Upon these considerations then, it is, that we leave it thus enigmatical; and yet that this may appear no disingenuous rhodomontade in me, or invidious excuse, I profess myself to be always most ready sub sigillo, and by his highness's permission, to gratify any curious and worthy person with as full and perfect a demonstration of the entire art as my talent and address will reach to, if what I am now preparing to be reserved in the archives of the royal society concerning it be not sufficiently instructive.” There came, however, into the hands of the communicative and learned Richard Middleton Massey, M. D. and F. R. S. the original manuscript, written by Mr. Evelyn, and designed for the royal society, entitled "Prince Rupert's new way of engraving, communicated by his highness to Mr. Evelyn;" in the margin of which is this note: "This I prepared to be registered in the royal society, but I have not yet given it in, so as it still continues a secret." In this manuscript he first describes the two instruments employed in this new manner of engraving, viz. the hatcher and the style, and then proceeds to explain the method of using them. He concludes with the following words : "This invention, or new manner of chalcography, was the result of chance, and improved by a German soldier, who, espying some scrape on the barrel of his musket, and being of an ingenious spirit, refined upon it, till it produced the effects you have seen, and which indeed is, for the delicacy thereof, much superior to any invention extant of this art, for the imitation of those masterly drawings, and, as the Italians call it, that morbidezza expressed in the best of their designs. I have had the honour to be the first of the English to whom it has been yet communicated, and by a special indulgence of his highness, who with his own hands was pleased to direct me with permission to publish it to the world; but I have esteemed it a thing so curious, that I thought it would be to profane it, before I had first offered it to this illustrious society. There is another way of engraving, by rowelling a plate with an instrument made like that which our scriveners and clerks use to direct their rulers by on parchment, only the points are thicker set into the rowel. And when the plate is sufficiently freckled with the frequent reciprocation of it, upon the polished surface, so as to render the ground dark enough, it is to be abated with the style, and treated as we have already described. Of this sort I have seen a head of the

queen Christina, graved, if I mistake not, as big as the life, but not comparable to the mezzotinto of prince Rupert, so deservedly celebrated by J. EVELYN,"

A second edition of the Sculptura was published in 1755, containing some corrections and additions taken from the margin of the author's printed copy; an etching of his head by Mr. Worlidge; an exact copy of the mezzotinto done by prince Rupert, by Mr. Houston; a translation of all the Greek and Latin passages; and memoirs of Mr. Evelyn's life, from which we have borrowed a few particulars. The work had become very scarce; being chiefly confined to the libraries of the most curious among the. learned. Mr. Walpole has spoken of it in terms of high respect, as well as of its author*.

Mr. Evelyn's next publication was the most important of all his works: 15. "Sylva; or, a dicourse of Foresttrees, and the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions; as it was delivered in the royal society the 15th of October, 1662, upon occasion of certain queries propounded to that illustrious assembly by the honourable the principal officers and commissioners of the navy." To which is annexed, "Pomona, or, an appendix concerning

Mr. Walpole says, "If Mr. Evelyn had not been an artist himself, as I think I can prove, I should yet have found it difficult to deny myself the pleasure of allotting him a place among the arts he loved, promoted, patronized; and it would be but justice to inscribe his name with due panegyric in these records, as I have once or twice taken the liberty to criticise him : but they are trifling blemishes compared with his amiable virtues and beneficence; and it may be remarked, that the worst I have said of him is, that he knew more than he always communicated. It is no unwelcome satire to say that a man's intelligence and philosophy is inexhaustible. I mean not to write his life, which may be found detailed in the new edition of his Sculptura, in Collins's Baronetage, in the General Dictionary, aud in the New Biographical Dictionary; but I must observe, that his life, which was extended to eighty-six years, was a course of enquiry, study, curiosity, instruction, and benevolence. The works of the Creator, and the mimic labours of the creature, were all objects of his pursuit. He unfolded the VOL. XIII.

perfection of the one, and assisted the imperfection of the other. He adored from examination; was a courtier that flattered only by informing his prince, and by pointing out what was worthy for him to countenance; and was really the Neighbour of the Gospel, for there was no man that might not have. been the better for him. Whoever peruses a list of his works will subscribe to my assertion. He was one of the first promoters of the royal society, a patron of the ingenious and indigeut, and peculiarly serviceable to the lettered world; for, besides his writings and discoveries, he obtained the Arundelian marbles for the university of Oxford, and the Arundelian library for the royal society. Nor is it the least part of his praise, that he who proposed to Mr. Boyle the erection of a philosophic college for retired and speculative persons, had the honesty to write in defence of active, life against sir George Mackenzie's Essay on Solitude. He knew that retirement in his own hands was industry. and benefit to mankind; but in those of others, laziness and inutility." Ca talogue of Engravers, p. 85, 86. F F

