Chapter IV: Introduction: I (2)

In January, 1658, heavy sorrow fell upon Evelyn by the death of his younger son, an infant prodigy, and a sad and wonderful example of a young brain being terribly overtaxed. ‘After six fits of a quartan ague with which it pleased God to visite him, died my dear Son Richard, to our inexpressible grief and affliction, 5 yeares and 3 days old onely, but at that tender age a prodigy for witt and understanding; for beauty of body a very angel; for endowment of mind of incredible and rare hopes. To give onely a little taste of them, and thereby glory to God, he had learn’d all this catechisme who out of the mouths of babes and infants does sometimes perfect his praises: at 2 years and a halfe old he could perfectly read any of ye English, Latine, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the first three languages exactly. He had before the 5th yeare, or in that yeare, not onely skill to reade most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of ye irregular; learn’d out “Puerilis,” got by heart almost ye entire vocabularie of Latine and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turne English into Latine, and _vice versâ_, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius’s Janua; began himselfe to write legibly, and had a stronge passion for Greeke. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of playes, which he would also act; and when seeing a Plautus in one’s hand, he ask’d what booke it was, and being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals, for he had read Æsop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would make lines and demonstrate them. As to his piety, astonishing were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and thus early, he understood ye historical part of ye Bible and New Testament to a wonder, how Christ came to redeeme mankind, and how comprehending these necessarys himselfe, his godfathers were discharg’d of their promise. These and like illuminations, far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettinesse of his adresse and behaviour, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many days a Quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder, for Christ had said that man should not live by bread alone, but by ye Word of God. He would of himselfe select ye most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job, to reade to his mayde during his sicknesse, telling her when she pitied him, that all God’s children must suffer affliction. He declaim’d against ye vanities of the world before he had seene any...... How thankfully would he receive admonition, how soone be reconciled! how indifferent, yet continually chereful! He would give grave advice to his Brother John, beare with his impertinencies, and say he was but a child!’ Even allowing for Evelyn’s tendency to exaggeration, this is surely one of the very saddest stories about a child of tender years, reared in a wrong manner, that has ever been written in the English language. This loss was no doubt the occasion of his writing his fourth work, _The Golden Book of St. John Chrysostom, concerning the Education of Children. Translated out of the Greek_, which was published in September, 1658. A further relief from grief was also found in the translation of _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 N. de Bonnefons, and now transplanted into English by Philocepos_.

It must have gratified his royalist feelings when, on 22 Oct. 1658, he ‘saw ye superb funerall of ye Protector.’ He remarks that ‘it was the joyfullest funerall I ever saw, for there were none that cried but dogs, which the soldiers hooted away with a barbarous noise, drinking and taking tobacco in the streets as they went.’ Not long after this, on 25 April 1659, he notices ‘a wonderfull and suddaine change in ye face of ye publiq: ye new Protector Richard slighted, several pretenders and parties strive for the government: all anarchy and confusion; Lord have mercy on us!’ For six months things drifted on, till on 11 Oct. ‘the Armie now turn’d out the Parliament. We had now no government in the nation; all in confusion; no magistrate either own’d or pretended, but ye soldiers, and they not agreed. God almighty have mercy on and settle us!’

Evelyn apparently now thought the time ripe for him to venture; hence, during 1659, he published _A Character of England as it was lately presented in a Letter to a Noble Man of France_, and also _An Apology for the Royal Party, written in a Letter to a person of the late Council of State, by a Lover of Peace and of his Country. With a Touch at the Pretended “Plea for the Army_.” Of the latter he remarks in his Diary: ‘Nov. 7th. was publish’d my bold “Apoligie for the King” in this time of danger, when it was capital to speake or write in favour of him. It was twice printed, so universaly it took.’ Encouraged by the success of this work, he began to intrigue with Colonel Morley, Lieutenant of the Tower, and Fay, Governor of Portsmouth, in the interest of the exiled Charles; but Morley shrank from declaring for the King, and General Monk returning from Scotland to London, broke down the gates of the city, ‘marches to White-hall, dissipates that nest of robbers, and convenes the old Parliament, the Rump Parliament (so called as retaining some few rotten members of ye other) being dissolv’d; and for joy whereoff were many thousands of rumps roasted publiqly in ye streets at the bonfires this night, with ringing of bells and universal jubilee. This was the first good omen.’

From the February till the April following thereon Evelyn was confined to bed with ague and its after effects, but found strength to write and publish a pamphlet, _The late News from Brussels unmasked, and His Majesty vindicated from the base calumny and scandal therein fixed on him_, ‘in defence of his Majesty, against a wicked forg’d paper, pretended to be sent from Bruxells to defame his Majesties person and vertues, and render him odious, now when everybody was in hope and expectation of the General and Parliament recalling him, and establishing ye government on its antient and right basis.’ Early in May came the tidings that the King’s application for restoration had been accepted and acknowledged by the Parliament ‘after a most bloudy and unreasonable rebellion of neare 20 years,’ and before the end of the month Evelyn was an eye-witness of the triumphal entry of the new king into his capital. ‘29th. This day his Majestie Charles the Second came to London after a sad and long exile and calamitous suffering both of the King and Church, being 17 years. This was also his birthday, and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote, brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible joy; the wayes strew’d with flowers, the bells ringing, the streets hung with tapissry, fountaines running with wine; the Maior, Aldermen, and all the Companies in their liveries, chaines of gold, and banners; Lords and Nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet; the windowes and balconies all set with ladies; trumpets, music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as from Rochester, so as they were seven houres in passing the citty, even from 2 in ye afternoone till 9 at night. I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and bless’d God. And all this was don without one drop of bloud shed, and by that very army which rebell’d against him; but it was ye Lord’s doing, for such a restoration was never mention’d in any history antient or modern, since the returne of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity; nor so joyfull a day and so bright ever seene in this nation, this hapning when to expect or effect it was past all human policy.’

