Add MS 78306

EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. CXXXIX (ff. 161).

1. ff. 1-85. Letters from Evelyn's parents-in-law, Lady (Elizabeth) Browne (née Pretyman), 1647-1649, and Sir Richard Browne, 1652-1681. With the exception of a few letters of 1652, all Browne's letters in this series are dated after 1660. For further letters of 1647-1665, some addressed to Evelyn under the pseudonym John Grafton or John Richardson, see Add. MS 15857, ff. 108-123, 148-150, Add. MS 15948, ff. 57, 64, and Add. MS 34702, ff. 23-222 passim. For Evelyn’s letters to Browne, see Add. 78221 above and Add. MS 15948, ff. 5-37. A further letter from Browne, 19 Dec 1665, is in the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

2. ff. 86-161. Letters from Sir Samuel Tuke, 1st Bart., 1649-1672, including two letters from his brother George Tuke, 1658, 1659 (ff. 95, 102), and followed by three letters from Sir Samuel’s second wife Mary (Sheldon), 1673, 1697, and their daughter Mary (`Mop'), 1690; 1649-1697 (ff. 157-161). Copies of a number of Evelyn's letters to Tuke are entered in his letterbook, Add. MS 78298 above. Sir Samuel Tuke was a cousin of Mary Evelyn through her mother's family, the Pretymans (see Esmond de Beer’s article in Notes and Queries, 161, 1931, p. 346). A Roman Catholic convert, he was settled in the household of Henry Howard, grandson of Thomas, Earl of Arundel and the future Duke of Norfolk, at Norwich in the early 1660s as tutor to his sons, and his letters from there refer several times to Dr (afterwards Sir) Thomas Browne. He was the author of a successful play, The Adventures of Five Hours (1663). Two of his commonplace books (Add. MSS 78423-78424) came into Evelyn's hands, presumably after his death, which is usually (e.g., in the Oxford DNB) said to have taken place in January 1674. However there are no letters to Evelyn later than 1672, and in her letter endorsed by Evelyn `April 1673', Lady Tuke refers to herself as recently widowed.