Add MS 78339

EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. CLXXII. `Trades. Secrets & Receipts Mechanical, as they came casualy to hand. Alphabetically plac’d according to the subsequent Table'; [1650s]. Partly autograph, but some entries in other hands. With an alphabetical list of the trades at the beginning (f. 2); after the main sequence (f. 2v) are lists of `Mean & Frippery Trades', `Servil Trades', `Polite Arts & Trades', `Exotic Arts & Trades', `Trads more Liberall', `Femal Trads & Arts', `Occupations in & about the Country'. Lettered `P' at the head of the title-page. For most of the listed trades a heading is the only entry; those listed below have some detail added. Evelyn appears to have begun this work in the early 1650s as a contribution to the History of Trades programme outlined by Francis Bacon. He was reported at one stage to be almost finished (Hunter, op. cit., p. 75), but admitted in 1659 that he had actually made little progress beyond the `short collection of some heads and materials' in the present manuscript, because he found it uncongenial to collect information from `mechanical capricious persons' (to Boyle, 9 Aug. 1659, Diary and Correspondence, ed. Bray, III, p. 115). In January 1661 he presented an expanded version of his list of trades to the Royal Society as a `Circle of Mechanical Trades' and was invited to collate it with the similar projects of other Fellows; see A. Forbes Sieveking, in Transactions of the Newcomen Society, 4 (1923-4), pp. 40-47, and M. Denny, `The Early Program of the Royal Society and John Evelyn', Modern Language Quarterly, 1 (1940), p. 492. Nothing came of the total history, but several individual studies by Evelyn and others did result; that on marbled paper delivered by Evelyn to the Royal Society on 8 Jan. 1662 derives from the present work; see Beal EvJ 86-90 and Sloane MS 243, ff. 96-98; for those of Sir William Petty, see Add. MS 72897. On the present manuscript, see Hunter, op. cit., pp. 75-82; and on the programme in general, W. E. Houghton, `The History of Trades: its Relation to Seventeenth Century Thought', Journal of the History of Ideas, 2 (1941), pp. 33-60; K. H. Ochs, `The Royal Society's History of Trades', Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 39 (1985), pp. 129-158. See also the second section of Add. MS 78340 below for a further collection of the same kind, compiled for Evelyn's own use. Paginated in pencil, `1-605’ by Evelyn. Beal EvJ 29. Formerly Evelyn MS 65.

Paper; ff. iii + 304. Contemporary binding of brown calf. 325 x 210mm.

1. f. 12. `Bell-founder’.

2. f. 17. `Brasier’.

3. f. 24. `A Cabinett-maker & box maker’

4. f. 89. `Gold-Smyth’.

5. f. 101. `Hatter & Hattmaker’.

6. f. 107v. `Inke-maker’.

7. f. 112. `Joyner’.

8. f. 124. `Mason’.

9. f. 126. `Lime Burner’: a long entry with pen and ink sketches of kilns, one reproduced in Hunter, op. cit. Evelyn may have become familiar with this trade because of the proximity of lime-kilns along the south bank of the Thames, not far from Sayes Court; see C. W. Chalklin, Seveenteenth Century Kent (1965), p. 148.

10. f. 144. `Paynter’.

11. f. 153. `Perfumer’.

12. ff. 182v-186v. `Ship-wright’: a long entry, probably deriving from the proximity of Deptford dockyard to Evelyn’s estate at Sayes Court.

13. f. 200. `Spectacle-maker’.

14. f. 226. `Wood-monger’.

15. ff. 245-246v. `Enamelling’: a long entry.

16. ff. 247-248v. `Limbing or Miniature'; the latter part of the entry in French in another hand.

17. f. 251v. `Grotesco': grotto or shell-work.

18. f. 258. `Lapidary or Jeweller’.

19. f. 261v. `Mosaiq-Worke'.

20. f. 263. `Pietra-Comessa'.

21. ff. 263v-264. `Marble-paper’.

22. f. 272v. Table-booke & Asses skin Varnish’.

23. f. 275. `Varnishes of all sorts as Indian &c’.

24. f. 278. `Dy[e]ing of stone, Ivory, Tinctur of Mettalls &c'.

25. f. 278v. `Pasts Artificial stones, marble, &c’.

26. f. 286v. `Sculptor’.

27. f. 295v. `Fowler’.