Mr. Henry Green (a Florist) to John Evelyn. HONOURED SIR, June 24th, 1679. You may remember, about August last, there was a person with you to desire your opinion about Imbibition of seeds. He adventured to discourse with you about improvements, and entreated your directions about what at that present might tend to best account. You have generously pleased to express yourself on some particulars, and referred him to the Reverend Doctor Beale as one fully acquainted with all the parts of husbandry, and of a most communicative spirit. I addressed that worthy divine, and have found him fully to answer the excellent character you gave of him. I have told him, since, you (for whom he has so high an honour) gave me encouragement to apply to him for advice, which he has nobly obliged me with beyond my expression. I lately hinted, if he had any thing to convey to you, I would be his willing messenger, and put it into your hands, and pay you my humblest duty and acknowledgments for recommending me to so incomparable a master, to whom I owe more than to any man living. I write these few lines to be left with you, together with a letter from the Doctor, in case I should be so unhappy as to miss of you at home, and for your above mentioned signal favour I return you my heartiest thanks. I am, worthiest sir, Your most humble servant, HENRY GREEN. MADAM, John Evelyn to the Countess of Ossory. Whitehall, 5th June, 1680. I cannot account myself to have worthily discharged my duty to the memory of my noble Lord, without deeply condoling the loss your Ladyship has sustained in the death of that illustrious person: never did a great man go off this earthly stage with more regret and universal sorrow; never had Prince a more loyal subject, never nation a more public loss; and how great my own were in particular, the uninterrupted obligations of above thirty years (joined with a most condescending and peculiar friendship) may serve to declare, that nothing could have happened to me more calamitous. But all this does but accumulate to your Ladyship's affliction, which were indeed deplorable, had you not, besides the great and heroic actions of his life, the glorious name he has left behind, the hopeful branches that remain to imitate his virtues, the consolation, above all, of his being safe, where he has received a crown brighter than any earthly Prince. It was my duty (as well as honour) to be with him night and day till I closed his eyes, and to join in those holy offices which were so devoutly performed by the Bishop of St. Asaph to the last article, and during all his Lordship's sickness; which was passed through with such Christian patience and resignation, as that alone ought to give your Ladyship exceeding comfort. I am sure it does to me; and your Ladyship is to bless Almighty God for it, who after so many honourable hazards in this wicked world, would have him to a better, and that he is departed hence as a great man and a true Christian should do, though for the present to our infinite loss. And now, Madam, I should beg pardon for entertaining you so long on this mournful occasion, did I not assure myself that the testimony I give your Ladyship of the religious and pious circumstances of his sickness, would afford you some consolation, as well as to show how sincerely devoted I was to his Lordship's service, how much obliged for his constant and generous friendship to me, and how much I am, Madam, your, &c. John Evelyn to Dr. Morley (Bishop of Winchester). 1 June, 1681. **** Father Maimbourg has had the impudence to publish at the end of his late Histoire du Calvinisme, a pretended letter of the late Duchess of York,* intimating the motives of her deserting the Church of England; amongst other things to attribute it to the indifference, to * This letter may be found in a small collection of "Letters of Eminent Persons," 2 vols, 12mo. call it no worse, of those two bishops, upon whose advice she wholly depended as to the direction of her conscience, and points of controversy. 'Tis the universal discourse that your Lordship is one of those bishops she mentions, if at least the letter be not suppositious; knowing you to have been the most domestic in the family, and one whom her Highness resorted to in all her doubts and spiritual concerns, not only during her former circumstances, but all the time of her greatness to the very last. It is therefore humbly and earnestly desired (as well as indeed expected) amongst all that are concerned for our religion, and the great and worthy character which your Lordship bears, that your Lordship would do right to it, and publish to all the world how far you are concerned in this pretended charge, and to vindicate yourself and our Church from what this bold man would make the world believe to the prejudice of both. I know your Lordship will be curious to read the passage yourself, and do what becomes you upon this signal occasion, God having placed you in a station where you have no great one's frowns to fear or flatter, and given you a zeal for the truth and for his glory. With this assurance I humbly beg your Lordship's blessing.* John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys.