he that so smites here, will spare hereafter...... ... If the breach be never repaired, it is because God does not see it fit to be; and if you will be of his mind, it will be much the better. But, Sir, if you will pardon my zeal and passion for your comfort, I will readily confess that you have no need of any discourse from me to comfort you. Sir, now you have an opportunity of serving God by passive graces: strive to be an example and a comfort to your lady, and by your wise counsel and comfort, stand in the breaches of your own family, and make it appear that you are more to her than ten sons. Sir, by the assistance of Almighty God, I purpose to wait on you some time next week, that I may be a witness of your christian courage and bravery; and that I may see that God never displeases you, as long as the main stake is preserved, I mean your hopes and confidences of heaven. Sir, I shall pray for all that you can want; that is, some degrees of comfort, and a present mind; and shall always do you honour, and fain also would do you service, if it were in the power, as it is in the affections and desires of, Dear Sir, your most affectionate

and obliged friend and servant, JER. TAYLOR."

"Feb. 27, 1657-8. The promised visit of consolation was very soon paid. We read in the Diary, "Feb. 25. Came Dr. Jeremy Taylor, and my brothers, with other friends, to visit, and condole with us."

This afflictive event led him to undertake the translation of The Golden Book of St. Chrysostom concerning the education of Children, which he published in the same year, dedicating it to both his brothers, "to comfort them on the loss of their children," and giving in the preface an interesting account of his own amiable and promising boy.

The preceding passages from Mr. Evelyn's Diary and Correspondence are sufficient to prove the piety of his mind, his watchfulness, and his desire to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Even his chosen pleasures were amidst

Scenes form'd for contemplation, and to nurse
The growing seeds of wisdom; that suggest,
By every pleasing image they present,
Reflections such as meliorate the heart,

Compose the passions, and exalt the mind.

His garden, (which Lord Bacon accounted the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest refreshment of the spirits of man,) was the favourite source of Evelyn's enjoyment. From boyhood he appears to have been attracted by beautiful gardens, and he describes those which he saw abroad as if he had visited them with great delight. He had lent his taste to his brother George in laying out the gardens at Wotton, and after his arrival at Sayes Court he commenced a course of improvements, which made his pleasure-grounds the subject. of general admiration.

66

He found nothing there but a "rude orchard;" the rest of the estate was one entire field of a hundred acres." His first step was to set out an "oval garden,” which, he says, was "the beginning of all the succeeding gardens, walks, groves, enclosures, and plantations there." Soon after, he laid out an orchard; and in the course of time planted, as he writes, "every hedge and tree, not only in the gardens and groves, but about all the fields and house, since 1653; except those large, old, and hollow elms in the stable court; for it was before all one pasture field to the very garden of the house, which was but small. From which time, also I repaired the ruined

X

house, and built the whole end of the kitchen, the chapel, buttery, my study above and below, cellars, and all the outhouses and walls, still-house, orangery, and made the gardens &c. to my great cost; and better I had done to have pulled all down at first, but it was done at several times."

The principles of ornamental gardening, which now give beauty to our country villas, were not understood in those times. Art had not yet been placed under the tuition of Nature, but the taste of the English, (agreeing with that of the Italians and French,) was pleased with long strait walks, and flower-beds cut out in corresponding figures, round, square, and oval,- with evergreens cut into fantastic shapes, and clipt hedges to form the boundary. "Milton alone," says Horace Walpole, seems, with the prophetic eye of taste, to have conceived, to have foreseen, modern gardening. The vigour of a boundless imagination told him how a plan might be disposed that would embellish nature, and restore art to its proper office, the just improvement or imitation of nature." Describing Eden, he speaks of the river which "with many a rill" watered the garden, and fed

66

.....

Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art

In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon

Pour'd forth!

The poet goes on to draw it as a place "of various view," in which "lawns or level downs were interposed" amidst the "groves of rich trees," with caves

Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine

Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps

Luxuriant.

Less beautiful far, because less natural, was the garden at Sayes Court, which Evelyn doubtless laid out with

formal flower-borders, alleys and terraces, mounds and fountains, in a style similar to that at Wotton, of which he has left a drawing, of the date of 1653, not long after he had employed himself in improving and embellishing it.*

We must not suppose, however, that he was insensible to the beauty of the natural landscape, for many notes might be quoted from his Diary, to show that he was not blind to the beauty of picturesque scenery.

Mr. Evelyn speaks of the pursuits of a gardener as being "furnished with the most innocent, laudable, and purest of earthly felicities;" and the poet Cowley said of him, that he knew no person who enjoyed more happiness in a garden. It was at Sayes Court that he tried those plans for the cultivation of plants and flowers, and made those observations, which he published in his Gardener's Almanac, and French Gardener. There he studied the natures of the "trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste," collecting with patient care the materials for his Sylva, or a Discourse on Forest Trees. The orchard

afforded him the means of making experiments in the culture of fruit- trees, the subject of his Pomona. And, after the example of Solomon, who while he "wrote of the cedar of Libanus, wrote also of the hyssop which grows upon the wall," he did not despise the employments of the kitchen garden, but condescended to write A Discourse on Salads.

Amidst these pursuits, his piety appreciated the wisdom and goodness which had filled the earth with these riches. "It is," he says, "a transporting consideration, to think that the infinitely wise and glorious Author of nature has given to plants such astonishing properties :

* An engraving from this drawing is given in his Memoirs, 4to. vol. ii. p. 94.

such fiery heat in some to warm and cherish; such coolness in others to temper and refresh; such pinguid juice in others, to nourish and feed the body; such quickening acids to compel the appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the obedience of the palate; such vigour, to support and renew our natural strength; such ravishing flavour and perfumes, to recreate and delight us; in short, such spirituous and active force to animate and revive every faculty and part, to all the kinds of human, and I had almost said, heavenly capacity too."

The labours of the "busy bee" added to the interests of Mr. Evelyn's garden, and he was one of the first persons who made use of the ingenious contrivance of a glass hive, of which one was given to him at Oxford, in 1654, by "that most obliging and universally curious Dr. Wilkins."

Mr. Pepys, who speaks of Evelyn's garden as "a most beautiful place," and "a lovely, noble ground," notices, "among other rarities, a hive of bees, so as being hived in glass, you may see the bees making their honey and combs mighty pleasantly." The ponds were stocked with fish; and he kept a tortoise, which he mentions as "a kind of plant-animal.”

All these sources of ever-fresh interest diffused a charm over a country life, and called forth his highest commendations of "gardens and rural employments." He remembered with pleasure how many men of renown had preferred these quiet pursuits to "the pomp and grandeur of other secular business." "Of such we have it recorded," he triumphantly exclaims," that after they had performed the noblest exploits for the public, they sometimes changed their sceptres for the spade, and their purple for the gardener's apron. And of these, some were emperors, kings, consuls, dictators, and wise statesmen, who, amidst the most important affairs, both