolphin, 527n6, 745n3, 1034; Louisa Hollandina (self-portrait), 93n3; Elizabeth Mordaunt (Louisa Hollandina), 93n3; Snatt, 207; Tenison, 1051n3 Portugal, 667, 903, 1000–1 Postlethwayt, John, 1134 Poulle, Magdalena, 800 Povey, Thomas: about, 347n1; comet sightings, 696; Needham recommended to, (226)347; Slingsby and the Mint, (559)825–6 Powell, Captain: and hieroglyphs, 61, 62n6, 65p Powle, Henry: about, 875n17; days before James II’s flight, 875 Powys, Thomas: about, 853n3; attorney general, 832, 853 Pratt, Roger: about, 408; Clarendon House, 408 Presbyterians, 278 Prettyman, John (wife’s uncle): about, 143n2 Prettyman, William (wife’s uncle): about, 103n1; and birth of Richard E (son), 131; Browne’s expenses and law suit, (454)703–4 (see also finances); debt to the crown, 941n4, 942n3; finances with JE, 172n2; JE on public life, xviii, (39)103–4; mentioned, 137 Prideaux, Humphrey: envoy from Oxford, 709; Marmora Oxoniensia, ex Arundellianis, 444–5n2, 565; monument to Howard, 481n1; Parian Marble, 447n1 Priestman, Henry, 766 Prince of Orange. See William III (William of Orange) printing. See publishing, printing, and bookselling prisoners: charity for, 584. See also Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War Privy Seal: Lord Privy Seal, 765n4, 832n2; office and responsibilities of, 832–3. See also commissioner of the Privy Seal Proclus: Platonic Theology, 192

Index prophetesses, 627 Protestantism: attacks on French, 627n6; conversion back to, 966n8; critique of radical, 494–501; licensing “Popishbooks,” 795n2, 796; more expansive concept of, xxx; the Protestant lady’s library, 805–10; religious reform, JE’s program for, 868; tension in royal marriage, 787. See also Church of England; theology Prujean, Francis, 292 Publilius Syrus, 307nn3–4 publishing, printing, and bookselling: ambitions of JE, xviii; assistants to JL, xli, 127, 130n1, 424n7; auctions (see auctions); bindings, xl, 45–6, 909; Cosin’s books to sell, 92n5; Cowley’s publishers, 451n4; and critique of radical Protestantism, 496; difficulties with printers, 21–2, 178, 195, 201, 424, 424nn6–7, 906, 929, 949–50, 1120; engraving instructions, 1025, 1061, 1076n10; engraving quality, 1097, 1149; errata, list of common, 1126–7; errata, as necessary, 1096; and the Great Fire, 420, 420n5; instructions for Numismata, 1025; licensing “Popish-books,” 792–4; and the plague, xxxvii; printer to Royal Society, 632–3; print trade, 1044–7; publishers of JE (see Chiswell, Richard; Royston, Richard); quality of scholarly books, improvements to, 423–6, 1096–7; reputation of JE, xlviii; trade with the continent, xl. See also libraries and collections Puckering, Elizabeth: about, 158n1; greetings, (86)158–9; “hate of Ingratitude” rhyme, (105)187–9; loss of neighbours, (117)208, (124)214; thanks to, (148)241, (164)269; use of depilatory, (127)216–17 Puckering, Henry, 187–8; office of paymaster, 564; residences, 208, 214 Purchas, Samuel: Purchase his Pilgrimes, 1024 Quakers, 442, 497, 868 Quintinye, Jean de la, (II.20)53–4; Instruction pour les jardins, 53n1; letters of recommendation to, xxxviii

1223

Radcliffe, George, 105 Radcliffe, Thomas, 101n2; chemistry studies of JE, (40)104–5 Raimondi, Marco Antonio, 899 Raines, Richard, 778n1, 1099; on behalf of Mr Greene, (517)778, 631n1 Rainolds, John: Th’ overthrow of stageplayes, 577 Ramelli, Agostino, 1119 Rand, William: about, 167n1; dedication to JE (Gassendi trans.), xlviii, (91)167–8, (112)201–2, 167n3, 220, 486n1; nature and art of God, (326)486–7; portrait of Mary E, xliv; Riolan trans., 202n8 Rantzau, Heinrich: De conservanda valetudine liber, 465 rape, attempted, 814–15, 816–17, 827–8 Rapin, René: Hortorum libri IV, 1106 Ray, John, 1127 Rea, John: Flora, 350, 509n4 Reigate Priory, 148n1, 149n1, 153n4 religious controversialist, xxix, xxxiii, 384n8, 531n5, 823n2, 824n3. See also Church of England; Protestantism; Roman Catholicism; theology remembrancer of the first fruits, 858n2, 941n4 Renaudot, Eusèbe, 673–4 research. See historical research; science and experimentation Restoration: account of by JE, 268–9; advisable conduct, JE’s advice, 278–9; flaws of Charles II’s court, xxix-xxx; JE’s activities during, xviii; reflections on, 959. See also Charles II Reymes, Bullen: as commissioner, 350n9, 363, 406; as marriage intermediary, 450–1 Reynolds, Edward: East India Company and oaths, (125)215 Richards, Edward, (I.41)26 Richelieu, Cardinal, 307, 692–3 Ridgeley, Thomas, 570 Riley, John, 881 Riolan, Jean: A Sure Guide ... to Physick and Chyrurgery, 202n8 Road, James, 1020n5

