ation, and a pleasing
egotism, on the charms of his own beautiful and highly cultivated estate
at Wooton in the county of Surrey. He tells us that the house is large
and ancient and is "sweetly environed with delicious streams and
venerable woods." "I will say nothing," he continues, "of the air,
because the pre-eminence is universally given to Surrey, the soil being
dry and sandy; but I should speak much of the gardens, fountains and
groves that adorn it, were they not generally known to be amongst the
most natural, and (till this later and universal luxury of the whole
nation, since abounding in such expenses) the most magnificent that
England afforded, and which indeed gave one of the first examples to
that elegancy, since so much in vogue and followed, for the managing of
their waters and other elegancies of that nature." Before he came into
the possession of his paternal estate he resided at _Say's Court_, near
Deptford, an estate which he possessed by purchase, and where he had a
superb holly hedge four hundred feet long, nine feet high and five feet
broad. Of this hedge, he was particularly proud, and he exultantly asks,
"Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the
kind?" When the Czar of Muscovy visited England in 1698 to instruct
himself in the art of ship-building, he had the use of Evelyn's house
and garden, at _Say's Court_, and while there did so much damage to the
latter that the owner loudly and bitterly complained. At last the
Government gave Evelyn L150 as an indemnification. Czar Peter's favorite
amusement was to ride in a wheel barrow through what its owner had once
called the "impregnable hedge of holly." Evelyn was passionately fond of
gardening. "The life and felicity of an excellent gardener," he
observes, "is preferable to all other diversions." His faith in the art
of Landscape-gardening was unwavering. It could _remove mountains_. Here
is an extract from his Diary.

"Gave his brother some directions about his garden" (at Wooton
Surrey), "which, he was desirous to put into some form, for
which he was to remove a mountain overgrown with large trees and
thickets and a moat within ten yards of the house."

No sooner said than done. His brother dug down the mountain and
"flinging it into a rapid stream (which carried away the sand) filled up
the moat and levelled that noble area where now the garden and fountain
is."

Though Evelyn dearly loved a garden, his