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To Abraham Cowley, Esq.*

Sayes-Court, 12th March, 1666-7.

SIR, You had reason to be astonished at the presumption, not to name it affront, that I who have so highly celebrated recess, and envied it in others, should become an advocate for the enemy, which of all others it abhors and flies from. I conjure you to believe that I am still of the same mind, and that there is no person alive who does more honour and breathe after the life and repose you so happily cultivate and adorn by your example: but, as those who praised dirt, a flea, and the gout,† so have I Public Employment in that trifling Essay,‡ and that in so weak a style compared to my antagonists, as by that alone it will appear I neither was nor could be serious; and I hope you believe I speak my very soul to you. But I have more to say, which will require your kindness. Suppose our good friend were publishing some eulogies on the Royal Society, and, by deducing the original progress and advantages of their design, would bespeak it some veneration in the world? Has Mr. Cowley no inspirations for it? Would it not hang the most heroic wreath about his temples? Or can he desire a nobler or a fuller argument either for the softest airs or the loudest echoes, for the smoothest or briskest notes of his Pindaric lyre?

There be those who ask, What have the Royal Society done? Where their College? I need not instruct you how to answer or confound these persons, who are able to make even these inform § blocks and stones dance into order, and charm them into better sense. Or if their insolence press, you are capable to show how they have laid solid foundations to perfect all noble arts, and reform all imperfect sciences. It requires an history to recite

* This and the following letter will be read with interest by all who have admired the masterly poem to which chiefly they relate, and which was published before the close of this year in Sprat's History of the Royal Society. + Dornavius's "Amphitheatrum Sapientiæ Socraticæ Jacoseria" contains a large collection of facetia of this kind, in prose and verse, with which the scholars of those times relieved their serious studies.

"Public Employment, &c., preferred to Solitude," 1667. Printed in Evelyn's "Miscellaneous Writings," 1825, 4to, pp. 501, 509. § An adjective-from the Latin informis.

only the arts, the inventions, and phenomena already absolved, improved, or opened. In a word, our registers have outdone Pliny, Porta, and Alexis, and all the experimentists, nay, the great Verulam himself, and have made a nobler and more faithful collection of real secrets, useful and instructive, than has hitherto been shown.-Sir, we have a library, a repository, and an assembly of as worthy and great persons as the world has any; and yet we are sometimes the subject of satire and the songs of the drunkards; have a king to our founder, and yet want a Mæcenas; and above all, a spirit like yours, to raise us up benefactors, and to compel them to think the design of the Royal Society as worthy of their regards, and as capable to embalm their names, as the most heroic enterprise, or any thing antiquity has celebrated; and I am even amazed at the wretchedness of this age that acknowledges it no more. But the devil, who was ever an enemy to truth, and to such as discover his prestigious effects, will never suffer the promotion of a design so destructive to his dominion (which is to fill the world with imposture and keep it in ignorance), without the utmost of his malice and contradiction. But you have numbers and charms that can bind even these spirits of darkness, and render their instruments obsequious; and we know you have a divine hymn for us; the lustre of the Royal Society calls for an ode from the best of poets upon the noblest argument. To conclude: here you have a field to celebrate the great and the good, who either do, or should, favour the most august and worthy design that ever was set on foot in the world: and those who are our real patrons and friends you can eternise, those who are not you can conciliate and inspire to do gallant things.But I will add no more, when I have told you with great truth that I am,

SIR,

Sir, &c.

From Abraham Cowley to John Evelyn.

Chertsey, 13th May, 1667.

I am ashamed of the rudeness I have committed in deferring so long my humble thanks for your obliging letter, which I received from you at the beginning of the

last month. My laziness in finishing the copy of verses upon the Royal Society, for which I was engaged before by Mr. Sprat's desire, and encouraged since by you, was the cause of this delay, having designed to send it to you enclosed in my letter: but I am told now that the History is almost quite printed, and will be published so soon, that it were impertinent labour to write out that which you will so suddenly see in a better manner, and in the company of better things. I could not comprehend in it many of those excellent hints which you were pleased to give me, nor descend to the praises of particular persons, because those things afford too much matter for one copy of verses, and enough for a poem, or the History itself; some part of which I have seen, and think will be very you well satisfied with it. I took the boldness to show him your letter, and he says he has not omitted any of those heads, though he wants the eloquence in expression. Since I had the honour to receive from you the reply to a book written in praise of a solitary life,* I have sent all about the town in vain to get the author, having very much affection for the subject, which is one of the noblest controversies both modern and ancient; and you have dealt so civilly with your adversary, as makes him deserve to be looked after. But I could not meet with him, the books being all, it seems, either burnt or bought up. If you please to do me the favour to lend it to me, and send it to my brother's house (that was) in the King's Yard, it shall be returned to you within a few days with the humble thanks of your most faithful obedient servant,