1224

Index

robberies and thefts: JE robbed during absence, 239n2 Roberts, Gabriel, 641 Robinson, Capt. Robert, 367n3 Robinson, John: thanks for business, (4)68 Robinson, Tancred, 1135 Robson, Thomas, 838–9, 887 Rochester: accommodating sick and wounded, 378, 399, 401–2, 407, 537 Rochester, 1st earl of. See Hyde, Laurence Roelofsze, Jan, 364n1 Rogers, George, (II.3)34 Rogers, Thomas: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Roman Catholicism: bishop of London suspended, 810; confessional identity of JE, xxix; educational institutions, 790; Eucharist controversy, 477–8, 503–6, 513–15; frustration of JE with, xxx; infallibility of the Scripture, 384n8; invocation of saints, 457–9; in last days of James II, 873–4; licensing “Popish-books,” 792–4; of monarchs, xxx(n41); Nag’s Head ordination controversy, 823–4; opposition to, 222–3; Pierce/Cressy controversy, 324–7; Popish Plot, 184n1, 441n1, 592n1, 632n7, 902n28; in Portugal, 1000; in power (England), 868–9; and Protestantism inclusion, 604; and radical Protestantism, 496–9; services in embassy chapels, 283n16; tension in royal marriage, 787; theological attacks on Church of England, 681–3 – conversions: John Cosin Jr, 105–11; duchess of York, 659–60; Keightley, 78n1, 86–9; Spencer (earl of Sunderland), xxxvii, 850–2, 854, 856n3, 870–1, 882–3, 882n3, 884, 966n8; S. Tuke, 108n15, 239–40. See also Church of England; Jesuits; politics; theology Rome. See Italy Rousselle, Claude: about, 17n2, 128n13; book bindings, xl; enamelling instruction to Mary E, 128–9; payment owed, (II.13)45–6, 46–8; as tutor, 45n1

Rowland, William, 285 Royal Academy of Paris: A Bosse au lecteur ... (Bosse), 55–6; and cultural rivalry with London, 914; Traite des pratiques geometrales et perspectives ... (Bosse), 55 Royalists: commitment by JE to, xxviii–xxix; England, JE’s return to, 115n2; and JE’s lighter side, xxxiii; money raising for, 72n2; and J. Mordaunt, 174n3; promoted Charles II (JE), xxviii; role of wives, 262n10; siege of Chester, 39–40 Royal Mathematical School, 1068n10 Royal Mint: clipping of coins, 1092, 1109; suspension of Slingsby, xxiv, 728–9, 825–7 Royal Society (and Gresham College): and an academy to promote language arts, 914; attacks on/defence of, 434–7, 495–501, 575–84, 680, 820–1; book exchange after the Great Fire, 420; Boyle portraits, 1083; Boyle’s contributions, 1080; Cavendish on JE and, 552n4; Margaret Cavendish’s visit, 554n9; committee for the improvement of English language, 370–3, 370nl, 370–1n2, 915; in contrast to court of Charles II, 577; differences, JE and M. Godolphin, xxxii, xlviii; donations, xliii, 452, 679–81 (see also Oxford); earthquake experiences, 993 (see also weather and natural phenomena); epitaph for Beale, 713–14; founding and first meetings, xviii, xlv, 254n7, 273–6, 299n1; and Edward Hyde, 905; and Henry Hyde, 784; and Hobbes, 342n18; honours to W. Stewart, 790; imprint of, xviii; James II succession, 753–4; JE’s role, xliv-xlv, 586n3, 707; libraries, 430, 430n2, 910; meetings at, 411; membership rules, xxii, 679n2; money for lectureships, 821; operator, 1004; origins of name of, xlv; perpetual motion paper from Stokes, 461–2; plant exchanges/repository, xlvi, 664–9, 731; plea for return of Moray, 453; poetry invitation to Cowley, 434–7; presidents,

Index 790n5; printer for, 1120n8; and procuring of “Mummies,” 412; professional readers, 307n6; research and experimentation (see science and experimentation); “Salomon’s House” proposal, 254n7; Sorbière’s visit, 339n5; St Andrew’s Day, 1111. See also “Salomon’s House” – publications: “A Letter to Dr Wilkins concerning the Anatomy of Trees” (JE), 289n2; The History of the Royal Society (Sprat), xlv, 434n1, 438p, 452, 990n6, 1080; “History of Trades” (JE), 204n6; Numismata errata, 1147n2; Parallel of Architecture presentation (JE), 348; A Philosophical Discourse of Earth (JE), 567; Philosophical Transactions, xlvi, 581–4, 581n20, 583n26, 584n27, 732, 1017n5; Royal Society experimentation, 581n20; Plus Ultra (Glanville), 456–7; Sylva (JE), xviii. See also Evelyn, John Royston, Richard, 354, 384, 439; about, 162n11; JE’s publishers, 162 Rubens, Peter Paul, 899 Ruvigny, Henri: John Jr recommended to, (789)1128–9; lords justices of Ireland, 1125, 1140 Rycaut, Paul: advocate for Strengfellow, (609)886, 885 Ryves, John, 370n2 Ryves, Thomas: Historia Navalis, 820 [S., Cousin]: defence of Mary E’s character by JE, xliv, (75)144–7; letter edited, xxvi–xxvii [S., Cousin E.]: greeting and gift, (36)101–2 Sackville, Thomas (1st earl of Dorset): portrait of, 904 Sadeler, Egidio, 1046 Saint Amant, Tristan à, 900 St Ambrose, 192, 851 St Bartholomew’s Day, 131–2 St Etheldreda’s (London), 999 Saint-Évremond, Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, 590n5 St Helen’s Bishopsgate, 644n2, 715

1225

St James’s Palace: libraries and collections at, 908–10, 1023, 1028n16, 1040–1, 1070, 1142 St James’s Park, 687n1 St Martin-in-the-Fields, 1084; library, 813, 911 St Michel, Balthasar, 828 St Paul’s Cathedral (London), 19–20, 420n5, 863–4, 1144–5; library proposed for, 913–14 “Salomon’s House,” xix, 205, 253–7. See also Royal Society Sancroft, William (archbishop): about, 644n1; acquittal of charges, xxxvii, (593)861–2; on behalf of Evans, (418)644; letter edited, xxvi; Strengfellow recommended to, (614)891–2 Sanders, Nicholas: De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani, 824 Sanders/Saunders (cousin), 144n1. See also [S., Cousin] Sandwich, 1st earl of. See Mountagu, Edward Sandys, Edwin: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Sandys, George: Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished (trans.), xl, 81; A relation of a iourney begun ..., 30–2 Sarpi, Pietro (Padre Paolo): in the Protestant lady’s library, 808; A Treatise of Matters Beneficiary, 642n2 Saulmeyer, Abbé de, 341n16 Saumaise, Claude (Salmasius): cited by JE, 1127; Epistolarum Liber Primus, 181–2, 193n19; JE’s edition, 978; in Sweden, 912; troubles with printers, 1126 Savile, George (1st marquis of Halifax): about, 874n11; days before James II’s flight, 874; A Rough Draught of a New Model at Sea, 1024; surrendered the Privy Seal, 922 Savile, Henry: about, 533n1; inspection of the fleet, (353)533–4; type for St John Chrysostom, 903, 912 Savoy Hospital, 369 Sawbridge, Thomas, 929n1

