Lot Essay
The career and life of John Evelyn (1620-1706) is best summed up by describing him as a virtuoso and a polymath whose chief legacy is the diary which he kept through the whole of his life recording events and ideas in England from the Civil War to the reign of Queen Anne in the next century.
The second son of Richard Evelyn of Wotton and Eleanor Standsfield, he was born into a landed family whose wealth lay in the manufacture of gunpowder, his father being the first to produce it on a large scale in England. He refused an education at Eton, to his subsequent regret, and his studies at Balliol must have gone unnoticed as he left without a degree. Whatever he felt he may have lacked in a classical education he would have gained on his extensive travels on the Continent in the years 1643-1647.
In October 1646 he reached Paris where he befriended King Charles I's Ambassador Sir Richard Browne (1605-1683), whose daughter Mary he then married in Paris in June 1647, when she was only twelve years old. In September of that year he left his bride in Paris with her mother and returned to England where he remained for two years, promoting the Royalist cause. On July 1st, 1648, Evelyn records in his diary "(I) sate for my Picture (the same wherein is a Death's Head) to Mr. Walker that excellent Painter". The picture was presumably intended to accompany a treatise he had written for his young wife called Instruction OEconomique, as a guide to married life.
In June 1649 "the rebel Bradshaw" issued Evelyn, who had been treading a fine line with Parliament, with a passport allowing him to visit Paris, where he remained for two years with his wife who must have taken note of his instructions because he writes of her: "the best wife in the world, sweet and agreeable ... pious, loyal and of so just a temper, obliging and withall discreet, as has made me very happy". In 1650 Robert Nanteuil was commissioned to paint a set of miniatures of Sir Richard and Lady Browne, and Mr. and Mrs. John Evelyn (Evelyn Collection, Stonor Park). Evelyn had originally hoped that the treatise to his bride be accompanied by a miniature by either Nicholas Hilliard or John Hoskins.
In June 1652 his wife, now seventeen years of age, joined him in England at his house Sayes Court in Kent. Evelyn's life remained relatively quiet until the Restoration in January 1661, as he occupied himself with gardening and schemes such as the foundation of a college outside London where men of science were to devote themselves to "the promotion of experimental knowledge". This proposal ultimately took form as the Royal Society, of which he was a founder member. The lengthy list of achievements and activities that fill the remaining four decades of his life reveals a receptiveness to new ideas, and a versatility that caused Samuel Pepys to write: "a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others".
Evelyn was to take an active part in politics and government, being a keen supporter of the King and the Court, being frequently consulted by King Charles II, with whom he was on close terms. Surprisingly though the only official post of note ever held was Commissioner of Plantations, a post that brought an income of 500 a year, bestowed upon him by the equally supportive King James II. Evelyn was highly regarded as an expert on architectural and horticultural matters [his Sylva; or a discourse of Forest Trees of 1664 remained an important text on the subject of forestry for a century] and can be credited not only as being a keen promoter of the Arts in England, but by being the man who discovered Grinling Gibbons. His diary and letters, which were not published until 1818 provide a humourous and informative insight into the era that he witnessed, in which he met, corresponded and advised the most talented and famous figures of the day. His writings encompass the Arts, Politics, Military affairs, diplomacy, Science and his travels around England. In 1661 he showed remarkable prescience in writing Fumifugium; or the inconveniences of the aer and smoak of London.. in which he is aware of the problems of metropolitan pollution and even suggested remedies for the "hellish and dismal clouds of sea-coal". But they also reveal his more down to earth side as he comments on daily events such as his irritation at the damage caused by Admiral Benbow and Czar Peter the Great (tenants of Evelyn's at Saye Court in the Summer of 1698) to his flowerbeds and his favourite holly bush. The Czar and the Admiral had amused themselves by wheeling each other in barrows around Evelyn's carefully maintained garden. Evelyn demanded and received 162 7 shillings for damages.
