UME II.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I. Of Copp'ces page 1
" II. Of Pruning " 8
" III. Of the Age, Stature, and Felling of Trees " 24
" IV. Of Timber, the Seasoning and Uses, and of Fuel " 80
" V. Aphorisms, or certain General Precepts of use
to the foregoing Chapters " 130
" VI. Of the Laws and Statutes for the Preservation
and Improvement of Woods and Forests " 138
" VII. The paraenesis and conclusion, containing
some encouragements and proposals for the
planting and improvement of his Majesty's
forests, and other amunities for shade,
and ornament " 157

BOOK IV.

An historical account of the sacredness and use
of standing groves, &c. " 205

Renati Rapini " 269

INTRODUCTION.

I

_Evelyn & his literary contemporaries Isaac Walton & Samuel Pepys._

Among the prose writers of the second half of the seventeenth century
John Evelyn holds a very distinguished position. The age of the
Restoration and the Revolution is indeed rich in many names that have
won for themselves an enduring place in the history of English
literature. South, Tillotson, and Barrow among theologians, Newton in
mathematical science, Locke and Bentley in philosophy and classical
learning, Clarendon and Burnet in history, L'Estrange, Butler, Marvell
and Dryden in miscellaneous prose, and Temple as an essayist, have all
made their mark by prose writings which will endure for all time. But
the names which stand out most prominently in popular estimation as
authors of great masterpieces in the prose of this period are certainly
those of John Bunyan, John Evelyn, and Izaak Walton. And along with them
Samuel Pepys is also well entitled to be ranked as a great contemporary
writer, though he was at pains to try and ensure his being permitted to
remain free from the publicity of authorship, for such time at least as
the curious might allow his Diary to remain hidden in the cipher he
employed.

With the great though untrained genius of Bunyan none of these other
three celebrated prose authors of this time has anything in common. He
stands ap