a dog, which, with very little more, are the confines of the knowledge and discourse of most of our fine gentlemen and beaux. I will desire Sir James to make another search for it, when next I see.

In the mean time the particulars which here I send you

are,

The battle of Lepanto; a description of the Armada in [15]88, I suppose authentic.

A paper written in French, touching the severity of their Marine Laws.

Trajan's Column, with Alphonso Ciaconius's notes, referring to the bas-relief by the figures. Such as concerns ships and gallies, &c., you will find by the figures 57, 243, 260, 153, 24, 236, 239, 152, 155, and especiaally 303, 235, where he speaks of copper or brass instead of iron-work; and the best season for felling of timber; and there is, as to other notices, subject for a world of erudition beyond what Ciaconius has touched, which would deserve an ampler volume.

A Discourse concerning the Fishery and Duty of the Flag.

A large volume of Sir R. Browne's Dispatches from 1641 to 1644, &c., during his public ministry and character in the French court. Besides which I have two folios more

that continue it longer.

I also send you the Journal of Martin Frobisher and Captain Fenton.

That of Drake I cannot find as yet, so many papers and things there are to be removed and turned over in my confused study.

Item, a Map of an Harbour, whose name I find not to it. Also an old Map of a Sea-fight.

Also a packet of original Letters, belonging to the former of my Lord Leicesters, in number fourteen, which are all I have remaining.

With a Declaration of the old Prince of Orange, William of Nassau, who was assassinated at Delft.

The Earl of Leicester's Will.

Another packet of Letters and other matters, and Transactions of State relating to the late times, in number eighty-eight, and of which I have thousands more that you

may command sight of, but these I think are most material.

A particular of wages due to the Deputy, army, and other state officers and affairs relating to Ireland, anno 1587, 1588.

A packet of thirty-eight papers containing Instructions and matters of State to several public ministers abroad, &c. Item, another packet of thirty-three original letters to and from great persons during the late rebellion here.

A Scheme of the action of the Hollanders at Chatham, 1667, when they burnt our ships, and blocked up the Thames.1

Order of Council of State (then so called) for the apprehension of Charles Stewart, his present Majesty, so named by the regicides.

Lastly, a Relation of his Majesty's action and escape at Worcester, when he came out of Scotland with his army, being as far as Sir Richard Browne wrote out of the Queen Mother's letters at Paris; that which he took from his Majesty's own dictating (when he, after that escape, came into France at Paris) was sent to Mons. Renodaut, and was published by him in the Weekly Extraordinary, Anno 1651, where you'll find it in French among the volumes of his Gazettes. I am sorry the original was not retrieved from him.

Thus, Sir, you see how diligent I have been since I came home, to answer your queries, as I shall in all other your commands as far as is in the power of,

2

Sir, your, &c.

These papers, maps, letters, books, and particulars, when you have done with, be pleased to take your own time in returning.

1 This "Scheme" is a pen and ink sketch by Evelyn, preserved with Pepys' Official Correspondence in the Bodleian Library. An accurate fac-simile copy was made, and published in Pepys' Diary and Memoirs.

2 Evelyn has here written in the margin-"Which I afterwards never asked of him.”

Dr. Edward Tyson to John Evelyn.

HONOURED SIR,

London, 15th March, 1681-2.

I lately received the enclosed from Dr. Plot at Oxford, who desired me to transmit it to you, as also to acquaint you that he intends to come to town on the 22nd, against which time it is desired, if it may be, that the answers to the proposed queries of Mr. Anthony Wood may be ready. I had hopes that I might have seen you at the Society, but not having an opportunity of delivering it to you there, I was informed it might safely reach your hands this way; which, when it does, it is only farther to present you with Dr. Plot's service, as also of

Your most humble servant,

EDWARD TYSON.

John Evelyn to the Bishop of Oxford (Doctor Fell).

MY LORD,

Sayes Court, 19th March, 1681-2.

