John Evelyn and His Milieu 9780712363600, 9780712348171

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John Evelyn (1620-1706) has long been known as one of the best-loved of English diarists. But he was much else besides: gardener, environmentalist, connoisseur, bibliophile, intellectual in government service, influential lay Anglican - in fact the quintessential virtuoso of seventeenth-century England and a key figure in the assimilation of European culture there. These fifteen essays, all by leading experts in their fields, draw on The British Library's exceptionally rich holdings of Evelyn's books, manuscripts and family papers to explore for the first time the full range of his activity and influence.

JOHN EVELYN AND HIS MILIEU

Engraved portrait of John Evdyn by Robert Nal1teui l, ] 650 ( British Library, Add . M 78426 ).

JOHN EVELYN AND HIS MILlE U Essays edited by FRANCES HARRIS

& MICHAEL HUNTER

THE BRITISH LIBRARY

2003

© 2003 The Contributors

First published 2003 by The British Library 96 Euston Road London NW1 2DB British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP record for this volume is available from The British Library ISBN 0712348174

Designed by John Trevitt Typeset by Norman Tilley Graphics, Northampton Printed in England by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds

CONTENTS

Notes on contributors

page vii

Abbreviations

ix

Introduction 1

Michael Hunter and Frances Harris

'Excuse these Impertinences': Evelyn in his Letterbooks

21

Douglas Chambers

Evelyn, Inigo Jones, and the Collector Earl of Arundel

37

Edward Chaney

John Evelyn's Bindings

61

MirjamFoot

John Evelyn and his Books

71

Giles Mandelbrote

John Evelyn and the Print

95

Antony Griffiths

Sayes Court Revisited

115

Mark Laird

'A Sublime and Noble Service': Evelyn and the Church of England

145

John Spurr

'Action to the Purpose': Evelyn, Greenwich, and the Sick and Wounded Seamen

165

Gillian Darley

John Evelyn: Revolutionary

185

Steven Pincus

Mary Evelyn and Devotional Practice Gillian Wrtght

v

221

CONTENTS

Susanna and her Elders: John Evelyn's Artistic Daughter

233

Carol Gibson-Wood

Advice to Letter-Writers: Evidence from Four Generations ofEvelyns 255 Susan Whyman

Sir John Evelyn: His Grandfather's Heir

267

Edward Gregg

Their 'own Sweet Country': The Evelyns in Surrey

281

Isabel Sullivan

293

Index

vi

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

DOUGLAS CHAMBERS is Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto. His works include The Planters ofthe English Landscape Garden (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1993), and he is currently preparing an edition of Evelyn's letterbooks and correspondence. EDWARD CHANEY is Professor of Fine and Decorative Arts at Southampton Institute. His works include The Evolution ofthe Grand Tour: AngloItalian Cultural Relations since the Renaissance (London: Frank Cass, 1998), and Inigo Jones's Roman Sketchbook, Roxburghe Club (2003, forthcoming). GILLIAN DARLEY is an architectural and landscape historian. She is the author of John Soane, Accidental Romantic (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1999), and is currently writing a life oOohn Evelyn for Yale University Press. MIRIAM FOOT is Professor of Library and Information Studies at University College, London. Her works include Studies in the History of Bookbinding (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993) and The History of Bookbinding as a Mirror of Society (London: The British Library, 1998). CAROL GIBSON-WOOD is Professor at the Department of History in Art, and Lansdowne Chair in Fine Arts, University of Victoria, B.C. Her works include Jonathan Richardson: Art Theorist of the English Enlightenment (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2000). EDWARD GREGG is Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. A new edition of his Queen Anne was published by Yale University Press in 2001, and jointly with Clyve Jones he is editing the journal of Sir John Evelyn, 1st Bart. ANTONY GRIFFITHS is Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum. His works include The Print in Stuart Britain 1603-1689 (London: British Museum, 1998).