fruit-trees, in relation to cider, the making and several ways of ordering it: published by express order of the royal society," Lond. 1664, fol. This was the first work written by the command, and published in virtue of an order, of the royal society, signed by the lord viscount Brouncker, their president, and dedicated to the king. The second edition of it was published in 1669, with a new dedication to king Charles II. dated from Sayes-court, Aug. 24; the first paragraph of which deserves the reader's notice. "Sir, This second edition of Sylva, after more than a thousand copies had been bought up and dispersed of the first impression, in much less than two years space (which booksellers assure us is a very extraordinary thing in volumes of this bulk), comes now again to pay its homage to your serene majesty, to whose auspices alone it owes the favourable acceptance which it has received in the world. But it is not that alone which it presumes to tell your majesty, but to acquaint you that it has been the sole occasion for furnishing your almost exhausted dominions with more, I dare say, than two millions of timber-trees, besides infinite others, which have been propagated within the three nations at the instigation and by the direction of this work; and that the author of it is able, if need require, to make it out by a competent volume of letters and acknowledgments, which are come to his hands, from several persons of the most eminent quality, many of them illustrious, and divers of them unknown to him, in justification of what he asserts; which he the rather preserves with the more care, because they are testimonials from so many honourable persons of the benefit they have received from the endeavours of the royal society, which now-a-days passes through so many censures; but she has yet your majesty for her founder and patron, and is therefore the less concerned, since no man of worth can lightly speak ill of an assembly which your majesty has thought fit to dignify by so signal a relation to it." The third edition, with great additions and improvements, was published in 1679; the fourth in 1705, and the fifth in 1729, both very incorrect. In 1776 a new edition of the " Sylva" was published in 4to, by Dr. Andrew Hunter, of York, a gentleman eminently qualified for the undertaking. Under the care of this gentleman the work appeared with every possible advantage; and was enriched by the judicious editor with ample and copious notes, and adorned with a set of fine

engravings. A head of Mr. Evelyn is prefixed, drawn and engraved by Bartolozzi. Dr. Hunter's edition of the Sylva has been four times reprinted. The edition of 1812 contains the deceased editor's last corrections *. 16. "A parallel of the antient architecture with the modern, in a collection of ten principal authors who have written upon the five orders, viz. Palladio and Scammozzi, Serlio and Vignola; D. Barbaro and Cataneo; L. B. Alberti and Viola, Bullant and De Lorme; compared with one another. The three Greek orders, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, comprise the first part of this treatise, and the two Latin, Tusean and Composite, the latter; written in French by Roland Freart, sieur de Chambray; made English for the benefit of builders; to which is added, an account of architects and architecture, in an historical and etymological explanation of certain terms, particularly affected by architects; with Leon Baptista Alberti's treatise of statues," London, 1664, folio. This work, as well as the former, is dedicated to king Charles II.; and the dedication dated from Sayes-court, August 20th, contains some curious facts. After an apology for prefixing his royal name to a translation, our author proceeds thus: "I know none, indeed, to whom I could more aptly inscribe a discourse of building, than to so royal a builder, whose august attempts have already given so great a splendour to our imperial city, and so illustrious an example to the nation! It is from this contemplation, sir, that after I had, by the commands of the royal society, endeavoured the improvement of timber and the planting of trees, I have advanced to that of building, as its proper and mutual consequent, not with a presumption to incite or instruct your majesty, which were a vanity unpardonable, but, by it, to take occasion of celebrating your majesty's great example, who use your empire and authority so worthily, as fortune seems to have consulted her reason, when she poured her favours upon you; so as I never cast my eyes on that generous designation in the epigram, Ut donem pastor & ædificem, without immediate reflection on your majesty, who seem only to value those royal advantages you have above others, that you may oblige, and that you may build. And certainly, sir, your majesty has consulted the noblest way of establishing your greatness, and of perpetuating your memory,

* See an excellent critique on this edition in the Quarterly Review, No. XVII.

since, while stones can preserve inscriptions, your name will be famous to posterity; and, when those materials fail, the benefits that are engraven in our hearts will outlast those of marble. It will be no paradox, but a truth, to affirm, that your majesty has already built and repaired more in three or four years, notwithstanding the difficulties and the necessity of an extraordinary œconomy for the public concernment, than all your enemies have destroyed in twenty, nay than all your majesty's predecessors have advanced in an hundred, as I could easily make out, not only by what your majesty has so magnificently designed and carried on at that your ancient honour of Greenwich, under the conduct of your most industrious and worthy surveyor, but in those splendid apartments and other useful reformations for security and delight about your majesty's palace at Whitehall; the chargeable covering first, then paving and reformation of Westminster-hall; care and preparation for rebuilding St. Paul's, by the impiety and iniquity of the late confusions almost dilapidated; what her majesty the queen-mother has added to her palace at Somerset-house, in a structure becoming her royal grandeur, and the due veneration of all your majesty's subjects, for the honour she has done both this your native city, and the whole nation. Nor may I here omit, what I so much desire to transmit to posterity, those noble and profitable amoenities of your majesty's plantations, wherein you most resemble the divine architect, because your majesty has proposed in it such a pattern to your subjects, as merit their imitation and profoundest acknowledgments, in one of the most worthy and kingly improvements that nature is capable of. I know not what they talk of former ages, and of the now contemporary princes with your majesty; these things are visible: and should I here descend to more particulars, which yet were not foreign to the subject of this discourse, I would provoke the whole world to produce me an example parallel with your majesty, for your exact judgment and marvellous ability in all that belongs to the naval architecture, both as to its proper terms and more solid use, in which your majesty is master of one of the most noble and profitable arts that can be wished, in a prince to whom God has designed the dominion of the ocean, which renders your majesty's empire universal; where, by exercising your royal talent and knowledge that way, you can bring even the antipodes to meet, and the