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as a fresh examination of the original manuscript ' had rendered essential to its correctness and com

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pleteness.

The Diary of Evelyn does not, in all respects, strictly fulfil what the term implies. Information is continually found in it (introduced by such expressions as "afterwards," "since," "now,"), which it 'could not have contained if written from day to day. 'Mistakes are also made which the writer must have escaped, if the record had been always entered on the day, and in the place to which it refers. In the Ad'ditional Notes appended to the present Edition' par⚫ticular mention is made of some few of these; and as

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a slight but perfectly satisfactory evidence that the ' form in which we have received the work is not that in which it was originally written, it may be worth adding, in this place, that the notice of "Jerusalem 'Church" (vol. i. p. 36), slipped by accident into the ' entries which refer to Antwerp, belongs to those of Bruges, where the church, so called from its containing a facsimile of the Holy Sepulchre, is still shown, and the legend told of the citizen whose 'journeys to the Holy Land enabled him to com'plete it.

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'The truth appears to be, that Evelyn's Diary, as 'found among the papers at Wotton, had been copied 'by the writer from memoranda made at the time of

1 These notes have now, for the convenience of the reader, been intro. duced into the respective pages to which they belong.

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'the occurrences roted in it, and had received occa'sional alterations and additions in the course of tran"scription. Evelyn has himself told us in what way the book originated. "In imitation of what I had seen my father do." he remarks, when speaking of him'self in his twelfth year, "I began to observe matters more punctually, which I did use to set down in a "blank almanack." If we suppose the matters thus ' observed to have been gradually transferred by Evelyn 'from the blank almanacks to the quarto volume in ' which they were found, and from which the volumes 'before the reader are printed, the circumstance will ' explain discrepancies otherwise not easily reconciled, and will account for differing descriptions of the same objects and occurrences which have occasionally 'been found in the manuscript thus compiled. The

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quarto, still at Wotton, consists of seven hundred

" pages written clearly by Evelyn in a very small close hand, and containing the continuous records of fifty'six years.

The reader will observe, in the original preface to 'the Diary, acknowledgments of the great and material 'assistance rendered to its Editor by Mr. Upcott. The interest taken by the latter gentleman in the publi'cation of this delightful book, continued unabated ' until his death; and the latest literary labour in which 'he was engaged, was the revision and preparation of the present edition. He lived to complete, for this 'purpose, a fresh and careful comparison of the edition

'printed in octavo in 1827 (which he had himself, with 'the exception of the earliest sheets of the first volume, superintended for the press) with the original manu'script; by which many material omissions in the ear'lier quartos were supplied, and other not unimportant ' corrections made.

It is due to Mr. Upcott to add that these additions 'would not so long have been withheld, if the early 'sheets of the first volume of the octavo edition had not 'been printed off before its formal revision was undertaken by him. The octavo and the quartos are only in agreement at the outset. Many curious discrepancies are afterwards observable, which resulted from Mr. Up'cott's anxiety, as soon as the opportunity was offered 'him, to bring the text of the octavo into more exact ' agreement with the original.

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'While engaged in this labour he was permitted to have access to the manuscripts preserved at 'Wotton; and, desiring to complete the selections 'from Evelyn's Correspondence, originally published ' with the Diary, he transcribed many new and hitherto unpublished letters, also with a view to this edition, ́ and added several others derived from private sources. The Evelyn Correspondence, thus enriched by many 'original letters of great interest, will occupy the same space as the Diary.

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'January, 1850.'

With reference to the last allusion, it is only neces

sary to add, that the Correspondence thus added com prises considerably more than a hundred new letters many of them, as the accompanying notes may help tc show, possessing historical value.

J F.

June, 1857.

SIR,

DEDICATION.

TO JOHN EVELYN, ESQ.

OF WOTTON, IN SURREY.

THE last sheets of this Work, with a Dedication to the late LADY EVELYN, under whose permission it was to be given to the Public, were in the hands of the Printer, when it pleased God to release her from a long and painful illness, which she had borne with the greatest fortitude and resignation to the Divine Will.

These papers descended with the estate, from the celebrated JOHN EVELYN, Esq. (a relative of your immediate ancestor) to his great-great-grandson, the late Sir Frederick Evelyn, Bart. This gentleman dying without issue, entrusted the whole to his Lady, whose loss we have now to lament; of whose worth, and of the value of whose friendship, I have happily had long knowledge and experience. Alive to the honour of the family, of which she was thus made the representative, she maintained it

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