vii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS FRANCES HARRIS is a curator of Manuscripts at the British Library and author of Transformations of Love: the Friendship of John Evelyn and Margaret Godolphin (Oxford University Press, 2003). MICHAEL HUNTER is Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London. His works include Science and Society in Restoration England (Cambridge University Press, 1981), and, with Edward D. Davis, Antonio Clericuzio, and Lawrence M. Principe, the Pickering & Chatto editions of the Works and Correspondence of Robert Boyle (London: 1999-2001). MARK LAIRD is an historic gardens consultant and senior lecturer in landscape history at Harvard University, and author of The Flowering of the Landscape Garden: English Pleasure Grounds, 1720-1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). GILES MANDELBROTE is a curator of Rare Books at the British Library and co-editor of, among other works, A Radical's Books: the Library Catalogue of Samuel Jeake of Rye (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1999). STEVEN PINCUS is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is author of Protestantism and Patriotism: Ideology and the Making of English Foreign Policy 1650-1668 (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and is working on a study of the ideologies of Revolution ofl688-9. JOHN SPURR is Reader in History at the University of Wales, Swansea. His works include The Restoration Church of England (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1991) and England in the 1670s (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). ISABEL SULLIVAN is archivist at the Surrey History Centre and has responsibility for the Evelyn estate and manorial records there. SUSAN WHYMAN is author of Sociability and Power in Late Stuart England: the Cultural Worlds of the Verneys 1660-1720 (Oxford University Press, 1999), and is working on a cultural history ofletter-writing. GILLIAN WRIGHT is a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Perdita Project on Early Modern Women's Manuscripts, Nottingham Trent University.

viii

ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES

BL Evelyn, Diary

British Library The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. by E. S. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955)

ix

INTRODUCTION MICHAEL HUNTER AND FRANCES HARRIS

THE ESSAYS WHICH MAKE UP THIS VOLUME are based on the proceedings of the conference, 'John Evelyn and his Milieu', held at The British Library on 17-18 September 2001. 1 What in turn prompted the convening of this conference was the variety of important new research and archival discoveries which have been stimulated by the Library'S acquisition of, first, an important portion of the Evelyn library in 1977-8 and then the Evelyn manuscripts and family archive in March 1995. We will return later in this Introduction to the circumstances in which these acquisitions occurred. The core of these collections, printed and manuscript, are of course those ofTohn Evelyn, 'the diarist', himself, the main subject of this volume. His correspondence, literary manuscripts, and personal and official papers make up 227 'volumes' of the total of 525 'volumes' in which the archive is now arranged, and nine of the fourteen essays here printed have their focus on him. The remainder of the archive is made up of the papers of earlier and later generations of his family and that of his wife, extending the time-span back to the sixteenth century and forward to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 1 Of particular importance for the later period are the extensive archive of Evelyn's beloved grandson and heir (and fellow diarist), Sir John Evelyn, 1st Baronet, and a group of papers relating to William Bray and William Upcott, the prime movers in the publication of Evelyn's diary and correspondence in the nineteenth century. The subsidiary groups of family papers have also proved a rich source of research materia1. 3 Two of the essays below are based on the surviving manuscripts of Evelyn's daughters, one focuses on the 1st Baronet, and two more span several generations. This is appropriate, because it signals a family background of which Evelyn himself was always aware, and a concern for continuity which is much in evidence in the solicitude that he showed for his children and favourite grandchild. It was reciprocated in turn by the care with which his family preserved his literary remains. During his lifetime and for more than a century after his death, Evelyn was chiefly known as a writer on - and practitioner of - forestry and horticulture, as a pioneering advocate of the arts, and as a significant member of the circle