It cannot but be evident to your Reverend Lordship, to how great danger and fatal consequences the 'Histoire Critique,' not long since published in French by Père Simon, and now lately translated (though but ill translated) into English, exposes not only the Protestant and whole Reformed Churches abroad, but (what ought to be dearer to us) the Church of England at home, which with them acknowledges the Holy Scriptures alone to be the canon and rule of faith; but which this bold man not only labours to unsettle, but destroy. From the operation I find it already begins to have amongst divers whom I converse with, especially the young men, and some not so young neither, I even tremble to consider what fatal mischief this piece is like to create, whilst they do not look upon the book as coming from some daring wit, or young Lord Rochester revived, but as the work of a learned author, who has the reputation also of a sober and judicious person. And it must be acknowledged that it is a masterpiece in its bind; that the

man is well studied in the oriental tongues, and has carried on his project with a spirit and address not ordinary amongst critics; though, after all is done, whether he be really a Papist, Socinian, or merely a Theist, or something of all three, is not easy to discover; but this is evident-as for the Holy Scriptures, one may make what one will of them, for him. He tells the world he can establish no doctrine or principles upon them; and then, are not we of the Reformed Religion in a blessed condition! For the love of God, let our Universities, my Lord, no longer remain thus silent: it is the cause of God, and of our Church! Let it not be said, your Chairs take no notice of a more pernicious plot than any that yet has alarmed us. Whilst everybody lets it alone, men think there's nothing to be said against it; and it hugely prevails already, and you will be sensible of its progress when it is too late to take off the reproach. I most humbly therefore implore your Reverend Lordship to consider of it seriously; that the pens and the Chairs may openly and on all occasions assert and defend the common cause, and that Oxford may have the honour of appearing the first in the field. For from whom, my Lord, should we expect relief, if not from you the Fathers of the Church, and the Schools of the Prophets? It is worthy the public concern to ward the deadly blows which sap the roots, and should by no means be abandoned to hazard, or the feeble attempts of any single champion, who, if worsted, would but add to the triumph of our enemies, Papists and Atheists. My Lord, he who makes bold to transmit this to your Lordship, though he be no man of the Church, is yet a son of the Church, and greatly concerned for her; and though he be not learned, he converses much with books, and men that are as well at Court as in town and the country; and thinks it his duty to give your Lordship an account of what he hears and sees, and is expected and called for from you, who are the superintendents and watchmen that Christ has set over his Church, and appointed to take care of his flock. Sir John Marsham's book should likewise be considered farther than

1

1 "Chronicus Canon Ægyptiacus, Hebraicus, et Græcus, cum Disquisitionibus Historicis et Criticis," fol. Lond. 1672. Marsham had travelled into France, Italy, and part of Germany; he was a lawyer, and had held the office of one of the Six Clerks in Chancery. He suffered,

as yet it seems to have been, and the obnoxious passages in it not put off to prefaces and accidental touches only; whilst neither to that, nor yet to Spinosa (inade also vulgar), we have had any thing published of express, or equal force in a just volume, fitted either for domestic or foreign readers. I know that the late Bishop of Chester,' Dr. Stillingfleet, Huetius, and some few others, have said abundantly to confute our modern Atheists; but as these start new and later notions, or rally and reinforce the scattered enemy, we should, I think, march as often out to meet and encounter them. For the men of this curious and nicer age do not consider what has been said or written formerly, but expect something fresh, that may tempt and invite them to consider, that for all the bold appearances of the enemy, they are no stronger than heretofore, and can do us no more hurt, unless we abandon and betray ourselves and give up the cause. It is not, my Lord, sufficient to have beaten down the head of the hydra once, but as often as they rise to use the club, though the same weapon be used, the same thing repeated; it refreshes the faint, and resolves the doubtful, and stirs up the slothful, and is what our adversaries continually do to keep up and maintain their own party, whenever they receive the least rebuke from us :-fas est et ab hoste doceri. Nor, my Lord, whilst I am writing this, do I at all doubt of your Lordship's great wisdom, zeal, and religious care to obviate and prevent this and all other adversaries of our most holy faith, as built upon the Sacred Scriptures of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. But if the excess of my affection for the University (which I have sometimes heard perstringed, as not taking the alarm so concernedly upon these occasions) have a little too far transported me, I most humbly supplicate your Lordship's pardon for my presumption, and for my zeal and

during the Civil Wars, as a partisan of King Charles the First, but on the Restoration was restored to his office, and soon after created a Baronet. He was one of the greatest antiquaries and most learned writers of his time. Father Simon calls him the Great Marsham of England. He wrote the Preface to the second volume of the Monasticon Anglicanum, besides the Diatriba above mentioned. Sir John was ancestor of the present Earl of Romney.

' Dr. Wilkins.