who made it his pastime to ride in a wheelbarrow through the holly hedge, which Evelyn speaks of as the pride of his garden.

Of his own pursuits and occupations at Wotton, he has left us an account in a letter to Dr. Bohun, dated Wotton 18th of January, 1697. "Having been told," he says, "that you have lately enquired what is become of your now old friends of Sayes Court, the date hereof will acquaint you where they are, and the sequel much of what they do and think." He then describes his little grandson's love of books, and his own regret at being so far from "the conversation of the learned; so that without books," he says, "and the best wife and brother in the world, I were to be pitied; but with these subsidiaries, and the revising some of my old impertinences, to which I am adding a Discourse I made on Medals (lying by me long before Obadiah Walker's Treatise appeared), I pass some of my attic nights, if I may be so vain as to name them with the author of those criticisms. For the rest, I am planting an evergreen grove here. . . . . We have a very convenient apartment, of five rooms together, besides a pretty closet, which we have furnished with the spoils of Sayes Court, and is the raree-show of the whole neighbourhood, and in truth we live very easy as to all domestic cares. Wednesday and Saturday nights we call lecture nights, when my wife and myself take our turns to read the packets of all the news sent constantly from London, which serves us for discourse till fresh news comes; and so you have the history of a very old man, and his no young companion, whose society I have enjoyed more to my satisfaction these three years here, than in almost fifty before. But I am now every day trussing up to be gone, I hope to a better place."

In 1695 he had the satisfaction of laying the foun

dation stone of Greenwich hospital. The total want of any asylum for the sick and wounded defenders of his country, and the misery to which they were thereby exposed, had induced him to urge upon the government the erection of such an institution; and therefore it was with peculiar pleasure that he laid the first stone of that splendid establishment.

In the year 1699, to his "exceeding grief and affliction," he followed to the grave his only remaining son, a man of much ability and reputation, who died in the forty-fifth year of his age. In the same year, his " thy brother, a religious, sober, temperate, and most hospitable man," died at Wotton in the eighty-third year of his age, leaving to him the family estate.

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His journal still continued to receive his devout thoughts and wishes on his birthdays, and some other particular occasions, but as they are very similar to those already quoted, it is not necessary to introduce them here. It may be right to observe, however, that he viewed with horror the "unchristian custom of duelling," and wished that if religious restraints could not repress it, some "severe remedy" might be provided by law. And in 1699, speaking of the robberies and murders which were committed, and of the atheism, profaneness, and blasphemy which then abounded, he commends to the blessing of God a Society formed in London, for the purpose of repressing these serious provocations, and of putting the laws in more strict execution against offenders." "Divers persons of quality entered into this Society for reformation of manners, and some lectures were set up, particularly in the city of London."*

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* These societies were chiefly conducted by Dr. (afterwards bishop Beveridge), and Dr. Horneck of the Savoy. They were associations of persons who met frequently for devotion and religious instruction,

"In the year 1700 we meet with the following letter to his friend Mr. Pepys, descriptive of his feelings and manner of life. "Wotton, July 22.-I could no longer suffer this old servant of mine to pass and repass so near Clapham, without a particular account of your health, and all your happy family. You will now enquire what do I do here? Why, as the patriarchs of old, I pass the day in the fields, among horses and oxen, sheep and COWS. We have, thank God, finished our hay harvest prosperously. I am looking after my hinds, providing carriage and tackle against reaping time and sowing. What shall I say more, I take pleasure in my farm, which Cicero, you know, reckons amongst the most becoming diversions of old age; and so I render it. This without; now within doors, never was any matron more busy than my wife, disposing of our plain country furniture for a naked old extravagant house, suitable to our employments. She has a dairy and distaffs, and is become a very Sabine. 'But can you thus hold out?' will my friend say: Is philosophy, Gresham College, and the example of Mr. Pepys, and the agreeable conversation of York Buildings, quite forgotten and abandoned?' -No, no! Our nature is not so easily changed. Know I have been arranging of no fewer than thirty large cases of books, destined for a competent standing library, during four or five days, wholly destitute of my young coand who resolved to inform the magistrates of swearers, drunkards, profaners of the Lord's day, and frequenters of the haunts of profligacy. About the same time the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was formed for the purpose of educating poor children, and distributing religious books; and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was established for settling schools in our Plantations, and for sending Missionaries to such parts of our Colonies as were not able to provide pastors for themselves. See BURNET'S Own Times, Book VII. paragraph on Societies for Reformation.

adjutor, who, upon some pretence of being much engaged in the mathematics, and desiring he may continue his course at Oxford till the beginning of August, I have wholly left it to him. You will now suspect something by this disordered hand; and truly I was too happy in these little domestic affairs, when on a sudden, as I was about my books in the library, I found myself sorely attacked with a shivering, followed by a feverish disposition, and a strangury so as to have kept, not my chamber only, but my bed, till very lately, and with just so much strength as to scribble these lines to you. For the rest I give God thanks, for this gracious warning, my great age calling upon me to prepare for my journey, every day expecting it, who have still enjoyed a wonderful course of bodily health for forty years. ... And with much ado I have held out thus far. Your prayers I need not beg, you are so charitable. I beseech you bear with the blots and impertinence of this from," &c.

A few weeks after, he wrote another letter to Mr. Pepys, thanking him cordially for his friendly religious counsel, and assuring him that he was not without the most serious reflections, and that he prayed Almighty God to prepare them both for another and a better state.

Mr. Evelyn, on his eightieth birthday (in 1700), was still able to thank God that his "sight, hearing, and other senses and faculties were tolerable, which I implore God to continue," he adds, "with the pardon of my sins past, and grace to acknowledge by my improvement of his goodness the ensuing year, if it be his pleasure to protract my life, that I may be better prepared for my last day, through the infinite merits of my blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus. Amen."

In 1702 he was elected a member of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which was

then lately incorporated. "We sent a young divine," he says, "to New York." On his birthday in the same year, he writes thus:-"Oct. 31.-Arrived now to the eighty-second year of my age; having read over all that passed since this day twelvemonth in these notes, I render solemn thanks to the Lord, imploring the pardon of my past sins and the assistance of his grace,-making new resolutions, and imploring that he will continue his assistance, and prepare me for my blessed Saviour's coming, that I may obtain a comfortable departure after so long a term as has hitherto been indulged me. I find by many infirmities this year that I much decline; and yet, of his infinite mercy, retain my intellects and senses in great measure above most of my age. I have this year repaired much of the mansion house, and several of the tenants' houses, and paid some of my debts and engagements. My wife, children, and family in health; for all which I most solemnly beseech God to accept hese my acknowledgments, that if it be his holy will to continue me yet longer, it may be to the praise of his infinite grace, and salvation of my soul. Amen."

Mr. Evelyn outlived most of his dearest friends; his brothers, his sisters, and all his children save one, were no more, and the friendships formed in the earlier part of his life were now pretty nearly extinct. Mr. Boyle, "that pious admirable christian and excellent philosopher," who "honoured him with his particular esteem for nearly forty years," died in December 1690. Most of the original members of the Royal Society had left him behind. And amongst his religious acquaintance, few of those whom he speaks of in terms of affection remained. Bishop Gunning, whose whole character and conversation he admired, and bishop Earle, "a most humble, meek, but cheerful man, an excellent scholar, and rare preacher,