Despite his dilettantism and dabbling in science, philosophy and letters, Evelyn had for years past felt the desirability of having some sort of fixed employment. Previous to this, during 1659, he had communicated to the Hon. Robert Boyle, son of the Earl of Cork, a scheme for founding a philosophic and mathematical college or fraternity, and had even arranged with his wife that they should live asunder, in two separate apartments. The Restoration, however, put a stop to this scheme, which then evolved itself, soon afterwards, into the foundation of the Royal Society, Boyle and Evelyn being two of the most prominent original Fellows.

V

_Evelyn’s Career after the Restoration. (1660-1685)._

Evelyn was about forty years of age when the Restoration changed the whole prospects of his still long life. He had been a devoted Royalist, though it can not be denied that his zeal in this respect was ever tempered with a vast amount of caution and prudence. In addition to what interest he had earned by his own actions, he had the far more powerful influence of his father-in-law who had, like Charles himself, been exiled for nineteen years. Mrs. Evelyn was promised the appointment of lady of the jewels to the future Queen, which she never received; and Evelyn might have had the honour of knighthood of the Bath, but declined it. He was present at the Coronation in Westminster Abbey on St. George’s Day, 1661, and had prepared and printed a _Panegyric_ poem on the occasion, a screed of bombastic doggerel in fulsome praise of the King. He was a frequent visitor at the Court, and loved to sun himself in the royal presence. One of the finest examples of this feature of Evelyn’s character is his _Fumifugium_, published in 1661, which will be more particularly referred to later on, a work which marks the real commencement of his literary career.

In 1661, also, Evelyn wrote a pamphlet entitled _Tyrannus or the Mode_, an invective against ‘our so much affecting the French’ in dress, and he was pleased with the idea that afterwards, in 1666, a change in costume then adopted by the King and court was due to this cause. He, too, donned and went to office in ‘the vest and surcoat and tunic as ’twas call’d, after his Majesty had brought the whole Court to it. It was a comely and manly habit, too good to hold, it being impossible for us in good earnest to leave ye Monsieurs vanities long.’

At length employment, at first unpaid, in the public service fell to Evelyn in May, 1662, when along with ‘divers gentlemen of quality,’ he was appointed one of the Commissioners ‘for reforming the buildings, wayes, streetes, and incumbrances, and regulating the hackney coaches in the Citty of London.’ About this same time he was also on the Commission appointed ‘about Charitable uses, and particularly to enquire how the Citty had dispos’d of the revenues of Gressham College,’ and in the original grant of the Charter of the Royal Society he was nominated by the King to be on its Council. Among the other Commissions upon which he shortly sat were those on Sewers, and on the regulation of the Mint at the Tower; but it was not till 27 Oct. 1664 that he received a paid appointment as one of the four Commissioners for the care of the sick and wounded prisoners to be made in the war declared against Holland. For this the remuneration was ‘a Salary £1,200 a year amongst us, besides extraordinaries for our care and attention in time of station, each of us being appointed to a particular district, mine falling out to be Kent and Sussex.’

Before this, however, an event had occurred which must have given intense gratification to Evelyn, when on 30th April, 1663, ‘Came his Majesty to honour my poore villa with his presence, viewing the gardens and even every roome of the house, and was pleas’d to take a small refreshment. There were with him the Duke of Richmond, E. of St. Albans, Lord Lauderdale, and several persons of Quality.’

The year 1664 was a busy one for Evelyn, as he then brought out his two great masterpieces _Sylva_ and the _Kalendarium Hortense_, of which more anon, as well as the translation of a French work on Architecture. His official duties in connection with the maintainance of the Dutch prisoners also became so heavy that the charges came to £1,000 a week. The Savoy Hospital was filled with them, and a privy seal grant of £20,000 was made to carry on the work; but the expenses increasing reached £7,000 a week, and Evelyn had hard work to get money from the treasury. Harassed with anxieties of this sort, he frequently went ‘to ye Royal Society to refreshe among ye philosophers’ where he found solace in serving along with Dryden, Waller, and others on a Committee for the improvement of the English language.

