advice and assistance in disposing of her books will, I hope, make her journey more pleasant to her than otherwise it would have been. If those half dozen that your brother hath scored, be not such as will dismember any class, and hinder the sale of the rest which belong unto it, she shall not do amiss to part with them: but for them that you have a mind to yourself (and I would for her sake, and for your own, too, you had a mind to them all, especially to the Fathers, and to the History, both ecclesiastical and secular, whereof upon every occasion you will find great use), I dare promise that she shall give you your own convenient times of payment for such monies as you agree upon, and that her demands for the agreement will be very reasonable. Truly if you would be pleased to furnish yourself with those classes which were chosen and designed by you know whom, for Mr. St. (who intends not to make the use of a good library that you are both desirous and able to do), rather than they should be distracted elsewhere, it will be best for her to take your payments proportionably for several years, as you can best spare the money; for I would you might have as much ease in your payments as I know you will have pleasure in the books. I am sorry you find such confusion in Religion, and such intemperance in life, where you are; but as neither of them is pleasing to you (whom I have ever noted to be virtuous, orderly, and conscientious in all your ways), so it pleases me highly when you can number so many names that make more esteem of their knees and their souls together, than to bow them down to Baal. I never entertained any suggestions against my daughter, who, I am confident, hath more of God in her than ever to be carried away with such Devil's temptations as have seduced and undone her brother, against whom I can hardly hold here from expressing a very great indignation. The excellent letter you addressed to him, I presented to his Majesty's view (and I presented your excuse withal for not coming to him before you went), for whom the copy of it was prepared; and every way it was highly pleasing to him as he read it. But when I told him it was my intention to publish it, though he wished it done, yet he thought it were better for a while to spare it (rebus sic stantibus), for fear of displeasing his mother the Queen,' who had been pleased to interest herself in the matter. I meet often with the good company of those persons that you left behind you: but in good truth I am very sorry that I must lose the benefit and pleasure of your good society, which was always most acceptable to Your assured and most humble servant, John Evelyn to Edward Thurland. J. COSIN. (Afterwards Sir Edward Thurland, and Baron of the Exchequer.) London, 25th April, 1652. SIR, Nemo habet tam certam manum ut non sæpe fallatur; and yet I hope my memory shall serve me for the subscribing this epistle, which is more than yours (dear lawyer) could, it seems, do, when you sent me your summons for my Court at Warley, with all those sigillary formalities of a perfect instrument. But this is a trifling apáλμa; and I easily supplied it, by taking the boldness to write a new warrant in the most ill-favoured character I could, that it might be the more like to your fair hand; it was despatched, only the day altered to be the next before the Term, since otherwise I could not have appeared; and for which presumption, if you think fit to amerce me, I desire it may be by the delegation of Mr. Jo. Barton pro Vicario; since, whilst I thus indulge my noble tenant, I may not neglect to reduce my vassals, cum ita suggerent charta sicut optimè noveris, &c. it being the advice of a great philosopher, and part of my Litany, Libera te primum metu mortis (illa enim nobis primum jugum imponit), deinde paupertatis. The first I endeavour to secure by physic, the latter by your learned counsel, the effects whereof I much more desire to resent by the favour which (I am assured) you may do your servant in promoting his singular inclinations for Albury, in case 1 The reader will connect this curious delicacy about the Queen and the popish convert with Evelyn's "dispersing copies" of his answer to the latter "in her Majesty's chamber." * Albury, in Surrey, a seat of Mr. Howard. Thurland was one of the trustees appointed for the sale of it. The allusion in the letter is to (as I am confident it will) that seat be exposed to sale. 1 know you are potent, and may do much herein; and I shall eternally acknowledge to have derived from you all the favour and success, which I augur to myself from your friendship and assistance: it being now in your power to fix a wanderer, oblige all my relations, and, by one integral cause, render me yours for ever. I suppose the place will invite many candidates, but my money is good, and it will be the sole and greatest obligation that it shall ever be in your power to do for, dear lawyer, Your, &c. Thomas Barlow' to John Evelyn. Queen's College, Oxford, 17th March, 1654. SIR, I have received by the hands of my ingenuous friends, Mr. Pett and Mr. Needham, those choice pieces which you were pleased so generously and charitably to give to Bodley's library, and so increase our store, though with a diminution of your own. Having no possibility to requite this your kindness and magnificence to the public (Beneficia tua indignè æstimat, qui de reddendo cogitat), I have sent this little paper messenger to acknowledge our obligation, and bring our