1226

Index

Sawyer, Robert, 892 Sayes Court, Deptford: anchor forge proposed, 1026–7; Richard Boyle visitor, 1079–80; Mrs Cowden, 767; departure from, 961, 1018, 1041, 1049–50; dockyards (see Deptford); drawing by JE, 200p; evergreens from Montpellier, 197n2; financial losses and tenancy, 286, 288n3; garden, xlv, 255n11, 732n2, 751–2, 1023, 1034; health and life expectancy at, 1049–50; lease and ownership of, 516–17, 948, 1026, 1103–4; library, 1034; and Prettyman suit, 103n1, 686 (see also finances); purchase of, 128, 136; taxes for poor (see poor and poverty); tenant proposed (Chadwick), 1049; tenant Simon Smith, 337; transfer to JE, 91n4; victualling office for the navy, 510–12; as “villa,” 131; withdrawal to by JE, xviii; the “Wooden House,” 322. See also Deptford Scaliger, J.C.: consolation rhetoric, 760 Scaliger, Joseph, 517–18; Epistola de vetustate, 464; Epistolae omnes, 168n4, 237n4, 238n8, 245, 248, 254n2 Scarburgh, Charles, 570, 1041n4 scholastic philosophy, 456n1, 494–5n2, 501n32; philosophic controversy (Harris/ Robinson), 1135 Schott, Gaspar: Magia universalis naturæ, 465; Magia universalis naturae et artis, 302 Schurman, Anna Maria, 897–8 science and experimentation: Boyle’s contributions, 1081–2; commonplace book vocabularies, xlvii; corpuscularian (atomic theory), 1082; and critique of radical Protestantism, 494–501; devising new riggings, etc., 384–5; earthquakes and volcanoes, xlviii, 989–93; and “Elysium Britannicum,” 272; eminent scholars of, 570–1; fish and animals, observations of, 466; greatest scientists of the ancient and modern worlds (listed), 575–6; inclusion in letterbooks by JE, xlviii;

iron-rolling, 1004; knowledge of God, evidence of, 927–8; mathematics, eminent scholars of, 570–1; old and new learning compared, xlviii–xlix, 578; origins of the world, 740–1; parabolic burning mirror, 45–6; Royal Society contributions, 291, 299, 436, 465, 581–4, 989–90, 1004; Tuke’s paper at Paris scientific academy, 291n2. See also astronomy; chemistry; medicine and surgery; weather and natural phenomena Scilly Isles, 642 Scipio Æmilianus, 822, 836 Scipio Africanus, 836 Scotland: fishing rights, 693–6; William III, 883 Scott, Catherine: fundraising for Royalists, 72n2; greeting, possibly coded, (9)72 Scott, James (1st duke of Monmouth), 830 Scott, John: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 Scottish Covenanters, 431 Scudamore, James: hospitality for “kinsman” in Paris, (13)75; interrupted correspondence, (11)74 sculpture and statues: purchase of statues (Florence), 29–30 Sedgewick, William, 710 Sedley, Catherine, 1053n5 Selby, Richard Wilfrid: greetings to, 62n10 Selden, John: library, 475, 910; Mare Clausum, 637n7; Marmora Arundelliana, 444 Seneca: correspondence with St Paul, 203n4; De Beneficiis, 198–9, 203nn2, 5, 219n5, 328n1, 698n7; Epistulae, 125, 135nn5–6, 207, 958n5 Senten, Bastian, 524 seraphic love, 260–5, 556 Sergeant, John, 411n1; infallibility of the Scripture, 384n8 servants and attendants: attempted rape of, 814–15, 816–17, 827–8; coachman, 888, 918; deaths at Sayes Court, 1050; gardener

Index at Sayes Court, 1023n5; JE’s steward, 1115n3; La Roch in Paris for JE, 101; payment to, 128n6; pleas on behalf of, 332–3, 562–3; recommendation of, 101 Servius Sulpicius: letter writing, xxxv–xxxvi Seymour, Anne, Jane, and Margaret, 898 Seymour, Edward, 1142 Shadwell, Thomas: The Virtuoso, 575n4, 582n23 Shaen, Arthur, 1136, 1140 Shaftesbury, 1st earl of. See Cooper, Anthony Ashley Sharp, John, 767, 1066n2, 1070 Shaw, John, 685 Sheere, 1048 Sheffield, John, 785 Sheldon, Frances, 903 Sheldon, Gilbert, 324n5, 446–7 Sheldon, Ralph, 873; collection of medals, 903 Sherman, Thomas (master carpenter), 1099–1101, 1099n2 ships and shipping: accommodation of prisoners on captured ships, 387–8; books on British sea navigations and rights, 636–7; devising new riggings for, 384–5; fishing convoy to Newfoundland, 640; and naval colours, xlviii, 770–2, 816; pestships, 381–2, 407; ship building, 672–3; voyage to Tangiers, 718 – individual ships: The Charles Vth, 379; The Clove Tree, 379; Elizabeth, 367; The Golden Phoenix (Dutch), 394; Henry, 378n1; The King Ferdinando, 379; Koningh Solomon (Dutch), 364; London, 363–4; Loyal London, 523n6; Mary (Godolphin yacht), 588; Royal Charles, 378nn2–3, 523n6; Royal Prince, xxxii; St. Michael, 532; The Unity, 379; Victory, 385n1; The Zealand (Dutch), 379 Shropshire, 706 Sidney, Henry (1st earl of Romney), 945, 988n6 Sidney, Philip, 238, 947