In the following year the dreadful plague broke out, when he and one other Commissioner were left to deal with the task of providing for the sick and wounded prisoners. From 1,000 deaths in a week in the middle of July, the mortality increased to near 10,000 by the beginning of September, so he sent his wife and family to his brother at Wotton, and remained at work, ‘being resolved to stay at my house myselfe; and to looke after my charge, trusting in the providence and goodnesse of God.’ Prisoners poured in in larger numbers than he could receive and guard in fit places, and he was continually forced to importune for money lest the prisoners should starve. It was then, perhaps, that Evelyn was thrown most in contact with his intimate friend Pepys, for both of them remained steadfast when others had fled. And they had their reward in coming safely through their trial of faithfulness to official duty. ‘Now blessed be God,’ he writes on 31 Dec. 1665, ‘for his extraordinary mercies and preservation of me this yeare, when thousands and ten thousands perish’d and were swept away on each side of me.’

This hard work was a source of loss to Evelyn, as from time to time he advanced monies of his own to supply provisions for the needy committed to his care: and subsequent petitions for reinbursement were only partially successful. But he was rewarded by the sunny warmth of that royal favour which cost nothing, because when the King returned from Oxford to Hampton Court and Evelyn went to wait upon his Majesty there at the end of January, 1666, he duly records how ‘he ran towards me, and in a most gracious manner gave me his hand to kisse, with many thanks for my care and faithfulnesse in his service in a time of such greate danger, when every body fled their employments.’ Poor Evelyn seems to have been rather easily duped in this sort of way. ‘Then the Duke (of Albemarle) came towards me and embrac’d me with much kindnesse, telling me if he had thought my danger would have been so greate, he would not have suffer’d his Majesty to employ me in that station.’ And so on, ‘after which I got home, not being very well in health.’ It certainly was such ridiculously insincere treatment that it might well have caused immediate sickening in one of robust health.

It was, forsooth, only in very minor matters that Evelyn profited by the royal favour or by his courtiership. In April, 1666, Charles informed him that he must now be sworn for a Justice of the Peace, (‘the office in the world I had most industriously avoided, in regard of the perpetual trouble thereoff in these numerous parishes’), and he only escaped this infliction by humbly desiring to be excused from fresh duties inconsistent with the other service he was engaged in. So excused he was, by royal favour, for which he ‘rendered his Majesty many thanks.’ And on that same day he declined re-election to the Council of the Royal Society for the following year on ‘earnest suite’ of other affairs; for he had to be consistent in such different matters that would have engaged a portion of his time.

Besides his work in connection with prisoners and the Mint he was shortly afterwards nominated one of the Commissioners for regulating the farming and making of saltpetre and gunpowder throughout Britain, an appointment which was all the more appropriate from the fact that his grandfather, George Evelyn of Long Ditton and Wotton (1530-1603), had been the first to introduce the manufacture of gunpowder into England, when he established mills on both of his properties. He was also appointed one of the three Surveyors of the repairs of St. Paul’s Cathedral, ‘and to consider of a model for the new building, or, if it might be, repairing of the steeple, which was most decay’d.’

With hands and head fully occupied with business affairs he found time for other work of a useful nature, while still having plenty of leisure for social duties and enjoyments. In this respect he forms a good example of the well-known truth that it is always the busiest men who can spare most time for matters lying outside of their special grooves of work. Thus in September, 1665, he drew up a scheme for erecting an infirmary at Chatham, in which he was supported by his friend Pepys, then a high official in the Navy Department and like himself a shrewd man of business and method, and therefore finding time for other than purely routine official work; while in August, 1666, he entreated the Lord Chancellor ‘to visite the Hospital of the Savoy, and reduce it (after ye greate abuse that had been continu’d) to its original institution for ye benefit of the poore, which he promis’d to do.’

But nothing came from either of these schemes, for on 2nd. Sept. ‘this fatal night about ten, began the deplorable fire neere Fish Streete in London.’ It raged by day and by night,--‘(if I may call that night which was light as day for 10 miles round about, after a dreadful manner).’ Nothing could be done to stay its progress, and the citizens were awe-stricken and paralyzed by fear. ‘The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonish’d, that from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirr’d to quench it, so that there was nothing heard or seene but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a strange consternation there was upon them, so as it burned both in breadth and length, the churches, publics halls, Exchange, hospitals, monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner, from house to house and streete to streete, at great distances one from ye other; for ye heate with a long set of faire and warm weather had even ignited the aire and prepar’d the materials to conceive the fire, which devour’d after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and every thing. Here we saw the Thames cover’d with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save, as, on ye other, ye carts etc., carrying out to the fields, which for many miles were strew’d with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as happly the world had not seene since the foundation of it, nor be outdon till the universal conflagration thereof. All the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seene above 40 miles round about for many nights. God grant mine eyes may never behold the like, who now saw above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, ye shreiking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storme, and the aire all about so hot and inflam’d that at the last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc’d to stand and let ye flames burn on, which they did for neere two miles in lengh and one in breadh. The clowds also of smoke were dismall and reach’d upon computation neer 50 miles in length. Thus I left it this afternoone burning, a resemblance of Sodom, or the last day. It forcibly call’d to my mind that passage--_non enim hic habemus stabilem civitatem_: the ruines resembling the picture of Troy. London was, but is no more! Thus I returned.’

