xii EVELYN'S " SYLVA " AND PRESENT TIMES 



pursue your Majesty's great example, and, by culti- 

 vating our decaying woods, contribute to your power, 

 as to our great wealth and safety ; since whilst your 

 Majesty is furnished to send forth those Argos and 

 Trojan hordes, about this happy island, we are to fear 

 nothing from without it ; and whilst we remain obed- 

 ient to your just commands, nothing from within it." 



It makes delightful reading and withal carries a 

 moral. That the Royal Society, from its initiation, 

 thus had the true welfare of the nation at heart in 

 publishing the Sylva is borne out by certain remarks 

 in the preface to the 6th edition, written by its 

 editor, Dr. A. Hunter, F.R.S., over a hundred years 

 later (August 1776). When contrasted with the 

 above-quoted extracts from Evelyn's Dedication they 

 merit our earnest consideration : 



" Soon after the publication of the Sylva, which 

 appeared in 1664," writes Dr. Hunter, " the Spirit 

 for Planting increased to a high degree ; and there is 

 reason to believe that many of our ships which, in 

 the last war, gave laws to the whole world, were 

 constructed from oaks planted at that time. The 

 present age must reflect upon this with gratitude ; and 

 it is to be hoped that we shall be ambitious to receive 

 from posterity the same acknowledgments that we, at 

 this moment, pay to the memory of our virtuous 

 Ancestors." 



The results of the action of the Royal Society in the 

 early days of the reign of Charles the Second, and of 

 the industry and knowledge of their great Fellow, 

 were to witness even more glorious achievements by 

 the "wooden walls" which their foresight enabled 