1227

Silius Italicus: Punica, 190n4 Simon, Richard: Histoire Critique, 681 Sion College: library, 908 slavery, 292, 869 Slingsby, Henry: council for trade, 706–7; disgrace of, xxiv; master of the Royal Mint suspension, (471)728–9, 825–7; mentioned, 571 Sloane, Hans, xli, 1113, 1145, 1149n5; A Voyage, 992 Slowman, Capt John, 363n5 smallpox. See plague/smallpox Smith, Simon, 337 Smith, Thomas “Tog” (1638–1710), 1019 Snatt, Edward: presentation of Lucretius, (116)206–8; son of, 325 Snatt, William, 325, 1118n1 snow pits (JE and Boyle), 345p Socinians, 868, 1121. See also theology Socrates: Xanthippe (wife), 292 Solmon, Elizabeth, 925n3 Somers, John (Baron Somers), 1039n3 Somerset, 59 Somerset House, 323, 974, 1139 Sondes, George (1st earl of Feversham), 564 Sorbière, Samuel de, xxviii, 339–40; Relation d’un voyage en Angleterre, 339n5; visit to Royal Society, 339n5 Soulemont, Mrs, 925, 1032 South, Robert, 708 Southwark, Great Fire of, 27–8 Spain: ambassadors, 304–6, 304n2; horticulture of, 460–1; JE’s planned travel to, 68; prelude to war, 831; the sembrador, 452 Spanheim, Ezechiel: Dissertationes de præstantia, 1025, 1126, 1146, 1149; numismatics, 900 Spanish letters, 43 Sparrow, Anthony: in the Protestant lady’s library, 808 Spelman, Charles: recommended to Mordaunt, 284–5 Spencer, Anne. See Douglas, Anne (née Spencer)

1228

Index

Spencer, Anne (née Digby, 1646–1716): about, 589n2; Althorp visit, (586)855, (587)855–6, 650; on behalf of W. Cock, (529)789; closure to year and “approaching Revolution,” xxxviii, (603)878–80; consolation for death of daughter, (631)936–7; consolation for death of mother, (785)1122–3; consolations (son and conversion of husband), xxxvii, (582)850–2, 854; daughter (Anne Douglas), (511)774, (527)787; daughter’s marriage and troubles (E. MacCarty), (491)750–1, (591)859, (639)945, 944; death of Elizabeth E, (507)769; on death of JE’s grandchild, (735)1059; discharge of debt, 712; education of sons, xxxix–xl, (406)625–8; Eucharist controversy, 502n3; Godolphins, (397)597; greetings, (462)716–17, (626)924–5, (650)956, (654)961–2, (659)965–6, (715)1032–3, (778)1113–14, (799)1138, (801)1139–40; in Holland, 924–5; Holland, travel to, 895–6, 919, 924–5; husband’s rehabilitation, (792)1132; invitation response, (584)853; JE’s move to Wotton, (702)1018; John Jr recommended to, (581)849–50, 853, 880; library, earl of Bristol, 589; marriage negotiations, xxxix, (429)657–8, (434)663–4, 662n1; mortgage, (575)843; Pindaric dedicated to, xxvii, 415n1; political disruptions, (623)921–2; property negotiations (Chelsea), 630n2; the Protestant lady’s library, xxix, (543)805–10; Sunderland’s conversion and prospects, (598)870–1, (605)882–3, (607)884, (610)887, 850–2, 854, 892; thanks and Butler’s death, (422)649–50; thanks and John Jr to Ireland, (673)986–7; visit from, 895n5; visit to Charleton’s collection, 902n26; mentioned, 999, 1029, 1035n3 Spencer, Charles (3rd earl of Sunderland, c.1674–1722): about, 805n3; acknowledgment, (606)883; Battle of the Boyne

essay, 946n3; books and English travel, (690)1006–7, 1018, 1029; congratulations on marriage, (722)1042–3; education, 805; greetings, (683)999–1000, (717)1035; Numismata, (711)1029; (mock) panegyric to, (640)946–7; stylistic models of letter writing, xxxiv, (665)976–8; mentioned, 925, 936, 962, 1113 Spencer, Elizabeth (1673–1704). See MacCarty, Elizabeth (née Spencer) Spencer, Elizabeth (c.1657–1724), 641n5, 739n1 Spencer, Martha. See Evelyn, Martha (daughter-in-law, née Spencer) Spencer, Richard (c.1593–1661): invitation to command, (172)283–4 Spencer, Robert (2nd earl of Sunderland, 1641–1702): about, 596n4; conversion to RC and effects of, 850–2, 854, 856n3, 870–1, 882–3, 882n3, 884, 892; converted back to Protestant, 966n8, 1132; daughter, 841; “The Earl of Sunderland’s letter to a friend in London,” 884n4, 887n2; Exclusion Crisis, 595n1, 596; and Godolphin’s Treasury position, 596; JE’s judgment of, 1055n1; lord chamberlain, 1134; marriage of daughter, xxxviii-xxxix, 749–50, 752–3; mortgage, 712, 838–9, 843 Spencer, Robert (Viscount Teviot, 1629–94): about, 101n1; and Privy Seal, 811, 813, 832; servant recommended to, (35)101; mentioned, 100n1 Spencer, Robert, Jr (1666–88): about, 625n2; death of, 850n1; marriage negotiations, (433)661–2, 656–7, 657–8, 663–4 Spenser, Edmund, 138n8, 947 Spinoza: Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 683 Spon, Jacob, 900 Sprat, Thomas: about, 338n1; annotation by JE, xxviii; “character” of Sorbière, xxviii, (223)338–42; upon death of Cowley, (300)451; entry in letterbook index, xxiv, xxiv( f ); The History of the Royal Society, xlv, 434n1, 438p, 452, 990n6, 1080;

Index improvement of English language, 915; on letter writing, xxxiv–xxxv; and radical Protestantism, 497–8; mentioned, 435 Stanhope, Philip (2nd earl of Chesterfield): about, 216n1; loan from JE, (126)216; request for venison, (141)231–2, (142)232–3 Stanley, Henry: medical advice sought, (52)120 Stationers’ Company, xli, 425n8, 632n10; Catholic master of, 793n7; after the Great Fire, 423 (see also publishing, printing, and bookselling) Stephens, 101n1. See also [S., Cousin E.] Stephens, James: consolation for death of son, (556)822–3; Cosin’s library, xl; JE’s post restante in London, 420n3 Stephens, Serjeant, 507 Stevens, Anthony, 407 Steward, Richard, 98n1 Stewart, James (2nd earl of Galloway), 131 Stewart, William (1st Viscount Mountjoy), 784, 790 Stillingfleet, Edward: as bishop, 863; Doctrine of Christ’s Satisfaction, 1121; infallibility of the Scripture, 384n8; invocation of saints, xlviii, (307)457–9, 482n9, 491n1, 544–5; library of, 911; and Locke, 1111; in the Protestant lady’s library, 807–8; A Rational Account, 350, 458n5, 683n8; religious controversialist, JE as, xxix; religious controversies, 530, 683; The Rule of Faith, appendix, 411n1; mentioned, 1032 Stokes, Richard: perpetual motion, (309)461–2 Stonehouse, John (father of John Jr’s wife): greeted, 876; marriage settlement, (415)641–2 Stoughton, Lawrence: marriage negotiations (Susanna E), (661)969–70, 975 Strada, Famianus, 85, 86 Stratton, countess of. See Berkeley, Christian (née Riccard)

