for the year beginning 30 Nov. 1672. In 1682, and again in 1691, he was pressed to be president, but declined both times on account of ill-health. He continued his gardening at Sayes Court, and advised his brother at Wotton, and was a recognised authority upon architecture and landscape gardening. He was an active patron of musicians and artists, befriending Gibbons and Hollar. He was intimate with many distinguished contemporaries. Samuel Pepys and he appear to have had a strong mutual respect. He took occasional tours to his friends' houses in various parts of England, and gives some interesting descriptions of the country.
After the revolution Evelyn, who was growing old and was too good a tory to approve the change unreservedly, lived in greater retirement. About 1691 his elder brother, George, lost his last male descendant, and resettled the estate upon Evelyn. In May 1694 Evelyn lefts Sayes Court and settled with his brother at Wotton. He afterwards let Sayes Court to Admiral Benbow (in 1696), and Benbow sublet it to Peter the Great in the summer of 1698. They were bad tenants, and the czar is said to have amused himself by being trundled in a wheelbarrow across Evelyn's flowerbeds and favourite holly-hedge. A sum of 162l. 7s. was allowed for damages by Peter's secretary (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. 365). On 24 May 1700 Evelyn, who contested Surrey in 1698, removed his remaining property from Sayes Court. In 1759 the house was let to the vestry of St. Nicholas, Deptford, for a workhouse. In 1820 the old building was in great part demolished, but the workhouse remained on the site till 1848. In 1881 all that survived of Sayes Court was converted by its owner, Mr. W. J. Evelyn, into the Evelyn almshouses, for the accommodation of old residents on the Evelyn estate in receipt of parochial relief. In 1886 Mr. Evelyn gave part of the old grounds to form a public garden, with an endowment for keeping it in order. The Sayes Court Museum, belonging to Mr. Evelyn, adjoins this, and another adjoining space of five acres is at present used as a cricket-ground. Other parts of the old estate are covered by buildings and the Victoria Victualling Yard (Dews, History of Deptford, pp. 36–40).
Evelyn's most interesting correspondent in later years was Bentley. As one of Boyle's trustees he appointed Bentley to the first Boyle lectureship, and afterwards consulted him upon his ‘Numismata’ (1697). Evelyn had been consulted upon the foundation of Chelsea Hospital in 1681. In 1695 he was appointed, by Lord Godolphin, treasurer to Greenwich Hospital, then founded as a memorial to Queen Mary. He held the office till August 1703, when he resigned it to his son-in-law, previously his substitute, William Draper. The salary of 200l. a year had not been paid in January 1696–7. On 4 Oct. 1699 his brother George died at Wotton, making his daughter Elizabeth, wife of Sir Cyril Wyche, his sole executrix. Evelyn had the library and some pictures and inherited Wotton, where he passed the rest of his life. He died 27 Feb. 1706, retaining his faculties to the last, and was buried in the chancel of Wotton church. His wife died 9 Feb. 1708–9, in the seventy-fourth year of her age, and was buried beside him. Evelyn had six sons: John [q. v.], and five who died in infancy; one of them, Richard, born 24 Aug. 1652, died 27 Jan. 1657–8, being a child of extraordinary precocity (see Diary and preface to Golden Book of St. Chrysostom); and three daughters: Mary (born 1 Oct. 1665, died 14 March 1685), a girl of whose accomplishments Evelyn gives an affecting account in his diary, and who wrote the ‘Mundus Muliebris,’ published by him in 1690; Elizabeth (born 13 Sept. 1667), married to a nephew of Sir John Tippet, died 29 Aug. 1685; and Susannah (born 20 May 1669), the only one who survived him, married in 1693 to William Draper of Addiscombe, Surrey. Evelyn is the typical instance of the accomplished and public-spirited country gentleman of the Restoration, a pious and devoted member of the church of England, and a staunch loyalist in spite of his grave disapproval of the manners of the court. His domestic life was pure and his affections strong, and he devoted himself to work of public utility, although prudence or diffidence kept him aloof from the active political life which might have tested his character more severely. His books are for the most part occasional and of little permanent value. The ‘Sylva,’ upon which he bestowed his best work, was long a standard authority, and the ‘Diaries’ have great historical value.
Evelyn's portrait was painted by Chanterell in 1626, by Vanderborcht in 1641, by Robert Walker in 1648, and by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1685 and (for Pepys) in 1689. A copy of Kneller's first portrait was presented to the Royal Society by Mrs. Evelyn. Nanteuil in 1650 made a drawing from which an engraving was taken.
Evelyn's works are: 1. ‘The State of France as it stood in the ninth year of … Lewis XIII,’ 1652. 2. ‘A Character of England,’ 1659, commonly said to have been first published in 1651. An edition in 1659 was answered by ‘Gallus Castratus.’ A letter in