1

MICHAEL HUNTER AND FRANCES HARRIS

that founded the Royal Society. It was thus that he was remembered in the eighteenth century in such compendia as the influential Biographia Britannica; the lengthy account of him there by Dr John Campbell is mainly devoted to a summary of his published writings. Best known of these was his Sylva: or, a Discourse of Forest Trees; in fact he became known to his descendants as 'Sylva Evelyn'" Though this book originated in 1664 as a joint enterprise of the nascent Royal Society in circumstances which will be considered more fully below, it was increasingly transformed by Evelyn into an artefact of his own. He made lengthy additions to successive editions (1670, 1679, and 1706), greatly elaborating the main text and adding separate works of his own as appendices [Fig. 1]. Then in the late eighteenth century it was the subject of a lavish annotated edition by the York physician and agriculturalist, Dr Alexander Hunter, first published in 1776 and reprinted a number of times thereafter. s Evelyn's reputation was transformed almost overnight, however, by the publication in 1818 of his diary (under the title Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings ofJohn Evelyn), followed the next year by a second edition in the same lavish quarto format [Fig. 2]. It was this which turned him from a minor worthy into one of the most famous of all seventeenth-century Englishmen. His friend Samuel Pepys, of course, underwent a similar transformation. Indeed, it is interesting that the success of Evelyn's Memoirs was a significant stimulus to the decipherment ofPepys's diary and its publication under the editorship of Lord Braybrooke in 1825.6 The Evelyn edition, which included a selection of his correspondence, was principally the work of William Bray, a Surrey lawyer and antiquary who acted as solicitor to the then Lady Evelyn. He was assisted by William Upcott, librarian of the London Institution, who was subsequently to produce an edition of Evelyn's miscellaneous published writings in 1825. 7 Upcott had been appointed by Lady Evelyn in 1813 at Bray's suggestion to arrange and catalogue the family books. He was also an autograph collector whose enthusiasm for adding to his personal holdings sometimes outran his moral sense. He accumulated a suspiciously large number of Evelyn manuscripts (though he claimed to have had a general permission from Lady Evelyn for doing so), many of which were bought back by the family at the sale of his collections in 1846, following his death the previous year. Further items were acquired for the (then) British Museum Department of Manuscripts and now form the earliest portion of the British Library's Evelyn collections. s Bray's original edition of the diary was reprinted in smaller format in 1827. A new edition by the historian and biographer, John Forster, was then published in 1850-2, in which the apparatus was extended and a much larger selection of correspondence included. 9 Thereafter it was reprinted many times throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. One reason 2

Introduction

Or

A. DI S COUR \'l' J>~tellt1ffimotum orbi~ princi aU'arum & :lll2tbematifmoruln pitu & fragorc multi t.lntUID perftitiofarum opintonum virua

GILES M ANDELBROTE

Modern! Dromel.

thele that follow.

taken. he was led .:lsa foner to f'ilfortl CafHe in Flanders, where for teflimony of JefIU . and for the ProfefSloD the Gofpdl J hee conflantlYj acruell dome, being burnd to

.A Chrifll41l1 obedience. the unrighteoUI ':Mllmmolf

The pra8ice if~tht 'Pit: on thtfi~t1Jth St. Matthew. C()Mrfe ofthe 'aft/Pill j//IJ4

il.OnU1Je-:rU4f"'"

of Tracij.

His laO: words \bee wcrl! the(~, Open ob Kingl ~ u of Bngland

.

[

Mlfwer to Sir Thomas Dia/0t-utl. DoE/Tine oJthe Lordi , More. SIIcrllmtnt of the

was throu$h the coUtfe: of hIS life able. M.lflc:rFoxe in fiory of Mlrtyres [lie

mighr be caned ?'.Ple, the workes

the

Sacrament""