1229

Stratton, earl of. See Berkeley, John (1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton) Strengfellow, William: about, 878; ejected from Trinity, (686)1003–4, 1002–3, 1008; recommended, xxxix, (602)878, (608)885–6, 891, 937; mentioned, 964, 966n10 Strickland, John, 1115n3, 1136 Strode, John: about, 352n1; commissioner, request for marshal, (231)352–3; greetings in lieu of a visit, (242)366; war report, treatment of prisoners, 364, 368n5 Strong, Edward: Greenwich Hospital, (729)1053; regarding a design, (740)1063 Stubbe, Henry: about, 494–5n2; Campanella Revived, 495–6; and Royal Society, xlv, 494–501; “Snarling Adversary,” 456–7; Specimen, 494–5 Suetonius: De Vita Caesarum, 464n5, 771; JE’s editions, 375n5 Sunderland, 2nd earl of. See Spencer, Robert (2nd earl of Sunderland) Sunderland, 3nd earl of. See Spencer, Charles (3rd earl of Sunderland) Sunderland, countess of. See Spencer, Anne (née Digby) Sunninghill Park, Berkshire, 925 Surrey: archbishop of Canterbury, 1054; notes for Camden’s Britannia, 1047–8 Swallowfield (Berkshire), 790, 802, 804, 811, 839, 904, 940n1; gardens, 594n1, 785 Swan, William: levy on property owners, (274)410 Sweden: and Anglo-Dutch Wars, 535; prelude to war, 831; Swedish ambassador, 304–6, 304n2 Sylvius, Ann (née Howard): about, 527n1; Browne’s expenses and Prettyman suit, (538)798–9; consolation for death of mother, (404)607–8; death of many friends, (407)629–30; a friend, 804, 854; on JE’s daughters’ tragedies, (497)757–8, (503)765; management of Berkeley affairs by JE, (596)864–6; marriage negotiations,

1230

Index

(387)585–6; marriage of Mary W., (681)998; playful farewell, (348)527–8; playful rhyme to, (728)1052–3; mentioned, 956, 966, 1112 Sylvius, Gabriel, 586n4; Raphael drawings (Howard), 730 Tacitus: Annales, 905n40, 939n7 Talbot, Aletheia (countess of Arundel), 898, 902n28 Talbot, Frances (née Jennings), 722n4 Talbot, Gilbert, 524, 535 Talbot, Katherine: death of, 629 Talbot, Richard: about, 592n1, 810n3, 837n3; “Huffing greate Man,” 810–11, 841n5; lord deputy of Ireland, 837, 871n3; transaction report, (392)592 Talmud: Gemara and Mishnah, 247–8 Tambonneau, Jean, 53 Tandridge, 1048 Tangier, 296, 645n5, 717 taxation and taxes: Dane Gelt, 693; fishing rights, 693–6; for poor relief, 726, 890–1, 893, 954–5; on property, 969; reform of, 869. See also commissioners of the Treasury; finances Taylor, Jeremy: about, 141n1, 177n8; appeal on behalf of, 222–3; baptism of George Jr, (118)209; after a “Calamitie,” (73)141–2; church affiliations of JE, xxix; confirmation of release of obligation, (74)143; Deus justificatus, 176n4, 181n3; A Discourse of ... Friendship, 212n3; Ductor dubitantium, 548, 578; Eucharist controversy, xlviii; favour bestowed upon, (113)202–3; on friendship, (122)212–13; Golden Grove, 142, 162n10; greeting, (180)294–5, 294n4; Lucretius, translation, and religion, (94)170–1, (99)176–7; measures against episcopacy, (88)160–2; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808–9; The Real Presence, 502–6; request for copy of a hymn, (102)181–2; Edward Thurland, 176, 181; Unum necessarium, 142; mentioned, 175n2, 1013

Taylor, John (“Water Poet”), 76n6, 919 Taylor, Jonathan: epitaph for Beale, (459)713–14 Teddeman, Thomas, 524 Tempesta, Antonio: works in library of JE, 587 Temple, Mary (of Frankton), 731 Temple, Sarah (née Draper), 1072 tenements: and Arundel House, 910 Tenison, Thomas (archbishop of Canterbury): about, 813n7; archbishop, 1039n1; Bohun recommended to, (719)1039–40, (758)1086, 1064–5, 1105, 1118; Boyle lectures, xxxix, (691)1007–8, (694)1010–11, (714)1032, (772)1105–6, (783)1118–19, 1071, 1114, 1117; clerical posts through, 878n2; Dolby recommended to, (736)1059–60; earthquakes and volcanoes, xlviii, (676)989–93; Harris/Robinson philosophic controversy, (795)1135; ideas and book titles exchanged, (706)1022–3; intervention on behalf of Sherman, (766)1100–1; introduction for charitable assistance, (572)840; and Jane Lewknor, 972n1; library of, 813, 869n16, 911; marriage negotiations, (786)1123–4; meteor sighting, (699)1015; Morehouse recommended to, (779)1114; Numismata and errata of, xli, (807)1145–6, 1149n4; Oakwood Chapel annuity, (730)1054–5; portrait by White of, 1051; in the Protestant lady’s library, 809; religious inclusiveness, xxx; St Nicholas (Deptford), 1090; Strengfellow recommended to, (632)937; Sunderland’s rehabilitation, 884, 887; Turner recommended to, (671)985; visit from, 895n5, 919; and William III, xxxvii(n69); mentioned, 895n5, 925, 966, 1028, 1041, 1074, 1086, 1089, 1104 Test Act, 536n2, 632n7 Teviot, Viscount. See Spencer, Robert (Viscount Teviot) theatres: as not fit for ladies, 146; reform of excesses, 359–60, 575–84, 869, 915; Sheldonian Theatre, 446, 481n5, 566,

