TO THE
KING.
For to whom, Sir, with so Just and Equal Right should I present the Fruits of my Labours, as to the Patron of that SOCIETY, under whose Influence, as it was produced; so to whose Auspices alone it owes the Favourable Acceptance which it has receiv’d in the World? To You then (Royal Sir) does this Third Edition continue its Humble Addresses, Tanquam MEMORUM VINDICI; as of old, they paid their Devotions,[lxxv:1] HERCULI & SILVANO; since You are our Θεὸς ὑλικός Nemorensis Rex; as having once Your Temple, and Court too, under that Sacred Oak which You Consecrated with Your Presence, and we Celebrate, with Just Acknowledgment to God for Your Preservation.
I need not Aquaint Your Majesty, how many Millions of Timber-Trees (beside infinite others) have been Propagated and Planted throughout Your vast Dominions, at the Instigation, and by the sole Direction of this Work; because Your Gracious Majesty, has been pleas’d to own it Publickly, for my Encouragement, who, in all that I here pretend to say, deliver only those Precepts which Your Majesty has put into Practice; as having (like another Cyrus) by Your own Royal Example, exceeded all your Predecessors in the Plantations You have made, beyond (I dare assert it) all the Monarchs of this Nation, since the Conquest of it. And, indeed what more August, what more Worthy Your Majesty, or more becoming our Imitation? than whilst You are thus solicitous for the Publick Good, we pursue Your Majesty’s Great Example; and by cultivating our decaying Woods, contribute to Your Power, as to Your greatest Wealth and Safety; since whilst Your Majesty is furnish’d to send forth those Argo’s and Trojan Horses,[lxxvi:1] about this Happy Island, we are to fear nothing from without it; and whilst we remain Obedient to Your just Commands, nothing from within it.
’Tis now some Years past that Your Majesty was pleas’d to declare Your Favourable Acceptance of a Treatise of Architecture which I then presented to You, with many Gracious Expressions, and that it was a most useful Piece. Sir, that Encouragement (together with the Success of the Book it self, and of the former Editions of this) has animated me still to continue my Oblation to Your Majesty of these Improvements: Nor was it certainly without some Provident Conduct, that we have been thus solicitous to begin, as it were, with Materials for Building, and Directions to Builders; if due Reflection be made on that Deplorable Calamity, the Conflagration of Your Imperial City; which nevertheless, by the Blessing of God, and Your Majesty’s Gracious Influence, we have seen Rise again, a New, and much more Glorious PHOENIX.
This TRIBUTE I now once more lay at the Feet of our ROYAL FOUNDER.
May Your Majesty be pleas’d to be Invok’d by that no Inglorious TITLE, in the profoundest Submission of
Gracious Sir,
Your Majesty’s
Ever Loyal, most Obedient and
Faithful Subject and Servant,
J. Evelyn.
Sayes-Court,
5 Decemb.
1678.