For days the conflagration raged, although the whole situation might probably have been saved if the advice of seamen, then as now amongst the bravest and most practical of Britain’s sons, had been followed. When the court suburb of Whitehall began to be threatened,--‘but oh, the confusion there was then at the Court!’--the gentlemen, ‘who hitherto had stood as men intoxicated, with their hands acrosse,.... began to consider that nothing was likely to put a stop but the blowing up of so many houses as might make a wider gap than any had yet been made by the ordinary method of pulling them downe with engines; this some stout seamen propros’d early enough to have sav’d neere ye whole citty, but this some tenacious and avaritious men, aldermen, etc., would not permitt, because their houses must have been of the first.’ At length, however, the fire died out, the houseless citizens finding refuge in tents and miserable huts and hovels hastily erected about St. George’s fields and Moorfields as far as Highgate. But Evelyn’s abode had remained untouched. From reviewing the now poverty-striken people ‘in this calamitous condition I return’d with a sad heart to my house, blessing and adoring the distinguishing mercy of God to me and mine, who in the midst of all this ruine was like Lot, in my little Zoar, safe and sound.’

The plague and the fire were held to be the visitation of God’s anger, and Evelyn evidently thought the heavy punishment richly merited. ‘Oct. 10th. This day was order’d a generall fast thro’ the Nation, to humble us on ye late dreadfull conflagration, added to the plague and warr, the most dismall judgments that could be inflicted, but whiche indeed we highly deserv’d for our prodigious ingratitude, burning lusts, dissolute Court, profane and abominable lives, under such dispensations of God’s continu’d favour in restoring Church, Prince, and People from our late intestine calamities, of which we were altogether unmindfull, even to astonishment.’

Like Wren and Hooke, Evelyn submitted a scheme for the rebuilding of London upon an improved plan, but the new city was formed mainly upon the old lines.

Meanwhile the Dutch fleet was lying off the mouth of the Thames. Though England then happily produced all the food she required, yet the city became ‘exceedingly distress’d for want of fuell’ because of the traffic up and down the estuary being interrupted. Hence Evelyn was appointed one of a Committee to search the environs of London and find if any peat or turf were fit for use. Experiments were made with _houllies_ or briquettes of charcoal dust and loam in the Dutch manner, and Evelyn shewed to many proof of his ‘new fuell, which was very glowing and without smoke or ill smell’. But the process never caught on, and was abandoned as giving no promise of commercial success.

Evelyn’s account against the Treasury now amounted to above £34,000, and he continued to urge for payment of it, or for the settlement of unpaid portions of it, as late as 1702, about three years before his death. Whether this straitened his means or not, he was at any rate eager to make money by speculation. So in 1667 he joined Sir John Kiviet, a Dutch Orangeman who had come over to England for protection and had been knighted by King Charles, in a scheme for making bricks on a large scale. Perhaps as a sort of advertisement of this commercial enterprise he subscribed 50,000 bricks towards building a college for the Royal Society. It was a big scheme, including the embankment of the river from the Tower to the Temple, and if successful it would have brought much gain to the partners.

Evelyn says nothing about the ultimate results of his undertaking, but Pepys furnishes the necessary clue in his diary for September, 1668--‘23d. At noon comes Mr Evelyn to me, about some business with the office, and there in discourse tell me of his loss, to the value of £500, which he hath met with in a late attempt of making of bricks upon an adventure with others, by which he presumed to have got a great deal of money; so that I see the most ingenious man may sometimes be mistaken’. Kiviet a year or two later on had a fresh scheme for draining marshy lands ‘with the hopes of a rich harvest of hemp and cole seed’, but Evelyn took no share in this new adventure.

In July 1669 his University, Oxford, bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law, but he had still no permanent official appointment, his Commissionerships now being completed. Early in May 1670 he went ‘to London concerning the office of Latine Secretary to his Majesty, a place of more honor than dignitie and profit, the revertion of which he had promised me’, though the promise was not fulfilled.

Early in 1669, it had been proposed to Evelyn by Lord Arlington that he should write a history of the Dutch War, but he declined. Towards the middle of the following year, however, pressure was brought on him to undertake the work. ‘After dinner Lord (Arlington) communicated to me his Majesty’s desire that I would engage to write the History of our late War with the Hollanders, which I had hitherto declin’d; this I found was ill-taken, and that I should disoblige his Majesty, who had made choice of me to do him this service, and if I would undertake it, I should have all the assistance the Secretary’s office and others could give me, with other encouragements, which I could not decently refuse’. This work was never completed, so much as was written by way of introduction being subsequently published in 1674 as _Navigation and Commerce, their Original and Progress_.

Evelyn was, however, not to have much longer to wait for regular official employment, as on 28 February, 1671, ‘The Treasurer acquainted me that his Majesty was graciously pleas’d to nominate me one of the Council of Forraine Plantations, and give me a salary of £500 per ann. to encourage me’. He was pleased with his appointment in connection with our Colonies, ‘a considerable honour, the others in the Council being chiefly Noblemen, and Officers of State’. In the following year the scope of this department was increased by adding the Council of Trade to its duties. He at once went to thank the Treasurer and Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, whose favour he possessed though he ‘cultivated neither of their friendships by any meane submissions’. And he failed not, of course, to kiss the King’s hand on being made one of that newly established Council. But Royalist though he was, he could not be blind to the profligacy of the Court and of the King, to whose Majesty his works were so grandiloquently dedicated.