Index 707. See also plays, operas, masques, and ballets Theocritus, 157 theology: absolution, 1118; Anabaptists, 181, 215, 497, 710; attacks on Church of England, 681–3, 806, 808–9; Boyle’s thoughts, 1082–3; controversies and common ground, 530–1; creation, 192; and earthquake experiences, 993; Eucharist controversies, xxvi, xlviii, 477–8, 502–6, 513–15, 715; and excesses of theatre, 579–81; Fathers of the Church (texts of), 1037; Hebrew vowel points, xlvii, 244–9; infallibility of the Scripture, 384n8; invocation of saints, xlviii, 457–9, 491, 544–5; on Keightley’s conversion to RC, 86–9; knowledge of God, evidence of, 927–8; Lent discussion, 359–60; love and marriage discussion, 260–5; Lucretius translations by JE, 171; Nag’s Head ordination controversy, 823–4; original sin, 176n1; on over grieving, 182–3; prayer, value of, xlvii; the Protestant lady’s library, 805–10; religion and life’s vicissitudes, 880–1; Socinianism, 868, 1121; Stillingfleet and Locke, 1111; use of the Apocrypha, 531; value of prayer, 190–3 Thicknesse, James: fellow traveller in Italy, 59; ill health, (187)301 Thurland, Edward: about, 124n1; copy of Taylor’s Deus justificatus, 176, 181; housing Jeremy Taylor, 176, 181; JE as instructor and guide, (145)237–8; money owed, (341)515–16; value of prayer, xlvii, (107)190–3; Warley manor purchase by JE, (58)124–5; mentioned, 216 Thynne, Henry Frederick: about, 770n1, 878n3; Bland recommended to, (508)770; clerical posts through, 878; entry in letterbook index, xxiii, xxiii( f ) Tilbury: accommodating sick and wounded, 388 Till, Colonel James, 117 Tillotson, John (archbishop of Canterbury): about, 411n1; as bishop, 863; death of,

1231

1039n1; Lucas recommended to, (670)984; in the Protestant lady’s library, 807; The Rule of Faith, 411; mentioned, 644 timber: and architects, 172 (see also architecture); damaged from severe winter, 732–3; for dockyard extension, 172; Norway versus domestic, 1093–4, 1119; preservation of, 821; propagation of (Sylva), 331, 929–30, 1106, 1127 (see also Evelyn, John); sale from Wotton House, 968–9, 1050n10, 1108n1; season for felling, 673 Tippetts, John: elopement of nephew, 765nn1–2, 766, 767; patron to Dummer, 777 Titian: Venus with an Organist, xliii, 184, 184n3, 185p Titus, Silas: council for trade, 706–7; “Officer at Deale” position, (234)355–6 Tonge, Ezerel: The Jesuits Morals, (291)441–2 Tooke, Benjamin: debt of Wase, 773, 815; Numismata, (708)1024–5, 1006n1, 1023, 1029, 1061, 1076, 1092, 1105, 1117–18, 1145, 1149; Parallel of the Antient Architecture (JE), 1096n2; Sylva (JE), 1120 Tours. See France Towers, John: in the Protestant lady’s library, 809 trades. See mechanics and mechanical knowledge Trajan’s Column, 1046. See also Ciaccone (Chacón), Alphonso travels: books about China travel, 314; in England, 1007. See also continental travels, as educational; individual places Travers, Samuel: Greenwich Hospital plans, (745)1067–9 Treaty of Breda, 672 Treaty of Ryswick, 1089n4, 1139n3 Treby, George, 954 “Trevizano Marchese,” (II.9)41 Trevor, John (1626–72), 706–7 Trevor, John (1637–1717), 962

1232 Trimnel, Charles, 925; Postlethwayt recommended to, (794)1134 Trinity Chapel, Bond St., 937, 964n1, 966, 985n3; Strengfellow ejected from, 1002–4, 1008 Trinity Hospital, 1026 Triplet, Thomas: about, 177n1; assistant to print trade (for JE), xli; and Lucretius project, xxxi, 21–2, (100)177–8, 177n1, 201n2, 557–8, 689, 1126; as obstruction to Wase, 19–20 Triumph of Vespasian, Arch of Titus, Rome (Maratti), 31n3, 63p Trumbull, William (1639–1716), 717 truth: in dissuading conversions, 87–8; faith and Church of England, 449–50; loss of and need for silence (1650), 76–7, 78. See also theology Tufton, Catherine (née Cavendish), 1080 Tuke, George: about, 159n2; courtship of, 159–60, 170n4; Cressing Temple, 239; death of George Jr, (119)210; JE’s vindication for slight, 169–70; newlyweds, 21–2; S. Tuke’s conversion to RC, (146)239–40 Tuke, Mary (née Guldeford, d. 1666), 419n2, 802, 803–4 Tuke, Mary (née Papillon, 1614–62): Tuke’s courtship, JE’s role, (87)159–60; vindication for slight, 169–70 Tuke, Mary (née Sheldon, d. 1705): about, 702n1; consolation for death of husband, (453)702; marriage negotiations (JE’s daughter), (664)974–6, 970n7; miseries of Portugal, (684)1000–1; recommendation (unnamed), (800)1138–9; mentioned, 903 Tuke, Samuel: about, 90n1; acknowledges kindness, (176)287–8; acknowledges receipt of goods, (30)93; The Adventures of Five Hours, 25, (201)314–15, 299n2, 317, 320, 322n13; consolations (wife and Great Fire), (280)419–21; conversion to RC, 108n15, 239–40; court news and gossip, (209)320–2; death of, 702; education through modern languages, 672;

