Admiral Benbow, to whom the place was
let unfurnished for three years, on condition
that he would keep up the darling garden
as Evelyn had left it. The next tenant
was no other than "the Czar of Muscovy,"
as he was then called: the Peter the Great
of Russian history. The czar came to London
in 1698 to study the art of ship-building,
and desired to live near Deptford Dock-
yard. In an evil hour the house was let to
him, and he became a great thorn in the
flesh of poor Evelyn. The philosopher
was approaching his seventy-ninth year,
and all the philosophy left to him was
severely tried by the ruthless proceedings
of the semi-barbarian vulture which he
had unluckily admitted into his dovecot.
The czar desired to visit the dockyard by
the shortest route from Sayes Court, and
not finding such a route, he made it by
cutting a hole through the wall of Evelyn's
domain. But to destroy a wall is a small
matter, for a wall can be repaired or
rebuilt, and it is nothing but a question of
money; but who shall repair a tree?
Who shall make good the destruction
of an ancient and picturesque hedge of
holly, that it has taken the lifetimes of
a man and his father to bring to
perfection? This was what the czar did.
He was fond of robust exercise, and of
trundling a wheelbarrow full of stones.
In pursuit of this latter pleasure in his
own grounds (for the time being, and as
long as he paid the rent), he made a large
gap through the holly hedge, which was
dearest of all other things in and about
Sayes Court to the heart of John Evelyn.
"Is there under the heavens," said the
philosopher, in the last edition of his Sylva,
the fourth which he lived to see through
the press, "any more glorious and refreshing
object than an impregnable hedge of
about four hundred feet in length, nine
feet high, and five in diameter, which I can
still show at this time in the year in my
ruined garden at Sayes Court (thanks to
the Czar of Muscovy), glittering with its
armed and variegated leaves? It mocks
the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts,
and hedge-breakers." The "beast and
hedge-breaker"—he was certainly one of
the two in Evelyn's estimation, if not
both—did other and more reparable
damage, altogether to the amount of a
hundred and fifty pounds, which was
assessed after the czar's departure, and
paid by the government of William the
Third. The house did not fare better than
the garden, though Evelyn did not care so
much about any damage done to the former,
provided he were paid for it. His man-
servant, left in charge, wrote to his master
that the house was full of people "right
nasty;" that the czar slept in a room next
the library; that he dined twice a day, at
ten in the morning and six in the afternoon;
that he changed his dress several
times daily (from that of a workman to
that of a gentleman), and that one day,
when the king was expected, "the best
parlour had been got pretty clean for
him;" that is to say, as clean as it was
possible to make it, with such a barbarian
upon the premises.

Evelyn's book, presented to the world
under the patronage of the king, the Royal
Society, and of "Society" itself—a power in
those days quite as great as it is in ours—
was a decided if not a rapid success. It is
not written in so easy and natural a style
as his Diary, which he did not intend for
publication, and abounds with learned
words derived more immediately from the
Latin, many of which, in an advertisement
prefixed to the work, he thought it necessary
to explain to the uninitiated public.
Among the words which he thought might
be obscure and unfamiliar were several
which, in our time, are very old and well-
known acquaintances ; such as "avenue,"
"bulb," "compost," "culinary,"
"culture," "esculent," "exotic," "fermentation,"
"homogeneous," "heterogeneous,"
"irrigation," "laboratory," "mural,"
"parterre," "perennial," and "vernal." Among
the pedantic words which he thought it
necessary to explain, and which neither
his example nor that of any one else has
yet naturalised in English speech or
literature, are "ablaqueation," the laying bare
of the roots; "frondation," the stripping
of the boughs; "hyemation," production
in winter; "ichnography," the ground
plan; "letation," dung ; "lixivium," lee;
"olitory," belonging to the kitchen garden;
"stercoration," manuring with dung; and
"tonsile," that which may be shorn or
clipped. Among the words that he used
and did not explain, because he considered
them "obvious," are many that are not at
all obvious to his readers of the nineteenth
century; such as "lapidescent," "surbated,"
"lignescent," "improsperity,"
"insititious," "politure," "stramental,"
"subductition," "suberous," "procerity," "lux,"
and "emolumental."

As the main object of the work was to
induce English gentlemen to plant oak
trees for the service of the state in the