in iis præsertim quæ spectant hortorum elegantiam, rurisque amanitatem. And he writes a chapter to prove not only that France was of all countries the fittest for gardening, but that the French fashion of gardening was of all others the most perfect. Sir William Temple had heard of the Chinese taste, and thought favourably of it, but,' he says, ' I should hardly advise any of these attempts in the figure of gardens among us; they are adventures of too hard achievement for any common heads; and though there may be more honour if they succeed well, yet there is more dishonour if they fail, and 'tis twenty to one they will; whereas in regular figures 'tis hard to make any great and remarkable faults.' Accordingly he decided that among us the beauty of planting consisted in certain proportions, symmetries, or uniformities, our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one another, and at exact distances.' It seems that the first use to which the principle of the kaleidoscope was applied was that of assisting invention, by producing new combinations of symmetrical forms for parterres and gravel walks. But however fantastic may be the arrangement of the parterres, and into whatever shapes the hedges and unhappy evergreens may be elipt, the flower-garden has still its fragrance and its gaiety, and affords a pleasure of its own which is certainly not diminished by a consciousness of the presence of art.

But if Evelyn was misled in ornamental gardening by the taste of his age, there was nothing to mislead him in that useful branch of the art which supplies the table with its purest luxuries, and which in his time received considerable improvement. Some curious facts in the history of horticulture are found in his Acetaria. It was scarcely an hundred years, he tells us, since cabbages were introduced from Holland into this country, one of the Sir Anthony Ashleys, of Wiburg St. Giles, in Dorsetshire, being the first person who planted them in England, the family then has deserved well of its country, notwithstanding it produced so great a

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Shaftsbury. It had not been very long since artichokes were cultivated in Italy, after which they were for some time so rare in England as to be sold for crowns a-piece. We have not learnt from the French to eat this noble thistle, as Evelyn calls it, as a sallad; nor from the Italians to stew it till its tough leaves become edible. The cucumber within his memory had been accounted' little better than poison;' the melon was hardly known till Sir George Gardiner, coming from Spain, brought it into estimation; when its ordinary price was five or six shillings. Much has been added to the catalogue of esculents since Evelyn's time, but some things on the other hand have fallen into disuse. The bud of the sunflower before it expands was then drest like an artichoke and eaten as a dainty; the root of the minor pimpinella, or small Burnet saxifrage,

dried and pulverized, was preferred by some persons to any kind of pepper, and the pounded seeds of the nasturtium were thought preferable to mustard. Evelyn praises the milky or dappled thistle, either as a sallad, or boiled, or baked in pies like the artichoke; it was then sold in our herb-markets, but probably for a supposed virtue in consequence of its name Carduus Maria, or our Lady's milky thistle, which made it be esteemed a proper diet for nurses. The bur also he calls delicate and wholesome, when young. The young leaves of the ash were a favourite pickle,-but of all his dainties that which a reader of the present age would be least willing to partake would be the small young acorns which we find in the stock-dove's craws,' and which are 'a delicious fare, as well as those incomparable sallads of young herbs taken out of the maws of partridges at a certain season of the year, which gives them a preparation far exceeding all the art of cookery.' They were certainly valiant eaters in those days, and one who admired such sallads might have sat down with Hearne to a Northern Indian's feast. He had a wicked taste in wines also: who almost would believe,' he says, 'that the austere Rhenish, abounding on the fertile banks of the Rhine, should produce so soft and charming a liquor as does the same vine, planted among the rocks and pumices of the remote and mountainous Canaries?' and in another place he observes that the grape of the Rhine has produced in the Canaries a far more delicious juice than in its own country. We have no reason to believe that the Rhenish wines have improved or the Canarian ones degenerated during the last century, and the inhabitants of the Rhingau might then as now boast with truth in the words of their favourite song, over the glass,

In

ganz Europa, ihr herren zecher Ist solch ein wein nicht mehr.'

But if Evelyn's taste in wine was bad, the use he made of it was worse; witness the receipt in his Sylva for making a cheap ink,— 'galls four ounces, copperas two ounces, gum-arabic one ounce: beat the galls grosly and put them into a quart of claret. The reader will remember Major-General Lord Blayney's advice always to boil hams in hock.

