John Evelyn to the Duchess of Newcastle.1

MAY IT PLEASE your Grace,

Sayes-Court, 15th June, 1674.

I go not into my study without reproach to my prodigious ingratitude, whilst I behold such a pile of favours and monuments of your incomparable spirit, without having yet had the good fortune, or the good manners indeed, to make my recognitions as becomes a person so immensely obliged. That I presume to make this small present to your Grace (who were pleased to accept my collection of Architects, to whom timber and planting are subsidiaries) is not for the dignity of the subject, though princes have not disdained to cultivate trees and gardens with the same hands they managed sceptres; but because it is the best expression of my gratitude that I can return. Nor, Madam, is it by this that I intend to pay all my homage for that glorious presence, which merits so many encomiums, or write a panegyric of your virtues, which all the world admires, lest the indignity of my style should profane a thing so sacred; but to repeat 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 Grace's person alone, which I never call to mind but to rank it amongst the heroines, and constellate with the graces. Such of ancient days were Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, that writ the history of her country, as your Grace has done that of my Lord Duke your husband, worthy to be transmitted to posterity. What should I speak of

1 This letter, says Evelyn, in a marginal note to it, was written to her Grace "at Bolsover, when she sent me her works." It might be taken for a banter on the poor duchess, notwithstanding the occasion of it, were it not remembered that the homage paid to high rank in that day was excessive; and that Evelyn generally was very profuse of compliment in his dedications and letters of acknowledgment. Similar glorifications of the Duke and Duchess are collected in a scarce and curious volume, entitled, "A collection of Letters and Poems, written by several Persons of Honour and Learning, upon divers important subjects to the late Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, London, 1678,” which is quite an astonishing exhibition of the sort of language commonly proffered on such occasions, not simply by learned men, but by bodies of learned men.

Hilpylas, the mother-in-law of young Pliny, and of his admirable wife; of Pulcheria, daughter to the emperor Arcadius; or of Anna, who called Alexius father, and writ fifteen books of history, &c.! Your Grace has title to all their perfections. I pass Cornelia, so near the great Scipio, and mother of the Gracchi, to come to the later wits, Isabella, Queen of Castile, wife of Ferdinand, King of Arragon, of which bed came the first Charles, and the mother of four learned daughters, of whom was one Katherine, wife to our Henry the 8th; Mary of Portugal, wife to John Duke of Braganza (related to her Majesty the Queen. Consort), rarely skilled in the mathematical sciences; so was her sister, espoused to Alexander, Duke of Parma; Lucretia d'Esté, of the house of Ferrara; Duchess of Urbin, a profound philosopher; Vittoria Colonna, wife of Ferdinand d'Avila, Marquis of Pescaria, whose poetry equalled that of the renowned Petrarch; Hippolita Strozzi, daughter to Francis, Duke of Milan; Mary of Aragon; Fabiala, Marcella, St. Catherine of Sienna, St. Bridget and Therese (for even the greatest saints have cultivated the sciences), Fulvia Morata, Isabella Andreini; Marguerite of Valois (sister to Francis the First, and grandmother to the great Henry of France), whose novels are equal to those of the witty Boccaccio; and the memoirs of another Marguerite, wife of this great prince, that name having been so fertile for ladies of the sublimest genius; Catharine de Roches, of Poictiers, a celebrated wit, and Claudia de Cleremont, Duchess of Retz, Mary de Gournay, and the famous Anna M. Schurman; and of our own country, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Jane, the Lady Weston, Mrs. Philips, our late Orinda, the daughters of Sir Thomas More; also the Queen Christina of Sweden, and Elizabeth, daughter of a queen, to whom the renowned Des Cartes dedicated his learned work, and the profound researches of his extraordinary talent. But all these, I say, summed together, possess but that divided, which your Grace retains in one; So as Lucretia Marinella, who writ a book (in 1601), dell' Excellenzia delle Donne, con difetti é mancamenti de gli Huomini, had no need to have assembled so many instances and arguments to adorn the work, had she lived to be witness of Marguerite, Duchess of Newcastle, to have read her writings,

and to have heard her discourse of the science she comprehended. I do, Madam, acknowledge my astonishment, and can hardly think too great of those souls, who, resembling your Grace's, seem to be as it were wholly separate from matter, and to revolve nothing in their thoughts but universal ideas. For what of sublime and worthy in the nature of things, does not your Grace comprehend and explain; what of great and noble, that your illustrious Lord has not adorned? For I must not forget the munificent present of his very useful book of Horsemanship, together with your Grace's works upon all the profound as well as politer subjects, which I received of Sir Francis Tapps from both your Graces' hands; but this accumulation ought to be the argument of a fresh and more ample acknowledgment, for which this paper is too narrow. My wife (whom you have been pleased to dignify by the name of your daughter, and to tell her that you look upon her as your own, for a mother's sake of hers who had so great a veneration of your Grace) presents her most humble duty to you, by Madam, Your Grace's, &c.

John Evelyn to Dr. Meric Casaubon.1

REVEREND SIR,

Sayes-Court, 15 July, 1674.

I am infinitely obliged to you for your civil reply to my letter, but am not a little troubled that it should importune you in a time when you were indisposed. The stone is an infirmity, which I am daily taught to commiserate in my poor afflicted and dear brother who languishes under that torture, and therefore am much concerned when I hear of any that are exercised under that sad affliction: I will therefore beg of you, that no impertinence of mine (for truly that trifle is no other) may engage you to the least inconvenience, and which may prejudice your health. You have already greatly obliged me by the hints you are pleased to send me, and by the notice you are pleased to take of that poor essay of mine on Lucretius, so long since escaping me. You may be sure I was very young, and therefore very rash,

1 See Casaubon's Letter to Evelyn, ante, p. 224.