† Sayes-Court, 5 June, 1681. SIR, I have been both very sorry and very much concerned for you since your Northern voyage, as knowing nothing of it 'till you were embarked (though I saw you so few days before), and that the dismal and astonishing accident was over, which gave me apprehensions and a mixture of passions not really to be expressed 'till I was * On the margin of this letter is the following note by Evelyn: "This letter was soon followed with the Bishop's full vindication published in print.” The latter was entitled an "Answer to a Letter written by a Romish Priest together with the Letters themselves." Dr. Morley also published a "Letter to Ann, Duchess of York, a few months before her death." This letter was written after the shipwreck in which the Duke of York escaped so narrowly, as he was returning out of Scotland. assured of your safety, and I gave God thanks for it with as much sincerity as any friend you have alive. 'Tis sadly true there were a great many poor creatures lost, and some gallant persons with them; but there are others worth hundreds saved, and Mr. Pepys was to me the second of those some; and if I could say more to express my joy for it, you should have it under the hand, and from the heart of, Sir, your, &c. John Evelyn to Mr. William London, at Barbados. SIR, I find myself so exceedingly obliged for the great civility of your letter (abating only for the encomiums you are pleased to bestow upon me, and which are in no sort my due), that having nothing to return you but my thanks and acknowledgments, I was not to delay that small retribution, for so many useful and excellent notices, as both your letter and the papers enclosed have communicated me. I have, indeed, been formerly more curious in your culture of trees and plants, and blotted a great deal of paper with my crude observations (and some. of them I have had the vanity to publish), but they do in no degree amount to the accurateness of your design, which I cannot but applaud, and wish you all the success so excellent an undertaking deserves. I do not know that ever I saw a more pertinent and exact enumeration of particulars, and if it please God you live to accomplish what you have drawn the scheme of, I shall not doubt to pronounce it the most absolute and perfect history that we have anywhere extant of either our own, or other plantations. So that I cannot but highly encourage, and augur you all the prosperity imaginable; and I shall not fail, in order to it, to impart your papers to the Royal Society, who I am very confident will be ready to do you any service; although I do not see that your design is any where defective. And I persuade myself that you will be curious to adorn your work with true and handsome draughts of the animals, plants, and other things that you VOL. III. 8 describe in the natural part. This I am bold to mention, because most of those authors (especially English) who have given us their relations, fill them with such lame and imperfect draughts and pictures, as are rather a disgrace than ornament to their books, they having no talent that way themselves, and taking no course to procure such as can design; and if now and then you sprinkle here and there a prospect of the countries by the true and natural landscape, it would be of infinite satisfaction, and imprint an idea of those places you pass through, which are so strange to us, and so desirable. Gaspar Barlæus (in his elegant History of Brazil) has given an incomparable instance of this: in which work the landscapes of divers parts of that country are accurately exhibited and graven in copper, besides the chorographical maps and other illustrations: but, sir, I beg your pardon for mentioning a thing, which I am sure you have well thought of, and will provide for. In your account of plants, trees, fruits, &c., there are abundance to which we are here utter strangers, and therefore cannot but be desirable to the curious. I am told there is newly planted in Barbados an orange of a most prodigious size; and such an improvement of the China as by far exceeds these we have from Portugal, which are of late years much degenerated. As for flowers, I think I have heard that the narcissus tuberosus grows wild, and in plenty with you. I have not the impudence to beg for myself any of those rarities you mention, but wish with all my heart I had anything of my own worthy your acceptance. I had at the beginning of last spring some foreign and exotic seeds, which I imparted to my friends, and some I sowed and set, but with very little success; and, as rightly you complain, there is no trust in our mercenary seedsmen of London for anything. In the meantime concerning nutmegs, cinnamon, cloves, and those other aromatics you so reasonably covet, I fear it will be a very difficult province to obtain such of them from the East Indies, they being mostly in possession of the Hollanders, who are (you know) a jealous people, and as I have been informed, make it capital to transport so much as a single nutmeg (I mean such a one as being set would produce a tree) out of their country. The late Sir John Cox, who had often been at Nova Batavia, told me |