'O fortunatos nimium bona si sua nôrint
Horticolas !'

Evelyn exclaims in the joy of his enthusiasm for horticulture; and quoting from Milton the lines which describe the first empress of the world regaling her celestial guest,' he observes exultingly, thus the hortulan provision of the golden age fitted all places, times, and persons; and when man is restored to that state again, it will be as it was in the beginning.' Yet, he adds, 'let none imagine that whilst we justify our subject through all the topics of panegyric,

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panegyric, we would in favour of the sallet, dressed with all its pomp and advantage, turn mankind to grass again, which were ungrate fully to neglect the bounty of heaven, as well as his health and comfort.' It is, he says, a transporting consideration to think that 'the infinitely wise and glorious Author of nature has given to plants such astonishing properties; such fiery heat in some to warm and cherish, such coolness in others to temper and refresh, such pinguid juice in others to nourish and feed the body, such quickening acids to compel the appetite, and grateful vehicles to court the obedience of the palate, such vigour to renew and support our natural strength, such ravishing flavour and perfumes to recreate and delight us; in short such spirituous and active force to animate and revive every faculty and part, to all the kinds of human, and I had almost said, heavenly capacity too. What shall we add more? Our gardens present us with them all; and whilst the shambles are covered with gore and stench, our sallets escape the insults of the summer fly, and purify and warm the blood against winter.' If Evelyn's mind had not been well regulated, and his feelings always under the controul of a cool and steady judgement, his predilections would have led him to a vegetable diet, and he would have been the Mæcenas of his contemporary Thomas Tryon. The great modern example of this diet is the well-known Sir Pythagoras Phillips, knight, ex-sheriff, and mayor in posse, editor of the Monthly Magazine, author of a Confutation of the Newtonian Theory, and of a Walk to Kew. The physical effects have been largely exemplified in this worthy personage. The moral effects upon the temper, however, have not been so favourable; for though the humane knight is the founder of a society for abolishing the punishment of death, he has declared in his magazine, that brewers who put unlawful ingredients in their beer, ought to be boiled in their own coppers. In justice, however, to the vegetable diet, which might otherwise be brought into discredit by this unfortunate case, it ought not to be concealed, that though Sir Pythagoras abstains, like a Brahmin, from meat, we have been credibly informed that he eats gravy with his potatoes.

Fanaticism was triumphant in this poor country when Evelyn took possession of his delightful retreat: insanity and roguery are natural allies, and in the game which was then played in political life, knaves were the best cards in the pack. Fortunately for the family at Sayes Court they were not troubled by a fanatical minister. The present incumbent,' says Evelyn, was somewhat of the Independent, yet he ordinarily preached sound doctrine, and was a peaceable man, which was an extraordinary felicity in this age.' Now and then too an orthodox man got into the pulpit. Upon occasions on which the minister durst not officiate according

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to the form and usage of the Church of England, such as christenings and churchings, Mr. Evelyn had the ceremony performed in his own house by one of the silenced clergy; and when in the progress of fanatical intolerance all forms were prohibited, and most of the preachers were usurpers, 'I seldom,' he says, to church on solemn feasts, but rather went to London, where some of the orthodox sequestered divines did privately use the Common Prayer, administer Sacraments, &c., or else I procured one to officiate in my own house.' It is remarkable that the Directory, of which so many thousands must have been printed, should be at this time so uncommon a book that few persons, perhaps even among those who spend their life with books, have ever seen it. On Sunday afternoon he frequently stayed at home to catechize and instruct his family, those exercises universally ceasing in the parish churches, so as people had no principles, and grew very ignorant of even the common points of Christianity, all devotion being now placed in hearing sermons and discourses of speculative and notional things. The following extracts show strikingly the spirit of those unhappy times.

