Lord Herbert, John Evelyn 225 



the nature of all herbs and plants." Further, " it will become 

 a gentleman to have some knowledge in medicine especially 

 the diagnostic part " ; and he urged that a gentleman should 

 know how to make medicines himself. He gives us a list 

 of the " pharmacopeias and anechodalies " which he has 

 in his own library, and certainly he had a knowledge of 

 anatomy and of the healing art he refers to a wound which 

 penetrated to his father's " pia mater," a membrane for a 

 mention of which we should look in vain among the records 

 of modern ambassadors and gentlemen of the court. His 

 knowledge, however, was entirely empirical and founded 

 on the writings of Paracelsus and his followers; never- 

 theless, he prides himself on the cures he effected, and, 

 if one can trust the veracity of so self-satisfied an amateur 

 physician, they certainly fall but little short of the 

 miraculous. 



John Evelyn, another example of a well-to-do and widely 

 cultivated man of the world, fond of dancing and skilled 

 in more than one musical instrument, was acquainted with 

 several foreign languages, including Spanish and German, and 

 was interested also in hieroglyphics. He studied medicine 

 in 1645 at Padua, and there acquired those " rare tables of 

 veins and nerves " which he afterwards gave to the Royal 

 Society; while at Paris, in 1647, he attended Lefevre's course 

 of chemistry, learned dancing and, above all, devoted himself 

 to horticulture. 



But Evelyn's chief contribution to science, as already 

 indicated, was horticultural. He was devoted to his garden, 

 and, both at his native Wotton, and, later, at Sayes Court, 

 Deptford, spent much time in planting and planning land- 

 scape gardens, then much the fashion. 



In the middle of the sixteenth century, the fact that 

 " nitre " promoted the growth of plants was beginning to 

 be recognized. Sir Kenelm Digby and the young Oxonian 

 John Mayow experimented de Sal-Nitro ; and, in 1675, 

 Evelyn writes : "I firmly believe that where saltpetre can 

 be obtained in plenty we should not need to find other 

 composts to ameliorate our ground." His well-known 

 " Sylva," published in 1664, had an immediate and a wide- 

 spread effect, and was, for many years, the standard book 



P 



