lii INTRODUCTION 



Sovereigns ; in brief, as Sir Leslie Stephen writes 

 rather irreconcileably, he was a hearty but cautious 

 Royalist. The libertine levity of the Restoration 

 reaction, its assertion of the " Will to Live," and to 

 enjoy life in its porcine way, was an offence to his 

 delicacy and refinement. 



Of the many subjects touched with his hand or pen, 

 there was hardly one to which he did not lend lustre, 

 for his own age at least. In nearly all he was a 

 teacher, a friend of those who would " live in the 

 spirit," or excel in the artistry of life. Whether the 

 subject were Painting, Architecture, Forestry, Agri- 

 culture, Gardens, Engraving, the installation or 

 foundation of Libraries, Religion, Commerce, 

 Lucretius's great Epicurean poem, the formation of 

 the Royal Society, the rebuilding of London, the 

 structure of the Earth, the abolition of the Smoke 

 nuisance even the fashions, follies and dress of his 

 generation in one and all he was an originator, a 

 pioneer, a reformer, or a meliorator either by his 

 own example and in his own person, by his writings, 

 or the interpretation of other men's. To few men has 

 it been granted to spread so wide a range of excellence 

 over so long a life and so many different branches of 

 art and literature ; and to crown all, he has left in his 