On one occasion after submitting progress of his History to the King, he says ‘thence walk’d with him thro’ St. James’s Parke to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar discourse between... and Mrs. Nellie as they cal’d an impudent comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the wall, and... standing on ye greene walke under it. I was heartily sorry at the scene. Thence the King walked to the Dutchess of Cleaveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation’. Evelyn is usually so strict about any reference to the proprieties that it is hard to understand why this particular interview between King Charles and Nell Gwynne should be mentioned so circumstantially. As for the Court, when it went abroad, say to Newmarket, one might have ‘found ye jolly blades racing, dauncing, feasting, and revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandon’d rout, than a Christian Court.’

Early in 1672 his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, resigned office as Clerk of the Council, a place which his Majesty had years before promised to Evelyn; but he was induced to give up this lien on renewal of the lease of Sayes Court for 99 years, although the King’s written engagement to grant the estate in fee-farme is still extant at Wotton. In 1673 Browne became Master of the Trinity House, and Evelyn was sworn in as a younger Brother, having in the previous autumn been chosen Secretary to the Royal Society: and two months later his son John, now 18 years of age, was also made a younger brother of Trinity House. Evelyn’s life seems now to have glided on very quietly. Much of his time was taken up with the colonial and commercial work controlled by the Council of Plantations and Trade, though he still found leisure for literary work, scientific recreation, and other affairs. His mind apparently about this time became greatly attracted towards religious subjects, and it seems more than probable that this may (in part, at any rate) have been due to a very strong though purely platonic attachment he now formed to Miss Blagg, one of the Queen’s Maids of Honour, who married Mr. Sydney, afterwards Lord Godolphin, in 1675 and died in childbed in 1678 at the early age of twenty five. His _Life of Mrs Godolphin_, never published till 1847, was ‘design’d to consecrate her worthy life to posterity.’ In February 1680 his son John, now 23 years of age and imitating his father’s literary beginning as a translator, was married to Martha Spencer, step-daughter of Sir John Stonehouse. That Evelyn was now fairly well off is evident from the terms of the jointure and marriage contracts then made. ‘The lady was to bring £5,000 in consideration of a settlement of £500 a yeare present maintainence, which was likewise to be her jointure, and £500 a yeare after myne and my Wife’s decease. But with God’s blessing it will be at the least £1000 a yeare more in a few yeares.’ Always of business habits, Evelyn particularly records how, in the following month, he went ‘To London, to receive £3,000 of my daughter-in-law’s portion, which was paid in gold.’

The deeply religious caste of thought above alluded to as now becoming very noticeable in Evelyn shewed itself strongly in the autumn of 1680. ‘I went to London to be private, my birthday being ye next day, and I now arriv’d at my sixtieth year, on which I began a more solemn survey of my whole life, in order to the making and confirming my peace with God, by an accurate scrutinie of all my actions past, as far as I was able to call them to mind. How difficult and uncertaine, yet how necessary a work! The Lord be mercifull to me and accept me! Who can tell how oft he offendeth?... I began and spent the whole weeke in examining my life, begging pardon for my faults, assistance and blessing for the future, that I might in some sort be prepar’d for the time that now drew neere, and not have the greater work to begin when one can worke no longer. The Lord Jesus help and assist me! I therefore stirr’d little abroad till the 5 November..... I participated of ye blessed communion, finishing and confirming my resolutions of giving myselfe up more intirely to God, to whom I had now most solemnly devoted the rest of the poore remainder of life in this world; the Lord enabling me, who am an unprofitable servant, a miserable sinner, yet depending on his infinite goodnesse and mercy accepting my endeavours.’

It were well if all men, even before attaining 60 years of age, could bring themselves to such periods of reflection on past and present acts, and even though all the good resolves may not have been quite rigidly acted up to. And even in Evelyn’s case, at any rate so far as his diary shews, he appears afterwards to have continued just as much a man of the world as he was before these solemn resolutions, although the glamour of being a courtier seems perhaps to have henceforth become less rose-coloured. A trivial incident happening while he was supping one night at Lady Arlington’s, in June 1683, gave rise to the reflection that ‘By this one may take an estimate of the extream slavery and subjection that courtiers live in, who have not time to eate and drink at their pleasure. It put me in mind of Horace’s Mouse, and to blesse God for my owne private condition.’ Twenty years previously he would not have thought or said this.

Evelyn took a leading part in the negociations for the repurchase of Chelsea College for £1,300 from the Royal Society to whom it had been recently presented by the King, and for the establishment of a hospital for old soldiers there at a cost of £20,000 with an endowment of £5,000 a year.