4 Dec. Going this day to our Church I was surpriz❜d to see a tradesman, a mechanic, step up; I was resolv'd yet to stay and see what he would make of it. His text was from 2 Sam. " And Benaiah went downe also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in ye time of snowe;" the purport was, that no danger was to be thought difficult when God call'd for the shedding of blood, inferring that now ye Saints were call'd to destroy temporal governments, with such stuff; so dangerous a crisis were things come to.'

7. This day came forth the Protectors Edict or Proclamation, prohibiting all ministers of the Church of England from preaching or teaching any scholes, in which he imitated the Apostate Julian; with ye decimation of all ye royal parties revenues thro England.'

'Now were the Jews admitted.

25. There was no more notice taken of Christmas day in churches. 'I went to London where Dr. Wild preach'd the funeral sermon of Preaching, this being the last day, after which Cromwell's proclamation was to take place, that none of the Church of England should dare either to preach or administer Sacraments, teach schoole, &c. on paine of imprisonment or exile. This was ye mournfullest day that in my life I had seene, or ye Church of England herselfe since ye Reformation; to the greate rejoicing of Papists and Presbyterians. So pathetic was his discourse that it drew many tears from the auditory. Myself, wife, and some of our family receiv'd y Communion; God make me thank full who hath hitherto provided for us the food of our soules as well as bodies! The Lord Jesus pity our distress'd Church, and bring back the captivity of Sion!'

'I went to London to receive the B. Sacrament, the first time the Church of Engld was reduced to a chamber and conventicle, so sharpe

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was the persecution. The Parish Churches were fill'd with Sectaries of all sorts, blasphemous and ignorant mechanics usurping the pulpets every where. Dr. Wild preach'd in a private house in Fleet Street, where we had a greate meetin of zealous Christians, who were generaly much more devout and religious than in our greatest prosperity. 2 Nov. There was now nothing practical preached or that pressed reformation of life, but high and speculative points and straines that few understood, which left people very ignorant and of no steady principles, the source of all our sects and divisions, for there was very much envy and uncharity in the world! God of his mercy amend it! Now indeed that I went at all to church whilst these usurpers possess'd the pulpets, was that I might not be suspected for a Papist, and that tho' the Minister was Presbyterianly affected, he yet was as I understood duly ordain'd and preach'd sound doctrine after their way, and besides was an humble, harmlesse and peaceable man.'

'6 Aug. Our Vicar declaim'd against ye folly of a sort of enthusiasts and desperate zealots, call'd ye Fifth Monarchy Men, pretending to set up the kingdome of Christ with the sword. To this passe was this age arriv'd when we had no King in Israel.'

25 Dec. I went to London with my wife, to celebrate Christmas Day, Mr. Gunning preaching in Exeter Chapell. Sermon ended, as he was giving us y holy sacrament the chapell was surrounded with souldiers, and all the communicants and assembly were surpriz'd and kept prisoners by them, some in the house, others carried away. It fell to my share to be confin'd to a roome in the house, where yet I was permitted to dine with the master of it, ye Countesse of Dorset, Lady Hutton, and some others of quality who invited me. In the afternoone came Col. Whaly, Goffe and others from Whitehall to examine us one by one; some they committed to ye Marshall, some to prison. When I came before them they tooke my name and abode, examin'd me why, contrarie to an ordinance made that none should any longer observe ye superstitious time of the Nativity (so esteem'd by them), I durst offend, and particularly be at Common Prayers, which they told me was but ye masse in English, and particularly pray for Charles Steuart, for which we had no Scripture; I told them we did not pray for Cha. Steuart, but for all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors. They replied, in so doing we praied for the K. of Spaine too, who was their enemie and ́ papist, with other frivolous and insnaring questions and much threatning, and finding no colour to detaine me, they dismiss'd me with much pitty of my ignorance. These were men of high flight and above ordinances, and spake spiteful things of our Lord's Nativity. As we went up to receive the sacrament the miscreants held their muskets against us as if they would have shot us at the altar, but yet suffering us to finish the office, perhaps not having instructions what to do in case they found us in that action.'

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How Evelyn felt during what he calls the sad catalysis and declension of piety,' to which the nation was reduced, is beautifully expressed in a letter to Jeremy Taylor, whom he used at that time

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