xxxii INTRODUCTION 



Sayes Court was afterwards the temporary residence of Peter 

 the Great, who committed great havoc in the gardens and 

 hedges during his rough orgies. Here Evelyn lived quietly 

 till the time of the Restoration, spending his days in garden- 

 ing and in cultivating the acquaintance of men of cultured 

 tastes like his own, with occasional journeys to different 

 parts of England. Thus he visited Windsor, Marlborough, 

 Bath, Oxford, Salisbury, Devizes, Gloucester, Worcester, 

 Warwick, Leicester, Doncaster, York, Cambridge, and many 

 other places, so that he probably saw a great deal more of 

 England than the majority of men in his position. Thus, too, 

 he learned much about the country and about all branches of 

 rural economy. He had not yet seriously given himself to 

 literature, although his third work was published in 1656, 

 An Essay on the First Book of T. Lucretius Cerus de Rerum 

 Natura. Interpreted and made English Verse. 



In January, 1658, heavy sorrow fell upon Evelyn by the 

 death of his younger son, an infant prodigy, and a sad and 

 wonderful example of a young brain being terribly overtaxed. 

 ' After six fits of a quartan ague with which it pleased God 

 to visite him, died my dear Son Richard, to our inexpressible 

 grief and affliction, 5 yeares and 3 days old onely, but at 

 that tender age a prodigy for witt and understanding ; for 

 beauty of body a very angel ; for endowment of mind of 

 incredible and rare hopes. To give onely a little taste of 

 them, and thereby glory to God, he had learn'd all this 

 catechisme who out of the mouths of babes and infants does 

 sometimes perfect his praises : at 2 years and a halfe old he 

 could perfectly read any of ye English, Latine, French, or 

 Gothic letters, pronouncing the first three languages exactly. 

 He had before the 5th yeare, or in that yeare, not onely 

 skill to reade most written hands, but to decline all the 

 nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of ye irregular ; 

 learn'd out " Puerilis, " got by heart almost ye entire 

 vocabularie of Latine and French primitives and words, could 

 make congruous syntax, turne English into Latine, and 

 vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the 

 government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, 

 elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable 

 progress in Comenius's Janua ; began himselfe to write 



