tered by the house of Orange; the dawning of fresh prosperity and of a new literature,—all these things Mr. Evelyn saw, and noted with many comments in his diary. And from all we turn with something like relief to read about the fire-eater, Richardson, who delighted London by cooking an oyster on a red-hot coal in his mouth, or drinking molten glass as though it had been ale, and who would have made the fortune of any modern museum. Or perhaps we pause to pity the sorrows of landlords, always an ill-used and persecuted race; for Sayes Court, the home of the Evelyns, with its famous old trees and beautiful gardens, was rented for several years to Admiral Benbow, who sublet it in the summer of 1698 to Peter the Great, and the royal tenant so trampled down and destroyed the flower-beds that no vestige of their loveliness survived his ruthless tenancy. The Tsar, like Queen Elizabeth, was magnificent when viewed from a distance, but a most disturbing element to introduce beneath a subject's humble roof.
If Defoe, that master of narrative, had written fewer political and religious tracts, and had kept a journal of his eventful career, what
