No one can ever know Evelyn so well as Pepys did; and here is his opinion of John Evelyn, expressed in the secret pages of his cipher Diary on November, 1665:--‘In fine, a most excellent person he is, and must be allowed a little for a little conceitedness; but he may well be so, being a man so much above others.’ And this just exactly bears out the rough general impression conveyed by the perusal of Evelyn’s Diary and his other literary works. The long friendship of these two was only terminated by the death of Pepys on 26th May, 1703, not long before Evelyn had himself to depart from this life. ‘This day died Mr. Sam. Pepys, a very courtly, industrious and curious person, none in England exceeding him in knowledge of the navy, in which he had passed through all the most considerable offices, Clerk of the Acts and Secretary of the Admiralty, all which he performed with great integrity. When King James II., went out of England, he laid down his office and would serve no more..... He was universally belov’d, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilled in music, a very great cherisher of learned men of whom he had the conversation..... Mr. Pepys had been for near 40 yeares so much my particular friend, that Mr. Jackson sent me compleat mourning, desiring me to be one to hold up the pall at his magnificient obsequies, but my indisposition hinder’d me from doing him this last office.’
_Evelyn’s Childhood, Early Education, and Youth._
The essential facts of Evelyn’s life, as he himself would have us know them, are set forth at full length in autobiographical form, chronologically arranged in what is always spoken of as his _Diary_, although evidently this was (much of it, at any rate) merely a subsequent personal compilation from an actual diary, kept in imitation of his father, from the age of 11 years onwards and down even to within one month of his death in 1706.
The second son and the fourth child of Richard Evelyn of Wotton in Surrey, and of his wife Eleanor, daughter of John Stansfield ‘of an ancient honorable family (though now extinct) in Shropshire,’ he was born at Wotton on 31st. October, 1620. His father, ‘was of a sanguine complexion, mixed with a dash of choler; his haire inclining to light, which tho’ exceeding thick became hoary by the time he was 30 years of age; it was somewhat curled towards the extremity; his beard, which he wore a little picked, as the mode was, of a brownish colour, and so continued to the last, save that it was somewhat mingled with grey haires about his cheekes: which, with his countenance, was cleare, and fresh colour’d, his eyes quick and piercing, an ample forehead, manly aspect; low of stature, but very strong. He was for his life so exact and temperate, that I have heard he had never been surprised by excesse, being ascetic and sparing. His wisdom was greate, and judgment most acute; of solid discourse, affable, humble and in nothing affected; of a thriving, neat, silent and methodical genius; discretely severe, yet liberal on all just occasions to his children, strangers, and servants; a lover of hospitality; of a singular and Christian moderation in all his actions; a Justice of the Peace and of the Quorum; he served his country as High Sheriff for Surrey and Sussex together. He was a studious decliner of honours and titles, being already in that esteem with his country that they could have added little to him besides their burden. He was a person of that rare conversation, that upon frequent recollection, and calling to mind passages of his life and discourse, I could never charge him with the least passion or inadvertence. His estate was esteem’d about £4,000 per ann. well wooded and full of timber.’ As for his mother, ‘She was of proper personage; of a brown complexion; her eyes and haire of a lovely black; of constitution inclyned to a religious melancholy, or pious sadnesse; of a rare memory and most exemplary life; for œconomie and prudence esteemed one of the most conspicuous in her Country.’