Several violent fits of ague having afflicted him during the winter of 1681-82, to cure which ‘recourse was had to bathing my legs in milk up to ye knees, made as hot as I could endure it’, Evelyn made his will and put all his affairs in order ‘that now growing in yeares, I might have none of the secular things and concerns to distract me when it should please Almighty God to call me from this transitory life’. In November 1682 he was asked by many friends to stand for election as president of the Royal Society, in succession to Sir Christopher Wren, but pleading ‘remote dwelling, and now frequent infirmities’ he declined the proffered honour. Subsequently, in 1690, he had actually, ‘been chosen President of the Royal Society’, but desired to decline it ‘and with greate difficulty devolv’d the election on Sir Robert Southwell, Secretary of State to King William in Ireland.’ For a third time, in November 1693, the honour was again offered--‘Much importun’d to take the office of President of the Royal Society, but I againe declin’d it.’

On 12th February 1683 his father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, who had been created a baronet in 1649, and to whose influence he owed much, died at his house at Sayes Court, leaving Mrs. Evelyn as his sole heiress. Meanwhile grandchildren had been born to Evelyn, some of whom soon died in infancy. His appointment on the Council of Plantations and Trade seems to have lapsed before this time, for no further mention is made in his diary of Council meetings, and he seems to have resided chiefly at Sayes Court, gardening and spending his time in scholarly leisure and recreation. This surmise is borne out by what he says in 1683, ‘Oct. 4th. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countesse of Arlington, of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtaine by applying myselfe to his Majesty on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the City charter; the proposal made me I wholly declin’d, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a Citty, the consequence wheroff may be so much to his prejudice; so I return’d home.’

On 6th February 1685 King Charles II. died after an apoplectic fit, and his brother James, Duke of York, ascended the throne. Evelyn comments fully on the virtues and vices of the late monarch. ‘He would doubtless have been an excellent Prince had he been less addicted to women, who made him uneasy, and allways in want to supply their immeasurable profusion, to ye detriment of many indigent persons who had signaly serv’d both him and his father..... He was ever kind to me, and very gracious upon all occasions, and therefore I cannot, without ingratitude, but deplore his loss, which for many respects, as well as duty, I do with all my soul.’

VI

_Evelyn’s Declining Years_ (1685-1706).

With the accession of James II., Evelyn was again to feel the sunny warmth of royal favour in the form of an official appointment. But previous to this he had to suffer a heavy loss by the death from small-pox of his eldest daughter Mary, in the 19th year of her age, who had been born at Wotton in the same room as her father had first seen the light.

In September 1685 Evelyn was informed that on Lord Clarendon, Lord Privy Seal, going to assume the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland the King had nominated him as one of the Commissioners to execute the office of Privy Seal during such appointment; and early in December he was ‘put into the new Commission of Sewers.’ It was nearly Christmas before he kissed hands on receiving the patent for executing this office and entered on its duties along with the two other Commissioners. They performed these till the 10th March 1687, when the King relieved them with compliments on their ‘faithfull and loyal service, with many gracious expressions to this effect’, and bestowed the seal on Lord Arundel of Wardour, a zealous Roman Catholic.

In the early days of James II’s reign the patronage which seemed to be coming in Evelyn’s direction appears to have, not unnaturally perhaps, somewhat coloured his opinion as to the new monarch’s capacity and disposition. After a journey undertaken with Pepys to Windsor, Winchester, and Portsmouth in September 1685, whither the King went to view the state of the fortifications, he recorded that ‘what I observ’d in this journey, is that infinite industry, sedulity, gravity, and greate understanding and experience of affairs, in his Majesty, that I cannot but predict much happiness to ye nation, as to its political government; and if he so persist, there could be nothing more desir’d to accomplish our prosperity, but that he was of the national church.’ Biassed and prejudiced in the royal favour as he then temporarily was, this account of King James proved so totally incorrect that it is a wonder Evelyn retained it in the compilation which he left as his _Diary_. The only explanation seems to be that he wished to record his prevision as regards Roman Catholicism proving the main rock upon which the King might come to grief, as he afterwards did.

Titus Oates’ conspiracy and the Duke of Monmouth’s invasion and insurrection went by without affecting Evelyn much. He was in the latter case called upon to supply a mounted trooper, which he did rather grudgingly. ‘The two horsemen which my son and myselfe sent into the county troopes, were now come home, after a moneth’s being out to our greate charge.’ But what concerned him much more was that matters frequently came before the Commission of the Privy Seal to which he could not, on religious grounds principally, give his assent. On such occasions he would sometimes go to his house in the country, ‘refusing to be present at what was to passe at the Privy Seale the next day’, because any two out of the three Commissioners formed a quorum. At other times, however, he had to face his responsibility properly, by refusing to put his seal to the papers in question, while noting his objections to the course of action proposed. The Papistry which was spreading over the country under the King’s influence seemed to darken the land and to obscure the future. ‘Popish Justices of the Peace establish’d in all counties, of the meanest of the people; Judges ignorant of the law, and perverting it--so furiously do the Jesuits drive, and even compel Princes to violent courses, and destruction of an excellent government both in Church and State. God of his infinite mercy open our eyes and turn our hearts, and establish his truth with peace! The Lord Jesus defend his little flock, and preserve this threaten’d Church and Nation.’

