THE LIFE O F JOHN EVELYN, Efq; Non folum de his omnibus confcripfit artibus; fed amplius rei rufticæ, et militaris etiam, et medicinæ præcepta reliquit; dignus vel ipfo propo fito, ut eum fciffe omnia illa credamus. QUINTILIAN. а L I FE OF JOHN EVELYN, Efq; J OHN EVELYN, the author of the following curious and entertaining work, was born October the thirty first, one thousand fix hundred and twenty, at Wotton in Surry, the feat of his father RICHARD EVELYN Efquire, delightfully fituated in a winding and wellwatered valley a few miles from Darking. This family, very ancient and honourable, Hourished originally in Shropshire; and was first settled at Wotton, in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH.' Our author was initiated in the rudiments of literature, at the free-fchool of Lewes in Suffex; and was afterwards admitted, as a gentleman commoner, at Baliol College, in the univerfity of Oxford, in one thousand fix hundred and thirty fe ven and having profecuted his academical studies with diligence and applaufe for three years, he removed to the Middle Temple, in order to add a competent knowledge of the laws of his country to his former philological acquifitions. On the eruption of the civil war, he accompanied CHARLES the first to Oxford; and there obtained the king's permiffion, under his own hand, to travel into foreign countries, for the improvement and completion of his education. A thirft of knowledge, of every kind, was the ruling paffion of our author. His mind was not unfurnished with science, and he was arrived at a proper age to make travelling an useful amusement it was not, therefore, his defign, as it is that of too many of our young gentry and nobility, merely, in the admirable words of the fatyrist, -to faunter Europe round, DUNCIAD, book iv. 311. but accurately to obferve the antiquities, arts, religion, laws, learning, manners and cuftoms, of every country through which he might happen to pafs. An inftance of which diligence and curiofity Mr. BOYLE hath recorded in his works, volume the fecond, page 206, who received from our author, whom he confulted on the occafion, a valuable and exact account of the method, by which the magazines of fnow are preferved in Italy, for the ufe of the tables of the great and luxurious. During his stay at Rome, he informs us of an incident too remarkable to be omitted, as it may ferve |