Add MS 78298-78299

EVELYN PAPERS. Vols CXXXI-CXXXII. Letterbooks, containing autograph copies or versions of Evelyn's letters to various correspondents between 1644 and 1698; [comp. second half of 17th cent]. Those at the beginning are in Latin, Italian, German and French, as indicated below. The letters were apparently entered from original loose drafts or retained copies. Evelyn notes in his Memoires for my Grand-son, pp. 64-65, that there are `severall more [letters] in loose papers which I intended to transcribe, but they grew to[o] fast upon me'. Some of these survive and have been filed in their places in the chronological sequence of his correspondence in Add. MSS 78315-78319 below. They indicate that Evelyn made his letterbook copies from very rough drafts which were not always fully or legibly dated. It would appear that this took place sufficiently long after the event for him to have forgotten the chronological context of some letters, since some dates are clearly inaccurate. The letters of the 1670s seem to be particularly unreliable in this respect; obvious examples are the letter to Lord Clifford on his resignation as Lord Treasurer in August 1673, entered under 1672, a letter to his successor Danby as Lord Treasurer, dated January 1673, and letters to the Duchess of Newcastle (d. 1673) dated 15 June 1674, and to Meric Casaubon (d. 1671), dated 15 July 1674. Where the letterbook copies can be checked against the letters as sent, they sometimes show substantial differences in content. Particular Friends, ed. Guy de la Bedoyère (Boydell, 1997), in which Evelyn's surviving correspondence with Samuel Pepys has been traced and collated, cites a number of cases (see p. 19). Another example is the copy of the letter to Lord Clifford, entered as 28 Jan. 1672 in the letterbook. The letter which appears to be the original of this was actually dated 23 Nov. 1670 and differs very considerably in content (see BL RP 5460). It is also clear from comparison with Evelyn’s collection of incoming letters (Add. MSS 78300-78322 below) that he chose to record only a selection of his out-going letters in these letterbooks. This, together with the evidence that he copied them some time after the event and in a form not always faithful to the original, suggests that the letterbooks are best regarded, not as a neutral record of transactions with particular individuals, but as part of his life record, reconstructed in retrospect like his diary and probably influenced by the published collections of letters, classical and later, which he held in his library (see Add. MS 78632, ff. 81-88 below, `Epistolae’).

The second volume has the inscription by Evelyn, dated 15 Nov. 1699: `I did not enter any of these Letters (or what are copied in two other Volumes) with the least Intention to make them publiq but for my own satesfaction, & to looke now & then back upon what has past in my private Concerns & Conversations; many of them being Impertinencys, & therefore may be dispos'd of as my Heirs think fit'. On the front paste-down of the first volume are further instructions to his grandson and heir: `This Booke Containes the Copies onely of severall Letters the most part of which are of no Importance, & therefore may be disposd of as Wast-paper. There are yet some of them which may be preserved but they are very few. Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity'; and below, `I think they have all ben well Examin'd tho' not so diligently as they might be. You may set a mark upon any that seeme materiall & dash out all the rest'. The pastedowns of both volumes contain a few references by Evelyn to particular letters and some lists of `Remarquable letters' in the hand of Sir John Evelyn, 1st Bart. The second volume contains an index of addressees by Evelyn to both volumes.

The reference in the first inscription quoted above to `two other volumes' of letter copies apparently refers to Evelyn’s internal subdivisions of the first letterbook, Add. MS 78298, which he headed `Liber I’ and `Liber II’. But the fact that only the second letterbook, now numbered Add. MS 78299, was present when the archive was first deposited at Christ Church led to the assumption that William Upcott must have made away with two further volumes (see the account of W. G. Hiscock in the Times Literary Supplement, 6 April 1951, p. 220). In fact the first letterbook, now numbered Add. MS 78298, subsequently came to light at Stonor Park and was then added to the archive at Christ Church. The confusion about the total number of physical volumes also led to the statement in Peter Beal, Index of English Literary Manuscripts, 3 vols (Mansell, 1980-93), II: 1625-1700, Pt 1 (1987), p. 464, that the archive contains three volumes of Evelyn’s letterbooks, originally with the Christ Church numeration 39, 39a and 39b, with a further volume of `select letters to particularly important persons', preserved at Stonor Park and on microfilm in the Bodleian Library. The microfilm is question is actually of the volume which is now Add. MS 78298. As Add. MSS 78298 and 78299 make clear when they are examined together, Evelyn never compiled more than these two volumes of letterbooks. At Christ Church they were formerly numbered Evelyn MSS 39a and 39b.

In Add. MS 78298 all four borders of each page have been uniformly ruled in red ink; in 78299 the left and right hand margins only. Each letter is headed in a uniform style with its number in Roman numerals (in the continuous sequence through both volumes), the addressee’s name, the date and place of writing in the margin, and occasional marginal annotations by Evelyn. Several letters from this and other sources were printed in successive editions of Evelyn's Memoirs, ed. William Bray (1818; called Diary and Correspondence in later editions); the largest selection of letters appears in Vol. III of the edition of 1859; the letters listed in bold below appear in this edition; the pencilled notes `Copied' or `C' in the margins of both letterbooks may refer to this editorial work. See also Add. MSS 78577-78580 below for Bray’s notes, copies and proofs).

Two volumes. Now rebound in British Library bindings, but with the original bindings of brown calf, blind ruled (matching that of Evelyn’s sermon notes, Add. MS 78364), boxed with them). 355 x 285mm (350 x 230 old bindings).