heartiest thanks. I am glad I have got your name into our register amongst those noble and public souls, which have been our best benefactors, and I hope it will be no dishonour to you, when posterity shall there read your name and charity. I know you have goodness enough to pardon this rude, and I fear, impertinent scribble. God Almighty bless you, and all those more generous and charitable souls, who dare lore learning, and be good in bad times; this is, and shall be, the prayer of Sir, your most obliged humble servant, the office of Steward of Courts, which, as appears from the second of the entries in the Diary above referred to, Thurland at this time held for Evelyn. He was also the author of a book on Prayer, to which allusion is hereafter made. Doctor Barlow is frequently mentioned in the Diary. At the date of this letter he was Librarian of the Bodleian, &c. He was afterwards Warden of Queen's and ultimately Bishop of Lincoln. John Evelyn to Jeremy Taylor. Sayes-Court, 9th February, 1654-5. The calamity which lately arrived you, came to me so late, and with so much incertitude during my long absence from these parts, that 'till my return, and earnest inquisition, I could not be cured of my very great impatience to be satisfied concerning your condition. But so it pleased God, that when I had prepared that sad news, to deplore your restraint,' I was assured of your release, and delivered of much sorrow. It were imprudent, and a character of much ignorance, to inquire into the cause of any good man's suffering in these sad times; yet if I had learned it out, 'twas not of my curiosity, but the discourse of some with whom I have had some habitudes since my coming home. I had read your Preface long since to your Golden Grove; remember, and infinitely justify, all that you have there asserted. 'Tis true valour to dare to be undone, and the consequent of Truth hath ever been in danger of his teeth, and it is a blessing if men escape so in these days, when not the safeties only, but the souls of men are betrayed: whilst such as you, and such excellent assistances as they afford us, are rendered criminal, and suffer. But you, Sir, who have furnished the world with so rare precepts, against the efforts of all secular disasters whatsoever, could never be destitute of those consolations, which you have so charitably and so piously prescribed unto others. Yea, rather, this has turned to our immense advantage, nor less to your glory, whilst men behold you living your own insti 1 The cause of this imprisonment has been doubted, but it was evidently, as Evelyn implies in this letter, in consequence of Taylor's attack on the Puritan preachers in the preface to his collection of prayers called the Golden Grove. The latter was the name of Lord Carbery's seat; which at about this time was invested by a troop of Cromwell's horse, and the Earl obliged to take refuge at a farm-house in the hills. A little later, it will be seen, Taylor again suffered brief imprisonment in Chepstow Castle (during his well-known controversy with Bishop Warner), having been suspected as an instigator of the insurrection at Salisbury. Nor was it many mouths after this second release that he was thrown into the Tower for some days, for the alleged violation of an Act of Parliament. tutions, and preaching to us as effectually in your chains as in the chair, in the prison as in the pulpit; for methinks, Sir, I hear you pronounce it, as indeed you act it Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris et carcere dignum Si vis esse aliquis that your example might shame such as betray any truth for fear of men, whose mission and commission is from God. You, Sir, know in the general, and I must justify in particular with infinite cognition, the benefit I have received from the truths you have delivered. I have perused that excellent Unum Necessarium of yours to my very great satisfaction and direction; and do not doubt but it shall in time gain upon all those exceptions, which I know you are not ignorant appear against it. "Tis a great deal of courage, and a great deal of peril, but to attempt the assault of an error so inveterate. Ai Αἱ δὲ κειναὶ κρίσεις τὸν ἀπέρατον ὁδόν. False opinion knows no bottom; and reason and prescription meet in so few instances; but certainly you greatly vindicate the divine goodness, which the ignorance of men and popular mistakes have so long charged with injustice. But, Sir, you must expect with patience the event, and the fruits you contend for: as it shall be my daily devotions for your success, who remain, Rev Sir, &c. REV. SIR, John Evelyn to Jeremy Taylor. Lond: 18 Mar: 1655. It was another extraordinary charity which you did me, when you lately relieved my apprehensions of That this letter is wrongly dated is manifest, from the fact that the letter immediately following (with the date of January) is the answer to it. The allusion to the "general persecution," and Evelyn's lamentation over "the last farewell of God's service in this city or anywhere else in public," obviously refers to Cromwell's measures against Episcopacy, taken during the present year. In one entry of the Diary (vol. i. p. 323, the 15th April), we see that the small church of St. Gregory's by Paul's (afterwards destroyed in the Great Fire), was now the only one where the ruling powers connived at the reading of the Liturgy. In another (vol. i. p. 327, the 27th Nov.), the Protector's edict against the episcopal party is spoken of. |