"It has

means of correcting this daily increasing evil. not been the late increase of shipping alone," he says, "the multiplication of glass-works, iron furnaces, and the like, from whence this impolitic diminution of our timber has proceeded; but from the disproportionate spreading of our tillage, caused through that prodigious havoc made by such as lately professing themselves against root and branch, were tempted not only to fell and cut down, but utterly to extirpate, demolish, and raze, as it were, all those many goodly woods and forests which our more prudent ancestors left standing, for the ornament and service of their country. And this devastation is now become so epidemical, that unless some favourable expedient offer itself, and a way be seriously and speedily resolved upon for a future store, one of the most glorious and considerable bulwarks of this nation will, within a short time, be totally wanting to it."

This work treats of the culture, qualities, and uses of "all sorts of trees," and is enlivened with a variety of pertinent facts and anecdotes, which had occurred to the author in his reading and experience. It was eminently successful in producing the desired effects. "Infinitely beyond my expectations," he says in the letter just quoted, "it has been the occasion of propagating many millions of useful timber-trees throughout this nation, as I may justify without immodesty, from the many letters of acknowledgment received from gentlemen of the first quality, and others altogether strangers to me. His majesty, Charles the second, was sometimes graciously pleased to take notice of it to me, and that I had, by that book alone, incited a world of planters to repair their broken estates and woods, which the greedy rebels had wasted and made such havoc of."

Ere this time, the trees planted under the immediate

influence of his book have, doubtless, been most of them cut down; but he opened the eyes of the nation to the importance of keeping up their woods and groves; and as an elegant writer (Mr. D'Israeli) observes, "while Britain retains her awful situation among the nations of Europe, the Sylva of Evelyn will endure with her triumphant oaks. . . . . It was an author," he adds, " in his studious retreat, who, casting a prophetic eye on the age we live in, secured the late victories of our naval sovereignty. Inquire at the Admiralty how the fleets of Nelson have been constructed, and they can tell you that it was with the oaks which the genius of Evelyn planted."

After he had thus "endeavoured the improvement of timber and the planting of trees," he next proceeded to the building and decoration of houses, and in the same year published his Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern, being a translation and arrangement of the opinions of ten eminent foreign authors, who had written on the subject, in French, Latin, or Italian. This work was also in high repute, and many editions of it were sold in the author's lifetime. To his knowledge of architecture we may attribute his subsequent appointment to be a commissioner for the repair of St. Paul's cathedral, shortly before the great fire in 1666.

In the same year also he translated and published a work exposing some of the misdeeds of the Jesuits in France; and likewise his Kalendarium Hortense, or the Gardener's Almanack, directing what he is to do monthly throughout the Year, and what Fruits and Flowers are in prime. This volume was dedicated to the poet Cowley, who soon acknowledged it in an essay of mixed prose and verse, entitled The Garden; in which he speaks of himself as partaking of his friend's love of rural pursuits :

"The birds that dance from bough to bough,
And sing above in every tree,

Are not from fears and cares more free
Than we who lie or walk below,

And should by right be singers too.

What prince's quire of music can excel

That which within this shade does dwell?

To which we nothing pay or give :

They, like all other poets, live

Without reward or thanks for their obliging pains!"

"By such publications," says Mr. Evelyn, "I endeavoured to do my countrymen some little service in as natural an order as I could, for the improving and adorning their estates and dwellings, and if possible make them in love with these useful and innocent pleasures, in exchange of a wasteful and ignoble sloth, which, I had observed, so universally corrupted an ingenuous education."

The Sylva was originally a paper read to the Royal Society, and was published by their desire. His treatise on engraving was also printed at the request of the same learned body, when they met privately, before their charter was granted to them in 1662 by Charles the second. He was one of the first promoters, and an original member of that important institution, and was more than once invited to take the office of president; an honour, however, which he declined. He defended the society from many foolish prejudices with which it was assailed in its infancy, was assiduous in his attendance at its meetings, diligent in procuring authentic intelligence from various quarters, and in many of his works warmly recommended it to the public support and regard.

In the year 1664 Mr. Evelyn was appointed one of the Commissioners for the Sick and Wounded in the Dutch

Y

war, in which office he was continued in the second war with Holland. This was a very laborious and distressing employment, and there were some circumstances which rendered it peculiarly painful at that time. Almost the whole labour was in his department, which included all the ports between the river Thames and Portsmouth; he had to travel in all seasons and weathers, both by land and water, in the performance of his duty; and worst of all, the Government withheld from him the means of adequately relieving the necessities of the miserable objects of his care, and administering to their comfort. Some of his letters to officers of state are still extant, in which he laments in the strongest terms the wretchedness which might have been alleviated, and at a comparatively small expense. At one time the arrears of payment to the victuallers were so great that when a party of sick and wounded were landed, they lay some time in the streets, because the publicans refused to receive them, and shut up their houses.

The plague added to these miseries; and his letters at this dreadful period bespeak the strongest feelings of commiseration for the suffering defenders of his country. "One fortnight," he says, "has made me feel the utmost of miseries that can befal a person in my station, and with my affections. To have twenty-five thousand prisoners, and fifteen hundred sick and wounded men to take care of, without one penny of money, and above 20007. indebted." He also begs, that whilst he and his brother commissioners "adventure their persons, and all that is dear to them, in this uncomfortable service, they may not be exposed to ruin, and to a necessity of abandoning their care. They have lost their officers and servants by the pestilence, and are hourly environed with the saddest

objects of perishing people." And in another letter, he thus complains;" It were to betray his Majesty's gracious intentions, and even his honour, to extenuate here. Sir William D'Oily and myself have near ten thousand upon our care, while there seems 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, by our daily conversation, are every moment at the mercy of a raging pestilence, and an unreasonable multitude, if such they may be called, who, having adventured their lives for the public, perish for their reward, and die like dogs in the street unregarded." "Our prisoners beg at us, as a mercy, to knock them on the head, for we have no bread to relieve the dying creatures. I beseech your honour let us not be reputed barbarians, or, if at last we must be so, let me not be the executor of so much inhumanity, when the price of one good subject's life is rightly considered of more value than the wealth of the Indies."

In the execution of this painful office, having seen the great inconvenience of distributing the sick and wounded in private houses, he used all his influence to procure an infirmary to be founded for seamen, and eventually, though after much delay, succeeded.

In 1665 the plague made its appearance in London. It is noted in Mr. Evelyn's Diary on the 16th of July: "There died of the plague in London this week, 1100, and in the week following, above 2000. Two houses were shut up in our parish." In the beginning of the next month he sent his son to Wotton, "for fear of the pestilence ;" and soon after he says: "The contagion still increasing, and growing now all about us, I sent my wife and whole family (two or three necessary