Index faith and Church of England, (298)449–50; illness and Tunbridge Wells, (185)299; libraries, Royal Society, and politics, xlii, (285)430–1, 913n77; on philosophic thought, (178)291–3, 295n2; possible knighthood, (27)90; purchase of pearls from, 128; recommended to Davenant, 351; relationship with French ambassador, 280; thanks for hospitality, (147)240; tutor recruitment, xxxix, 319 Tunbridge Wells, 45–6, 297, 573, 802, 804, 811, 813, 1028n15; JE’s opinion of, 298–9, 320–1, 916–17 Turkey: manuscripts from, 470–1; planned travels to, 59, 61; Sublime Porte, 462n4 Turner, Francis (bishop of Ely), 911 Turner, John, 985 Turner, Thomas, 600 Turner, William: death of, 994–5 Tusser, Thomas, 1107 Twickenham Park, 865 Twysden, Roger, 395 Tyrrell, James, 414–15, 795, 964 Tyrrell, Timothy, 414n2; library, 912 Tyson, Edward, 1020 Ulfeldt, Corfitz, 341 Upcott, William, xx Upman, Stephen: about, 654n1; marriage, (426)654–5 Ursinus, Fulvius, 900 Ussher, James, 246n18; Annales veteris testamenti, 377; library of, 912; Life of James Ussher (Parr), 795–6, 817; portrait, 440 Uzziel, Jonathan ben, 248 Valesius, Henricus, 912 Valois, Adrien de: Valesiana, 1036 Vanbrugh, William: Greenwich Hospital, (746)1069–70, 1072 van der Borcht, Hendrick: portrait (JE), 66n5, see colour plate vol. 1 van der Does, Johan: about, 313n1; Raphael drawings (Howard), xliii, (472)730–1,

Index 902n28; translation (unidentified), (200)313–14 Van Dyck, Anthony: Hollar print Self-portrait with a Sunflower, dedication of, 66n5, 67p; portraits in Clarendon’s collection, 904n36, 906 van Goch, Michiel: responsibility of Dutch prisoners, 399n3; war report, treatment of prisoners, (240)364 van Rheede, Hendrik Adriaan: Hortus Indicus Malabaricus, 668n15 varnish (laquer): “Jappon Vernish,” 302 Vaughan, John (3rd earl of Carbery, 1639–1713), 754 Vaughan, John (chief justice), 865 Velleius Paterculus: Historia Romana, 836; JE’s editions, 375n7 Venice. See Italy venison. See food and drink Venn, John: debts of Wase, (548)815 Veronese, Paulo, xliii–xliv, 964–5 Verrio, Antonio, (II.24)57–8; entry in letterbook index, xxiii, xxiv Villamena, Francesco, 1046, 1147 Ville-Bressieux, Etienne de, 45–6 Villiers, George (1st duke of Buckingham, 1592–1628): portrait of, 903, 904n36 Villiers, George (2nd duke of Buckingham, 1628–87), 338, 451, 915 Vincent, Nathaniel: recommended to H. Howard, 820, 824–5 Virgil: Aeneas and the Elisian Fields, 30–1; Aeneid, 76n2, 171n6, 232–3, 271n11, 435n5, 499n26, 732n4, 911n65, 987n4; Dryden’s translation of Aeneid, 1146; Eclogues, 476n4, 1056n2; Georgics, 259n4, 290n6, 845n2, 1035n2 Virginia, xlvi, 1019–21, 1038 Virtuoso, The (Shadwell), xlviii, 575, 582 Vives, Juan Luis: De Institutione foeminæ Christianæ, 262; letters of, 978 Voiture, Vincent de: Les oeuvres de Monsieur de Voiture, 307; Oeuvres, 978

1233

Vossius, Gerard: De arte grammatica, 245; De quatuor artibus popularibus ..., 372n7; errors in printing of De quatuor, 1126; Isaaci Vossii, 772; library of, 912 Vossius, Isaac, 910, 912 Vyner, Robert (mayor of London): on behalf of servant, (375)562–3 Wake, William: A collection of several discourses against popery, 1045n8 Walker, Edward, 90 Walker, John: exchange with Virginia, xlvi, (704)1019–20, 1021 Walker, Obadiah: about, 196n1; The Greek and Roman History illustrated by coins and medals, 903n33, 1013n3, 1025n4, 1029, 1092; Hildyard introduced to (and Paris goldsmiths), (110)196; Howard donations, xliii, (296)446–7, (312)467–8, (322)481–2; jailed at Maidstone, 876; licensing “Popish-books,” 792, 793–4; manuscripts from Middle East, (315)470–1; RC educational institutions, 790n1; religion and education, 792n2; as tutor, 119n1, 196, 322; two “Eastern Strangers” introduced to, (361)543; University College medal collections, 903 Waller, Edmund: about, 69n1; “Chloris Singing,” 70n4; consolation for death of child, (31)98; council for trade, 706–7; improvement of English language, 915; Poeton recommended to, (70)139; on recommendation of Wase for tutor, xxxix, (57)124; relationship with French ambassador, 280; translation of, by JE, (6)69–70 Waller, Richard: colours of burnt wood, (701)1016–17 Walton, Brian: Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, xlvii, 244n1, 1037 Warburton, Captain, 814, 816 Warburton, George, 1140 Ward, Seth (bishop of Salisbury), 275n13, 570 Warley Magna (manor of Great Warley), 125, 125n3; selling of, 151n2

1234

Index

War of the Grand Alliance, 1089, 1139n3 War of the League of Augsburg, 831n18 Warwick, Joan: to be godparent, (214)328 Warwick, Philip: about, 286n1; on behalf of distressed, (206)318; JE’s financial losses during Interregnum, (175)286–7; war report, pleading resources for sick, (258)390–1, 393 Warwick Priory, 158–9 Wase, Christopher, (I.36)19–20, xxxix; about, 19n1, 123n2; The Adventures of Five Hours (Tuke), (I.40)25; debts of, 773, 815; historiographer royal, 469–70, 473–4; Lucretius project, (I.37)21–2; mention in letter of vindication for slight, 169; poem for The Adventures of Five Hours, 314–15n1, 317n1; relationship with Fuller, 293–4; as tutor, xxxix, 19n1, 123, 529; tutor to George E Jr, 123–4 water-drawing, 1119. See also mechanics and mechanical knowledge weather and natural phenomena: barometer, operation of, 1071; blustering, 839; dirty thaw and ice (October), 151; earthquakes and volcanoes, 989–93; greenhouses, 751–2, 980–1; snow, 1042–3, 1042n2; winter, “warme & calme,” 965–6; winter as severe, xlvi, 727, 732–6, 752, 1042; wintering in Dover Street, 988; winters in town, 265, 603, 732, 895, 918, 1064 Wedderborne, John, 297 Weekes, John, 90 Wells, Benjamin: in biography of father, 961; recommended to Mordaunt, 295–6 Wells, John: biographical notes on, 960–1; The compleat art of dyalling, 960n5; Sciographia, 960n5 Wells, William, 1039 Wendy, Thomas: library donated, 911 Wentworth, Thomas, 115 Westminster Abbey: library of, 908 Westminster Palace: JE’s attendance at, 882. See also Parliament