hewrit , bdid nation of the

I1.T~vo

Fig. 9 : Evelyn's marking of bibliographical referen ces, in a list of works by William Tyndale ( British Library, Eve.a. 13). in works dealin g with the hi story of rece nt eve nts, particu larl y the ivil War, arc especia ll y conce rned to correct e rro rs and misinte rpretations and often adopt a somewh at petlllant tone . '['he Secret H istory of the R eigns of King Charles II and Ki1'llJ j al-NeS II ( 1690 ), for exa mpl e, is in sc ribed on the titJe page : 'full of m ali cious mi stakes, ·I' 1f'ig . 101 . Eve lyn also so metimes quarrel s in the m argin s with rhe printed text, as when he respo nds to Alexander H e nderson 's statement that 'Nor could I eve r hea re a reason, why a necessary D efe nsive Warre aga inst unjust Vio len ce is unlawfull ' with tJle sharp retort ' H ad yl o lu wel l read Tertullian yo u might' [Fi g. ] 1].'11> An inte restin g exa mpl e of Eve lyn 'S d esire to rewrite hi story may be see n among those of' his books whi ch me ntion Colonel H erbert Morley, Lieutenant of the Tower and o ne of th e commissioners for the government of' the arm y, in the co nfu sed period leadin g up ro the Resto rati o n . Evelyn had bee n at sc hoo l with Morley and late in 1659 he tried unsuccessfully to persuade him to stage a coup in the King's favo ur. This was the o ne occasion R4

J ohn Evelyn and his Books

THE ,

SEC R E

y OF THE

.. ,

E G o

,

K. CHARLES IL J

AND

K. JAM ElI. 1';.,.' J,; lltrt~-,,!

--

"

~

.

Fig . 10: Evelyn wa rns that thi s book is 'full of mali cio us mista kes' ( Bri tish Library, Eve. n.lO ).

85

GILES MANDELBROTE

Fig. 11: Evelyn takes issue with Alexander Henderson (British Library, Eve.a.39) .

when Evelyn's actions might have helped to change the course of English history and he was very sensitive abo ut how his role was portrayed. The margins of his copy of Baker's Chronicle (1665) and of Hobbes's History of the Civil Wars (1679) are covered with their owner's indi gnant protests. 47 The critical dialogue with the text has become a lo ng diatribe abo ut hi s school friend's missed opportunity. My penultimate group of examples can serve on ly as a token of a mll ch larger category: annotations that reflect Evelyn's curiosity, particularly about the natural world, and show him (as a good Baconian) making compariso ns with his personal experience, as well as trying to accum ul ate materia l that might be useful to his own projects. The endpapers of Hartlib's Legacy of Husbandry, for instance, contain an extensive index, whic h Evelyn appears to have compi led in tile course of severa l readings of the text, to judge from the different colours of the annotations. The references to 'phesants, vin eyards, silkworm , dung', etc., clearly all of rel evance to Evelyn's work o n hortic ul ture and husbandry, are listed here with their page numbers.48 On a spare leaf at the end of John Smitll's The Art of Painting in Oyl (second edition; London, 1687), Evelyn favourab ly compares chapter eig hteen of tile first edition with chapter seventeen in t his and goes on to describe his own experiments in waterproofing barrels to hold beer or wine [Fig. 12] . T he next two illustrations both come from Evelyn's heavi ly ann otated set of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and relate to Jo hn Houghton's discourse on coff(~e (read to the Royal Society in 1699 ) - Evelyn was fascinated by any tiling that smacked of the exotic. Here he adds hi s personal reminiscence of the in troduction of coffee-drinki ng into England : ' It is now above 60 yea res since I saw Nathaniel Konopi us, a G retian

86

John Evelyn and his Books

100

~bt

.art of ~l1fttttnlJ.

fuch 11 gl'een Light as this now mentioned, will inf.'IIlibly prel'ctlt J beyond green reading Glafs, SpeGtncJes, or any I other contrivance, yet fOund out; tile like benefic may fome Tradefinen ;Ufo receive from ie.

FINIS. Tbe[e Books are Printed for Il1ld Sold !Jy Samuel CroLlch. 4t tbe Cornel' if Popcs·Hcad.AUey in Cornhi11. Rational1>l'a&ice of ChYl11cgery: A or Chyl'U1-gica\ Obfel'VariOIlS, refolved ac,ol'ding to. the folid Flulda-

memals of true l>hilolophy. YOllths Inrrodu&ion to Trade: or An Exercife.Dook: Chiefly defigned to imp\oy Youths at Night, and other vacant Times during their contlnu,ulcc at the Writing-Schoo], &0,