A. COWLEY.

Sir John Langham to John Evelyn.

WORTHY SIR,

Crosby House, this 30th July, 1667.

presume upon your goodness, though a stranger, so far to trouble you as to make a double inquiry concerning Mr. Phillips, who lately was entertained in your

*Sir George Mackenzie's "Moral Essay upon Solitude, preferring it to Public Employment," &c., 1665.

family. The one how he approved himself to you in learning and behaviour, whom I had long known to be the greatest judge of both: the other where he is now disposed of, and whether in the liberty of receiving an ingenuous employment, if your character of him and my discourse with him shall encourage me to give him a call thereto. One requisite that I am commissioned to be assured of, is his ability of speaking ready and refined Latin; for as to his manners and regular conversation, there lies not a suspicion for anything in them unworthy of the sanctimony of your house, which hath long been venerated as the holiest temple of all virtue and ingenuity. I am sensible how far already I have trespassed upon your consecrated leisures, therefore, lest I should continue the fault, I add not more, than I am,

Sir,

Your very humble Servant,

J. LANGHAM.

SIR,

John Evelyn to Sir John Langham.

It is from the abundance of your civility that you load me with eulogies, and because you are not acquainted with my imperfections, which are so much the greater by having not had the honour to be known to so deserving a person as yourself. I can say nothing to the disadvantage of Mr. Phillips, which might not recommend him to your good intentions, except it be that I did not observe in him any greater promptness of readily speaking Latin (which I find is one of the principal faculties you are in search of); but it was not for that, or indeed any other defect which made us part, but the passion he had to travel and see the world, which he was made believe he should have had a sudden opportunity of effecting with a son of my lord of Pembroke, who has now these two years been under his tuition without satisfying his curiosity as to that particular. Mr. Phillips is, I think, yet at Wilton, where my lord makes use of him to interpret some of the Teutonic philosophy, to whose mystic theology his lordship, you know, is much addicted. As to Mr. Phillips's more express character, he is a sober, silent, and most harmless

person; a little versatile in his studies, understanding many languages, especially the modern, not inferior to any I know, and that I take to be his talent. Thus, sir, what I have said concerning Mr. Phillips in the matter you require, I hope shall not abate of your value for him, or the honour I promise myself in receiving your future commands, who remain,

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It is not without much regret and more concernment as it regards your honourable and illustrious family, that I have now so long a time beheld some of the noblest antiquities in the world, and which your grandfather purchased with so much cost and difficulty, lie abandoned, broken, and defaced in divers corners about Arundel House and the gardens belonging to it. I know your honour cannot but have thoughts and resolutions of repairing and collecting them together one day; but there are in the mean time certain broken inscriptions, now almost obliterated with age and the ill effects of weather, which will in a short time utterly be lost and perish, unless they be speedily removed to a more benign and less corrosive air. For these it is, I should be an humble suitor that you would think fit to make a present of them to the University of Oxford, where they might be of great use and ornament, and remain a more lasting record to posterity of your munificence, than by any other application of them whatsoever; and the University would think themselves obliged to inscribe your name, and that of your illustrious family, to all significations of gratitude.

*Heir apparent to the Dukedom of Norfolk, frequently mentioned in the Diary. "This letter," Evelyn writes upon the MS. original," procured all the Marmora Arundeliana, Greek and Latin Inscriptions, Urns, Altar Tables, &c. now at Oxon. J. E." See also his Dedication to Mr. Howard, prefixed to Roland Freart's "Idea of the Perfection of Painting," and reprinted in his "Miscellaneous Writings," 1825, 4to, p. 555.

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