DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.50017#0260
174 JOHN EVELYN
some of my curious friends, 1 was constrain’d, to print
but it cannot be imagined that I should haue travell’d
over so large a province (though but a garden) as yet,
who set out not many moneths since, and can make it
but my diversions at best, who haue so many other
impediments besieging me, publique and personal!,
whereoff the long sicknesse of my unicus, my only
sonn, now five moneths afflicted with a double quartan,
and but five yeares old, is not one of the least; so
that there is not danger your additionalls and favours
to your servant should be prevented by the perfection
of my worke, or if it were, that I should be so in-
jurious to my owne fame or your civility, as not to
beginn all anew, that I might take in such auxiliaries as
you send me, and which I must esteeme as my best
and most effectuall forces. Sir, I returne you a thousand
acknowledgements for the papers which you transmitted
me, and I will render you this account of my present
vndertaking. The truth is, that which imported me
to discourse on this subject after this sorte, was the
many defects which I encounter’d in bookes and in
gardens, wherein neither words nor cost had bin want-
ing, but judgement very much ; and though I cannot
boast of my science in this kind, as both vnbecoming
my yeares and my small experience, yet I esteem’d it
some of my curious friends, 1 was constrain’d, to print
but it cannot be imagined that I should haue travell’d
over so large a province (though but a garden) as yet,
who set out not many moneths since, and can make it
but my diversions at best, who haue so many other
impediments besieging me, publique and personal!,
whereoff the long sicknesse of my unicus, my only
sonn, now five moneths afflicted with a double quartan,
and but five yeares old, is not one of the least; so
that there is not danger your additionalls and favours
to your servant should be prevented by the perfection
of my worke, or if it were, that I should be so in-
jurious to my owne fame or your civility, as not to
beginn all anew, that I might take in such auxiliaries as
you send me, and which I must esteeme as my best
and most effectuall forces. Sir, I returne you a thousand
acknowledgements for the papers which you transmitted
me, and I will render you this account of my present
vndertaking. The truth is, that which imported me
to discourse on this subject after this sorte, was the
many defects which I encounter’d in bookes and in
gardens, wherein neither words nor cost had bin want-
ing, but judgement very much ; and though I cannot
boast of my science in this kind, as both vnbecoming
my yeares and my small experience, yet I esteem’d it