Having inherited Wotton House, in Surrey, from his elder brother he spent his remaining days there, where he died on 27 February 1709, writing to the last. Horace Walpole's epitaph to Evelyn is the most complete: "The Works of the creator and the mimic labours of the creatures were all objects of his pursuit. He unfolded the perfection of the one and assisted the imperfection of the other"
The second son of Richard Evelyn of Wotton and Eleanor Standsfield, he was born into a landed family whose wealth lay in the manufacture of gunpowder, his father being the first to produce it on a large scale in England. He refused an education at Eton, to his subsequent regret, and his studies at Balliol must have gone unnoticed as he left without a degree. Whatever he felt he may have lacked in a classical education he would have gained on his extensive travels on the Continent in the years 1643-1647.
In October 1646 he reached Paris where he befriended King Charles I's Ambassador Sir Richard Browne (1605-1683), whose daughter Mary he then married in Paris in June 1647, when she was only twelve years old. In September of that year he left his bride in Paris with her mother and returned to England where he remained for two years, promoting the Royalist cause. On July 1st, 1648, Evelyn records in his diary "(I) sate for my Picture (the same wherein is a Death's Head) to Mr. Walker that excellent Painter". The picture was presumably intended to accompany a treatise he had written for his young wife called Instruction OEconomique, as a guide to married life.
In June 1649 "the rebel Bradshaw" issued Evelyn, who had been treading a fine line with Parliament, with a passport allowing him to visit Paris, where he remained for two years with his wife who must have taken note of his instructions because he writes of her: "the best wife in the world, sweet and agreeable ... pious, loyal and of so just a temper, obliging and withall discreet, as has made me very happy". In 1650 Robert Nanteuil was commissioned to paint a set of miniatures of Sir Richard and Lady Browne, and Mr. and Mrs. John Evelyn (Evelyn Collection, Stonor Park). Evelyn had originally hoped that the treatise to his bride be accompanied by a miniature by either Nicholas Hilliard or John Hoskins.
In June 1652 his wife, now seventeen years of age, joined him in England at his house Sayes Court in Kent. Evelyn's life remained relatively quiet until the Restoration in January 1661, as he occupied himself with gardening and schemes such as the foundation of a college outside London where men of science were to devote themselves to "the promotion of experimental knowledge". This proposal ultimately took form as the Royal Society, of which he was a founder member. The lengthy list of achievements and activities that fill the remaining four decades of his life reveals a receptiveness to new ideas, and a versatility that caused Samuel Pepys to write: "a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others".
Evelyn was to take an active part in politics and government, being a keen supporter of the King and the Court, being frequently consulted by King Charles II, with whom he was on close terms. Surprisingly though the only official post of note ever held was Commissioner of Plantations, a post that brought an income of 500 a year, bestowed upon him by the equally supportive King James II. Evelyn was highly regarded as an expert on architectural and horticultural matters [his Sylva; or a discourse of Forest Trees of 1664 remained an important text on the subject of forestry for a century] and can be credited not only as being a keen promoter of the Arts in England, but by being the man who discovered Grinling Gibbons. His diary and letters, which were not published until 1818 provide a humourous and informative insight into the era that he witnessed, in which he met, corresponded and advised the most talented and famous figures of the day. His writings encompass the Arts, Politics, Military affairs, diplomacy, Science and his travels around England. In 1661 he showed remarkable prescience in writing Fumifugium; or the inconveniences of the aer and smoak of London.. in which he is aware of the problems of metropolitan pollution and even suggested remedies for the "hellish and dismal clouds of sea-coal". But they also reveal his more down to earth side as he comments on daily events such as his irritation at the damage caused by Admiral Benbow and Czar Peter the Great (tenants of Evelyn's at Saye Court in the Summer of 1698) to his flowerbeds and his favourite holly bush. The Czar and the Admiral had amused themselves by wheeling each other in barrows around Evelyn's carefully maintained garden. Evelyn demanded and received 162 7 shillings for damages.
Having inherited Wotton House, in Surrey, from his elder brother he spent his remaining days there, where he died on 27 February 1709, writing to the last. Horace Walpole's epitaph to Evelyn is the most complete: "The Works of the creator and the mimic labours of the creatures were all objects of his pursuit. He unfolded the perfection of the one and assisted the imperfection of the other"