of such authority as Sylva. Though he had
a strong political bias, hated Cromwell, and
adored the memory of Charles the First,
without ever having expressed any great
enthusiasm for the royal person during the
king's lifetime, he found it politic and
necessary to walk warily during the days of
the Commonwealth, and to avoid getting
either himself or his estates into trouble by
his plain-spokenness. In this sage resolution
he persevered—a suspected, but an
unmolested citizen—and in his quiet,
unobtrusive manner, paying all requisite respect
and obedience to his de facto rulers, not
without an occasional sigh, as his diary
shows, for the return of the ruler de jure.

On the restoration of Charles the Second,
Evelyn was taken into the high favour
and confidence of the king, and remained
during his whole reign on terms of familiar
intercourse with that easy-going monarch.

John Evelyn was not in a position to
require offices of emolument from the state,
but he accepted some offices of trust and
honour. He was a commissioner for taking
care of the sick and wounded in the Dutch
war; a commissioner of Greenwich
Hospital; a commisioner for the rebuilding of
Sfc. Paul's Cathedral; a commissioner for
the regulation of the Mint ; a commissioner
for the improvement and widening of the
streets of London, and one of the original
Lords of Trade and Plantations—the
precursors of the present Board of Trade. But
none of these public duties interfered with
his planting and gardening, or with his
enjoyment of all the intellectual and convivial
society of the time. He was personally
acquainted with all the celebrated men of
the day—except with those who, in his
opinion, were defiled by their revolutionary
politics, and by the support they had given
to Oliver Cromwell—and was familiar with
all the popular literature of the day, in
which, it may be remarked, that the works
neither of Shakespeare nor of Milton were
included. The fashionables of that age had
scarcely heard of the one, and only knew
the other as a rebel. The most famous
poet of the period was Abraham Cowley,
betwixt whom and Evelyn there was much
congeniality of taste, more especially in the
matter of gardens. To the third edition of
Sylva, Evelyn prefixed a letter and a poem
addressed to him by Cowley. In the letter,
dated August 16th, 1666, Cowley declared
that he never had any desire so strong,
or so like covetousness, as that which he
still had, and always had, of being master
of a small house and a large garden, that
he might there dedicate the remainder of
his life to culture and the study of
nature. "I know," he added,
apostrophising Evelyn, "nobody that possesses
more private happiness than you do in
your garden ; and no man who makes his
happiness more public, by a free communication
of the art and knowledge of it to
others. All that I myself am yet able to
do is only to recommend to mankind the
search of that felicity which you instruct
them how to find and enjoy." In the
accompanying poem, In praise of
Gardens, and of the delights which the
philosophic mind may find in rural
pursuits, Cowley represented that "God the
first garden made, and the first city Cain."
This passage must have been in the mind
of William Cowper, more than a century
afterwards, when, with far inferior point,
he wrote, "God made the country, and
man made the town." Both the poet and
the philosopher were of one mind on the
subject. "Methinks," said the former,

            I see great Diocletian walk
    In the Salonian garden's noble shade,
    Which by his own imperial hands was made.
    I see him smile methinks, as he does talk
    With the ambassadors, who come, in vain,
    T'entice him to a throne again.
      If I my friends (saith he) should to you show
     All the delights which in these gardens grow,
    'Tis likelier much that you should with me stay,
    Than 'tis that you should carry me away.

Evelyn continued to reside at Sayes
Court, and occasionally in London; one of
the busiest men of his age, although one
who, to the world, appeared among the
least busy, until his seventieth year, when,
by the death of his elder brother without
heirs, he entered into possession of the
paternal estate of Wotton. Here he had
even better scope than at Sayes Court for
his favourite avocations, and continued
planting and improving for sixteen years
longer, when he died, in his eighty-sixth
year, leaving his affectionate wife to mourn
his loss for three years, and a young grandson,
who succeeded to the property.

Evelyn had few sorrows during his long
and blameless life but such as happen to all
who live to advanced years, such as the loss
of beloved children and dear relations and
friends. One of his most serious afflictions
(happy he that has none greater than
this) befel him, in an evil hour, when he
let his residence at Sayes Court to an
illutrious foreigner. On becoming possessed
of Wotton, the seat of his ancestors, in the
year 1690, he was in the habit of letting
the inferior but still very beautiful seat of
Sayes Court, and had found a tenant in