John Evelyn - Works

Works

Evelyn's Diary remained unpublished as a manuscript until 1818. It is in a quarto volume containing 700 pages, covering the years between 1641 and 1697, and is continued in a smaller book-which brings the narrative down to within three weeks of its author's death. A selection from this was edited by William Bray, with the permission of the Evelyn family, in 1818, under the title of Memoirs illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, comprising his Diary from 1641 to 1705/6, and a Selection of his Familiar Letters. Other editions followed, the most notable being those of H. B. Wheatley (1879) and Austin Dobson (3 vols., 1906).

Evelyn's active mind produced many other works, and although these have been overshadowed by the famous Diary they are of considerable interest. They include:

• Of Liberty and Servitude ... (1649), a translation from the French of François de la Mothe le Vayer, Evelyn's own copy of which contains a note that he was "like to be call'd in question by the Rebells for this booke";
• The States of France, as it stood in the IXth year of ... Louis XIII. (1652);
• An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Carus de Rerum Natura. Interpreted and made English verse by J. Evelyn (1656);
• The Golden Book of St John Chrysostom, concerning the Education of Children. Translated out of the Greek by J. E. (printed 1658, dated 1659);
• The French Gardener: instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees (1658), translated from the French of N. de Bonnefons;
• A Character of England ... (1659), describing the customs of the country as they would appear to a foreign observer, reprinted in Somers' Tracts (ed. Scott, 1812), and in the Harleian Miscellany (ed. Park, 1813);
• The Late News from Brussels unmasked ... (1660), in answer to a libellous pamphlet on Charles I. by Marchmont Needham;
• Fumifugium, or the inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London dissipated (1661), in which he suggested that sweet-smelling trees should be planted in London to purify the air;
• Instructions concerning erecting of a Library ... (1661), from the French of Gabriel Naudé;
• Tyrannus or the Mode, in a Discourse of Sumptuary Laws (1661);
• Sculpture: or the History and Art of Chatcography and Engraving in Copper ... (1662);
• Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees ... to which is annexed Pomona ... Also Kalendarium Hortense ... (1664);
• A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern (1664), from the French of Roland Fréart;
• The History of the three late famous Imposters, viz. Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bei, and Sabatei Sevi ... (1669);
• Navigation and Commerce, in which his Majesties title to the Dominion of the Sea is asserted against the Novel and later Pretenders (1674), which is a preface to a projected history of the Dutch wars undertaken at the request of Charles II., but countermanded on the conclusion of peace;
• A Philosophical Discourse of Earth ... (1676), a treatise on horticulture, better known by its later title of Terra; The Compleat Gardener (1693), from the French of J. de la Quintinie; Numismata ... (1697).

Some of these were reprinted in The Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn, edited (1825) by William Upcott.

Evelyn's friendship with Mary Blagge, afterwards Mrs Godolphin, is recorded in the diary, when he says he designed "to consecrate her worthy life to posterity". This he effectually did in a little masterpiece of religious biography which remained in manuscript in the possession of the Harcourt family until it was edited by Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, as the Life of Mrs Godolphin (1847), reprinted in the "King's Classics" (1904). The picture of Mistress Blagge's saintly life at court is heightened in interest when read in connexion with the scandalous memoirs of the comte de Gramont, or contemporary political satires on the court.

Numerous other papers and letters of Evelyn on scientific subjects and matters of public interest are preserved, a collection of private and official letters and papers (1642–1712) by, or addressed to, Sir Richard Browne and his son-in-law being in the British Museum (Add. MSS. 15857 and 15858).

In the opinion of the author of his biography in the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, next to the Diary Evelyn's most valuable work is Sylva. By the glass factories and iron furnaces the country was being rapidly depleted of wood, while no attempt was being made to replace the damage by planting. Evelyn put in a plea for afforestation, and besides producing a valuable work on arboriculture, he was able to assert in his preface to the king that he had really induced landowners to plant many millions of trees.