A staunch Protestant, Evelyn no longer possessed the King’s favour, and henceforth he received no further appointment or token of royal approval although he still frequented the Court at Whitehall. In August 1688 he was secretly informed by the Rev. Dr. Tenison, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, of the impending invasion of the Prince of Orange, and, while regularly paying his duty as a courtier, he informed the lately imprisoned Archbishop and Bishops of the intrigues on which the Jesuits were hard at work. And subsequently ‘My Lord of Canterbury gave me great thanks for the advertisement I sent him in October, and assured me they took my counsell in that particular, and that it came very seasonably.’ On 18th December, he ‘saw the King take barge to Gravesend at 12 o’clock--a sad sight,’ on the very day that the Prince of Orange came to St. James and filled Whitehall with Dutch guards. All the world at once went to pay court to the Prince whose star was now in the ascendant: and, of course, Evelyn went too. A couple of months later he ‘saw _the new Queene_ and _King_ proclaim’d the very next day after her coming to Whitehall, Wednesday 13 Feb., with greate acclamations and generall good reception.... It was believ’d that both, especially the Princesse, would have shew’d some (seeming) reluctance at least, of assuming her father’s Crown, and some apology, testifying her regret that he should by his mismanagement necessitate the Nation to so extraordinary a proceeding, which would have shew’d very handsomely to the world, and according to the character given by her piety; consonant also to her husband’s first decleration, that there was no intention of deposing the King, but of succouring the Nation; but nothing of all this appear’d; she came into White-hall laughing and jolly, as to a wedding, so as to seem quite transported..... This carriage was censured by many.’

After the Restoration Evelyn’s life as a courtier was practically at an end, as he never quite approved the enforced abdication of King James. So henceforth he spent his time, without further attendance at Court or seeking after office or appointment, in study, literary work, and retirement. He did not like the new régime, with its ‘Court offices distributed amongst Parliament men.... Things far from settled as was expected, by reason of the slothfull, sickly temper of the new King, and the Parliament’s unmindfullness of Ireland, which is likely to prove a sad omission.’ He even seems to have regretted that his son was in March 1692 made ‘one of the Commissioners of the Revenue and Treasury of Ireland, to which employment he had a mind far from my wishes.’ This son contracted serious illness in Ireland, and died ‘after a tedious languishing sickness’ early in 1699, aged 44 years, leaving one son, then a student at Oxford.

Some time before this his elder brother, George, having lost his last son and heir, had settled the Wotton estate upon John Evelyn. In May 1694, yielding to the request to make Wotton his home, he went to Wotton, leaving Sayes Court in charge of his daughter Susanna and her husband William Draper, whose marriage had been celebrated about a year previously. In 1696 it was let for three years to Admiral Benbow, who sublet it in 1698 to Peter the Great, then visiting the Deptford Dockyards for three months as his Majesty’s guest. So great was the destruction done to the gardens, trees, and holly-hedges, that Wren was asked to report on the compensation suitable, and £162-7-0 were paid to Evelyn for damage to the house and garden.

Early in 1695 Evelyn accepted the offer of the Treasurership of Greenwich Hospital, then about to be rebuilt and endowed for the maintainence of decayed seamen, which was made to him by Lord Godolphin, who had been the husband of his former friend Miss Blagg. During the days of Charles II. some such transformation of the Palace had been under consideration, but it was the 30th June 1696 before Evelyn and Sir Christopher Wren ‘laid the first stone of the intended foundation, precisely at 5 o’clock in the evening, after we had din’d together.’ This appointment carried with it ‘the salary of £200 per ann. of which I have never yet receiv’d one penny of the tallies assign’d for it, now two years at Lady-day; my son-in-law Draper is my substitute.’ When the new Commission for Greenwich Hospital was sealed in August 1703 Evelyn resigned his office of Treasurer in favour of Draper.

His brother George dying in October 1699, Evelyn then became the owner of Wotton, and looked to his grandson, the Oxford Student, to ‘be the support of the Wotton family.’ The lad had a bad attack of small-pox in the autumn of 1700, a malady that had caused many gaps in the family circle; but, coming safely through this illness, he was in July 1701, by the patronage of Lord Godolphin, made one of the Commissioners of the Prizes, with a salary of £500 a year, while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford. And in January 1704 the same noble patron appointed him Treasurer of the Stamp Duties, with a salary of £300 a year. He afterwards married Ann, daughter of Hugh Boscawen (afterwards Lord Falmouth), Lord Godolphin’s niece, and was created a baronet in 1713. It was through him that the present family of Evelyn of Wotton directly descend, though the baronetcy lapsed on the death of his grandson Frederick in 1812.

As he had done twenty years before, so also on now attaining his 80th birthday on 31st. October 1700 Evelyn rendered thanks for mercies with his characteristic religious feeling. ‘I with my soul render thanks to God, who of his infinite mercy, not only brought me out of many troubles, but this yeare restor’d me to health, after an ague and other infirmities of so greate an age, my sight, hearing and other senses and faculties tolerable, which I implore him to continue, with the pardon of my sins past, and grace to acknowledge by my improvement of his goodnesse the ensuing yeare, if it be his pleasure to protract my life, that I may be the better prepar’d for my last day, through the infinite merits of my blessed Saviour, the Lord Jesus, Amen.’

