X EVELYN'S "SYLVA" AND PRESENT TIMES 



proving their scattered phenomena, with a view to estab- 

 lish even the received methods and principles of the 

 schools, as far as were consistent with truth and 

 matter of fact, thought it long enough that the world 

 had been imposed upon by that national and formal way 

 of delivering divers systems and bodies of philosophy, 

 falsely so-called, beyond which there was no more 

 country to discover ; which being brought to the test 

 and trial, vapours all away in fume and empty 

 sound." 



Amongst the first of the activities of the Society was 

 the direct encouragement, through the publication of 

 the Sylva, given to planting, then an urgent need of 

 the day for the sake of the Navy. In confirmation of 

 the Society's interest in this matter we read in the 

 opening paragraphs of the Preface to the Reader 

 (4th ed.) : 



" After what the Frontispiece and Porch of this 

 Wooden Edifice presents you, I shall need no farther 

 to repeat the occasion of this following discourse ; I 

 am only to acquaint you. That as it was delivered to 

 the Royal Society (on the fifteenth day of October 1662) 

 by an unworthy Member thereof, in obedience to their 

 commands ; by the same it is now republished without 

 any farther prospect : And the reader is to know, 

 that if these dry sticks afford him any sap, it is one of 

 the least and meanest of those pieces which are every 

 day produced by that illustrious assembly, and which 

 enrich their collections, as so many monuments of their 

 accurate experiments, and public endeavours, in 

 order to the production of real and useful theories, the 

 propagation and improvement of natural science, and 

 the honour of their institution." 



