EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
591
1705, Feb. 27. Died, John Evelyn, a cele- brated and extraordinary individual, who most materially influenced the political events during the latter half of the seventeenth century, of which he was also the chronicler. He was born at Wotton, in Surry, October 31, 1620, and educated at Baliol college, Oxford. By his marriage with the daughter of Sir Richard Brown, in 1647, he became possessed of Sayes Court, a manor in Kent, where he led a retired life till the Restoration, to which he in some measure contributed. At the establishment of the Royal Society, he became one of the first members. In 1662 appeared his Sculplura, or the Hittory and Art of Chalcography and En- graving on Copper. He was appointed a com- missioner for the sick and wounded seamen, one of the commissioners for rebuilding St. Paul's, and afterwards had a place at the board of trade. In the reign of -James II. he was made one of the commissioners for executing the office of lord privy seal, and after the Revolution was appointed treasurer of Greenwich hospital. In 1697 appeared his Numismata, or Ditcowne of MedaU, folio. Mr. Evelyn has the honour of being one of the first who improved horticulture, and introduced exotics into this country. Of his garden at Sayes Court, a curious account may be seen in the Philosophical Tramactions. It was by the publication of the Sylvia that Evelyn was chiefly known till the publication of his Diary, or Kalendarium, which begun in 1641 ; his other writings had past away, but the Sylma remained a beautiful and enduring memorial of his amusements, his occupations, and his studies, his private happiness and his public virtues. It was the first book printed by order of the Royal Society, and was composed upon occasion of certain queries sent to that society by the commissioners of the navy. The Sylvia has no beauties of style to recommend it, and none of those felicities of expression by which the writer stamps upon your memory his meaning in all its force. Without such charms A Ditcourte of Forest Trees and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty's Dominions might ap- pear to promise dry entertainment ; but he who opens the volume is led on insensibly from page to page, and catches something of the delight which made the author enter with his whole heart and all his faculties into the subject. It is a great repository of all that was then known concerning the forest-trees of Great Britain, their growth and culture, and their uses and qualities real or imaginary -, and he has en- livened it with all the pertinent facts and anec- dotes which occurred to him in his reading. He wrote several books besides the above. The following extract from the epitaph inscribed on his tomb in Wotton church yard, unlike the generality of compositions of its class, speaks only the simple truth :
" UvioE In an age of extraordinary events and revolo- ttons, be leamt (as himself asserted) this truth, wUcb, pur- snant to his iutentioa, is here declared, that all Is vanity which is not honest; and that there is no solid wisdom but In real piety."
His son, John Evelyn, wrote aOreekpoem,pre- fixed to his father's Sylvia; and translated Rapin's poem on Gardens into English ; and the Life of Alexander, from Plutarch. He was also the author of a few poems in Dryden's Collection, and died in 1698, aged 44.
1705,Feb. 19. The Edinburgh Courant,Ho. 1. This was begun by James Watson, who printed fifty-five numbers, and then transferred it to Andrew Anderson, " printer to the queen, the city, and the college." It was published twice a week, at the price of three-halfpence.
1705, June 9. The Wandering Spy ; or, the Way of the World enquired into. No. 1.
1705, June 12. The Whip^^ng Post ; or, a new Session of Oyer and Termmer for the Scrib- blers. No. 1.
1705. The Ladies' Diary.
1705, Sept. The Scots Couranf, No. 1. Not contented with having established two newspa-
Sers in Edinburgh, Watson immediately after his isposal of the Edinburgh Courant, established the above paper, which he continued to print for upwards or twelve years afterwards. The Scots Courant, like its predecessors, was a folio half- sheet in two columns, but got up with extreme neatness, with diversified type, and its price was a penny. It was the first Scotch paper published thrice a week — on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — and reference for subscriptions and ad- vertisements was made to " James Muirhead, the author of this paper, at the Royal Exchange cofliee-house"; where the paper was sold.
1705, Nov. 23. The Loyal Post ; with Foreign and Inland Intelligence. No. I.
1706. The Dutch East India company had a press at Batavia, a city and seaport, the capital of the isle of Java, and of all the Dutch settle- ments in the East Indies, from which issued some Malay vocabularies in 4to., printed by A. L. Lodenis, printer to the Dutch East India company, ana to the city of Batavia : copies of these vocabularies are in the Bodleian library. Yet these could not have been the first-fruits of the Batavian press, since La Croze, in his His- toire du Christianisme des Indes, relates, that in the year 1706 the Danish missionaries instructed the natives at Tranquebar out of a Portuguese new testament, printed at Batavia : and a Por- tuguese veisiou of the psalms, executed here in 1703, was in the library of M. Meerman. Ac- cording to the catalogue of the British and Foreign Bible SocieW, the old testament was printed here in the Malayan language, in the year 1744, probably at the mstance of the Dutch East India company, who appear to have given ordeis for the execution of such a work so early as 1729. An indirect insinuation that typogra- phy was practised at Batavia during the seven- teenth century, appears to be furnished by a Dutch tract, preserved in the Fagel collection at Dublin; this piece contains an account of some shocking adventures encountered at or near the island of Aboyna ; it is dated 1675, and professes to have been printed from a copy executed at Batavia. — Cotton.
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