Weston, Elizabeth Jane, 898 Weston, Richard (1st earl of Portland): portrait of, 904 Wharton, Henry: Troubles and Tryal of ... William Laud, 1022, 1023, 1028 White, Richard, 62 White, Robert (engraver), 1025n5; portrait of Tenison, various bishops, 1051 White, Thomas. See Eyton, Kenrick Whitehall, Thomas, 466n21 Whitehall Palace: accommodations at, 701; gardens, 460; JE dining at, 943; JE’s lodgings in, 784; keeper of the libraries, 1023. See also Charles II Whitely, Roger, 562 widows: charity for, 584; position for son of, 789, 803 Wilhelm, Frederich (duke of Brandenburg), 524 Wilkins, John: about, 205n7; An Essay towards a Real Character, xlix, 1036; “Concerning the Anatomy of Trees,” xlv–xlvi, (177)289–91; death of, 633; devising new riggings, etc., xxxvii, 384–5; and education, 204–5; Of the Principles, 683; in the Protestant lady’s library, 808; The Rule of Faith, (275)411–12 William, duke of Gloucester, 1148 William III (William of Orange): annus mirabilis (1688), xxxvii; attempted assassination, 1118n1; crowned, 883n6; days before James II’s flight, 874; expectation of, 587; Hyde falling out with, 776n4; invasion, 856n1, 863n3, 872n2; Irish expedition, 922, 935; JE’s roles in court, xviii; John Jr joined (Prince of Orange), xxx, xxxviii; regents during absence of, 1089; right to rule, 868; R. Spencer’s back at court, 1132; style of rule, 867; and trial of the bishops, 862 Williams, John: about, 1062n1; bishop of Chichester, 1104, 1105; Boyle biography project, (761)1090–1, 1079n5; Boyle

Index lecture (on divine revelation), (739)1062, 1104, 1105, 1114 Williams, William: about, 832n5; purge of Parliament, 892 Williamson, Joseph: about, 367n1; clerk of the Council, 479–80, 525, 598; recommended Wase for royal historiographer position, (314)469–70, 474; war report, state of prisoners, (244)367–8 Willis, Thomas: Royal Society research, 436 Willoughby, Frances, 257n1. See also [Cyparissa] Willoughby, Francis, 194n1 Wilmot, John (2nd earl of Rochester), 682 Wimbledon House, 822; garden, 309n3 Winch, Humphrey, 599 Windsor Castle: entertainment at, 649–50; woodcarver, 711 Wolfe, Mr (friend of John Jr), 844 women: daughters’ inheritance rights, 870, 941n6, 967n3; key to the library, 1034; list of women of renown, 553n6, 897–8; list of English women writers, 898 Wood, Anthony: about, 705n4; Athenæ Oxonienses, (653)960–1, 705n2; John Wells, biographical notes of, (653)960–1 woodcarver, 711 Woodward, John, 1135 Woolf, Virginia, xxxiii Wotton, William: about, 1027n4; Boyle biography project, xxvii, xlviii, (756)1079–84, (759)1086–7, 1078n5, 1090–1, 1120n6, 1133, 1141n5, 1149n3; “Gardning and Husbandry” of ancients and moderns, xlix, (773)1106–7; ideas and book titles exchanged, (712)1030; printer’s errata, list of, (788)1125–8; proofread Sylva (JE), 1125; recommended for Boyle lecture, 1032, 1038; Reflections upon ancient and modern learning, 1027, 1030, 1091, 1120n6, 1133; Reflections,

1235

with dedicatory inscription, (793)1132–3; thanks, etc., (803)1141; trans. of A new history of ecclesiastical Writers (Du Pin), 1087n10 Wotton House, see colour plate vol. 1; earthquake recorded, 992–3; gardens, 135, 135n1, 233; and George E Jr, 123; George E’s home, 951, 956–7; Holy-days’ entertainment, 1042; home and place of burial of JE, xviii; isolation/solitude of, 1020, 1021, 1023, 1042; after JE’s death, xxi; JE and Mary’s move to, 961, 1018, 1034n9, 1040, 1042, 1049–50; joys of, 135–6; library, xx, xxi, xxi(n18); sale of trees, 969, 1050n10, 1108n1; valued in George E’s estate, 968–9 wounded. See Commission for the Sick and Wounded and Prisoners of War Wray, William, 712 Wren, Christopher: about, 266n7, 338n3; Eton, 1012; Great Fire, 421; hospitals, 1068n9; JE’s dedication to, (806)1144–5, 1120; letter readdressed, xxvii; Parallel of the Antient Architecture (trans. JE), 362–3, 1120, 1144–5; plants from Barbados for Royal Society, xlvi, (435)664–5; recommended, 894; Royal Society research, 436, 582; scholar, 570–1; Sheldonian Theatre, 446, 481n5; Trinity College library, 911n64; tutor for John Jr, (238)362–3; mentioned, 1088 Wren, Matthew: about, 406n1; on behalf of Knight, (270)406, 739; victualling office for the navy, (337)510–11, 511–12 Wright, John Michael, 903 Wriothesley, Thomas, 334n2, 1130n8 Wyche, Cyril, 982, 988, 988–9n1, 1052; as a chief justice, 1074n5; mentioned, 1071, 1087, 1121, 1142 Wyche, Mary (née Evelyn, niece): about, 66n4, 69n2, 144n1, 414n1; congratulations on marriage of, (669)982–3, 998;

1236 correspondence with husband, 1052; marriage negotiations, 414; mentioned, 957, 999, 1143 Wyche, Peter: about, 370n1; improve ment of English language, xxviii, xxxvi, (247)370–3, 915nn89–90, 921 Wye, Roger: greetings, (757)1085 Xenophon: Cyropaedia, 155

Index Yarborough, Henrietta Maria (née Blagge): about, 542n1; gardening, (360)542; play attended with Godolphin, 575n4, 581 York Buildings (Villiers St), 910n61, 1028, 1071, 1117 Young, Anthony, 413 Young, Patrick (Junius), 909–10 Zanchio, Mr., (II.11)43 Zonca, Vittorio, 1119