Five times more was he to be privileged to record his thanks and prayers on successive returns of this anniversary. One of the very last entries in his memoirs is that on 31st. October 1705 ‘I am this day arriv’d to the 85th year of my age. Lord teach me so to number my days to come that I may apply them to wisdom’. And numbered, indeed, they then were; for on the 27th of February 1706 he passed quietly and peacefully away, retaining his faculties to the last. And he was laid at rest in the Chancel of Wotton Church.

During the course of his long and distinguished life he had seen many stirring events, had taken part in many important affairs, had achieved much, and had suffered much. He had outlived four reigns, two of which were terminated by a natural death, one by public execution, and one by abdication. He had served many public and other distinguished offices with zeal, ability, integrity, and success. He had given to English literature some of the classic works that are among the treasures of our literature of the Restoration period. He had outlived all of his six sons, most of whom had died in childhood, as well as his eldest and favourite daughter. Of all his nine children, the sole survivors were his daughter Elizabeth, who was soon afterwards married to a son of Sir John Tippet, and Susanna, wife of William Draper, afterwards of Adscomb near Croydon. After nearly 60 years of pure domestic wedded life, in marked contrast to the prevailing dissoluteness of the time, Evelyn was survived for nearly three years by his widow, who died in 1709, aged 74 years, cherishing to the last her love and affection for him to whom her destiny had been committed whilst she was still a mere child. ‘His care of my education’, she wrote in her last Will and Testament, ‘was such as might become a father, a lover, a friend, and a husband; for instruction, tenderness, affection and fidelity to the last moment of his life; which obligation I mention with a gratitude to his memory ever dear to me; and I must not omit to own the sense I have of my parents’ care and goodness in placing me in such worthy hands.’ Surely no husband ever had a nobler epitaph.

In an age of fierce political and ecclesiastical conflict, Evelyn, often, no doubt, strongly tempted to partisanship, managed to steer his course with prudence and great worldly judgment. But for that, his industry and business talent would probably have brought him more prominently into office under Charles II. In a corrupt and profligate age, however, his character stands out as that of one unsullied by excesses, impurities, or vices. And it is not the least of his merits that, in an age of bigotry and narrow-mindedness, he was not intolerant towards those whose religious views happened to differ from his own.

VII

_Evelyn’s Literary Works._

Evelyn’s earliest publications, some of which have already been referred to, consisted mostly in translations from the French, Latin, and Greek, that of the first book of Lucretius’ _De Rerum Natura_ being in verse. Their authorship was usually veiled either under Greek pseudonyms or else more thinly under the initials ‘J.E.’ That on _A Character of England_ (1659), a tract purporting to have been written by a foreigner, appeared anonymously.

Of all these seven publications appearing before the Restoration, the only one of any importance was _The French Gardener_, the translation of a work by N. de Bonnefons, which appeared at the end of 1658 and was thus referred to in the diary,--‘Dec. 6th. Now was publish’d my “French Gardener,” the first and best of the kind that introduc’d ye use of the Olitorie garden to any purpose.’ Subsequent editions of it appeared in 1669, 1672, 1691, bearing Evelyn’s name on the titlepage in place of the _Philocepos_ on its first publication.

With the Restoration, bringing to him greater personal freedom of thought and speech, came the most active period of Evelyn’s literary production. His loyalty at once found opportunity to answer a libel on King Charles (entitled _News from Brussels_) in _The late News from Brussels unmasked_, a long vindication of his Majesty from the calumnies and scandal therein fixed on him. From a literary and antiquarian point of view, however, far greater interest attaches to a much shorter treatise entitled _Fumifugium: or the Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London Dissipated, together with some Remedies humbly proposed_. As this is the earliest reference to the great London Smoke Nuisance, which, like the poor, we have always with us, it is of more than passing interest to know how large this difficult problem of curing it loomed about two and a half centuries ago. Moreover, this short work affords a very typical example of Evelyn’s literary style, while at the same time well exemplyfying his profusely enthusiastic outbursts of devoted and loyal attachment to the King’s person and interests.

In the dull days of autumn and winter, when the heavy, damp air wafted inwards from the sea shrouds London with a dirty pall of fog thickened and discoloured with the smoke belched forth skywards from the long throats of thousands of tall factory chimneys and emitted from hundreds of thousands of household and workshop fires, the dweller in this vast overgrown city is tempted to range himself for the moment among the belauders of better times in the past. Almost groping his way along the streets in semi-darkness, and half choked with the sulphurous surcharge in the atmosphere, this latter-day growler may perhaps be astonished to learn that his complaint is of very old standing, and that long before the days of his great-great-grandfather, in fact more than seven generations ago, this poisoning of the atmosphere with the impurities given off from ‘sea-coal’ and other combustibles had already come to be looked on by some as a public nuisance. It will, therefore, interest Londoners in general, and will delight the hearts of Sir William Richmond R.A. and the County Council in particular, to know that their great precursor in this matter of reform nearly 250 years ago considered the question even then one of urgency, admitting of no delay. How graphic, and how refreshing, is the pithy point thus neatly scored--

‘I propose therefore, that by an _Act_ of this present
_Parliament_, this infernal _Nuisance_ be removed.’