On Guy Fawkes Day 1665, Samuel Pepys paid a visit to John Evelyn, his fellow diarist, administrative colleague and lifelong friend. Evelyn had an astonishing range of interests, from numismatics to town planning. He also possessed the leisure in which to pursue them, thanks to a family fortune founded on manufacturing gunpowder for Elizabeth I. He had spent most of the Civil War period and its aftermath touring France, Italy and the Netherlands, where he acquired an excellent knowledge of European art and architecture; and much of his later life was devoted to introducing Continental high culture to England. On this occasion, he showed Pepys a handsome album of dried plants and some choice items from his art collection. He read some bits from plays he had written ('very good, but not as he conceits them, I think') and recited ('though with too much gusto') some of his poems. He also read 'very much of his discourse that he hath been many years and now is about, about Guardenage; which will be a most noble and pleasant piece'.

LRB 19 July 2001 | PDF Download