Fig. 12: Eve lyn makes comparisons with a previ ous editi on of Jo hn Smi th, The Art of Painting in Oyl, and describes his own experiments (B ritish Library, Eve .a.32). drinke it f)'equ ently in Ball[i ol] ColI[ ege ], O xon.' H e no tes also that H o ug hton had proposed to increase th e co nsumpti o n of to bacco in England by persuadin g the Quee n to take up smo kin g, an exampl e whi ch all th e women of the kin gdo m would foll ow 49 [Figs 13, 14]. T here is o ne category o f books f)'om Evelyn 's library which is even mo re heavily ann o tated th an t110se re latin g to hi s parti cul ar areas of interest in histo ry o r natural philosoph y: examples of hi s devotio nal and theologica l preoccupatio ns are to be fo und thro ug ho ut hi s coll ectio n. T he ti tle-page of Evelyn's fa mil y Bible (Lond o n , 1589), fo r insta nce, is covered in detailed no tes abo ut th e hi sto ry of the printin g and tran slatio n o f the Ge neva versio n so [Fig. 151. Ano ther printed Bibl e, in two fo li o vo lum es (Ca mbrid ge, 1638), with extensive annotatio ns by Eve lyn, relati ng especially to th e Garden of Eden , is amo ng the Evelyn manu scripts .51 In di scll ssio ns o f chu rch d isciplin e too, Evel yn's margin al interjectio ns are so metim es lively detail s drawn fro m his own experience. In the margin o f Jeremy Taylo r's A Collection of Offices 01' Forms of Prayer (1 658), for in stance, he remarks

87

GILES MANDELBROTE

pie s it does thus in Silks, Calicoes, Pepper, ToI

and feveral other things.

thermore Coffi:e has greatly incrcarcd the Trade of Tobacco and Pipes, Ennhcn diihcs, Tin wares, Papc(&, Coals, Candles, Sugar, Tea, ChocoIiDd wbat not ~ Cofl'cc-houfc makeS all forts of plclOcllbteJ. ther. improve Arts, and Merchaodize, 1Mil all other Knowledge; and a worthy member of &ta. Society (now departed) has thought that Coffee> Itoufcs have improved ufctul knowledge very much.

Figs 13 & 14: Evelyn's recollections, written in his copy of Philosophical Transactions, about the beginnin g of coffee-drinking in England and a scheme to popularize smoking (B ritish Library, Eve.a. 149) . o n the practice of Presbyterian congregations of sittin g with their hats o n at the reading of the Psalms s2 [Fig. 16]. Several volumes in Evelyn's library attest to his stro ng se nse of religious duty as the head of a ho use ho ld , and hi s commitm ent to private and fami ly worship and co nfessional to rm s of prayer. On o ne of the endpapers of his copy of Simo n Patrick's The Christia.n Sacrifice (second editio n; London, 1672), he has written o ut a so rt of prepa ratory count-down to the Ho ly Sacra ment, with references for the use of the book at eve ry stage, eve n ' In the Church, if yo u have time & opportuni ty' . On the faci ng page are references to passages 'profitable to be read to se rva nts when you find them remi sse in preparing th em -selves' 52 [Fig. 17 ]. We sho uld not forget that reli gio us works comprised the largest single category in Evelyn's library cata logue . The main Evelyn archive ca me to the British Library o nly in 1995, but it sho uld be clear from these exa mples that the Library had in fact already acq uired quite a few Evelyn manuscripts in 1977 and 1978. At the time of the C hristie's sales, a correspo nd ent in The Times suggested th at it was important merely to preserve a record of what Evelyn's library had contai ned, since other copies of most of the books were readily avai lablc .s4 It is in conceivable th at such a view co uld be serio usly expressed today. T he intervenin g years have seen a remarkabl e growth of interest in th e types of historica l evide nce to be to und uniquel y in individu al copies of printed 88

John Evelyn and his Books

THE BIBLE. Tranl1ateraccordingto th ndGl'cClkC',and contel'fcd witl the ben 1r:lOnMion. in diucrs L3IIguaflcs. W.. h nlOA l