"At two years and a-half old, he could perfectly read any of the English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages exactly. He had, before the fifth year, or in that year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular; learned out _Puerilis_, got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and _vice versa_, construe and prove what he read and did the government, and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, ellipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's _Janua_; began himself to write legibly, and had a strong passion for Greek.... He was all life, all prettiness, far from morose, sullen, or childish in anything he said or did." "Far from childish"--it is perverse enough. John Evelyn himself began the dreary round of tropes and primitives almost as early. He was taught in a little room above Wotton church porch, by one Frier, when he was nearly four. The porch has been renewed, and the room has gone. Wotton House stands in a dip of grassland under noble trees. It is little like what it was in Evelyn's day, for fire has taken away part of it, and much that is new is added. The result is partly imposing, partly incongruous; but much of the best of the house has aged well, and the red-brick court and walled carriage-drive stand finely from their background. Behind the house is the terraced garden which Evelyn himself made, and beyond it a streak of water running between wooded banks away to the blue dimness of Leith Hill. John Evelyn shall describe Wotton as he knew it:-- "The house is large and ancient, suitable to those hospitable times, and so sweetly environed with those delicious streams and venerable woods, as in the judgment of strangers as well as Englishmen it may be compared to one of the most pleasant seats in the nation, and most tempting for a great person and a wanton purse to make it conspicuous. I will say nothing of the air, because the pre-eminence is universally given to Surrey, the soil being dry and sandy; but I should speak much of the gardens, fountains, and groves that adorn it, were they not generally known to be amongst the most natural, and (till this later and universal luxury of the whole nation, since abounding in expenses) the most magnificent that England afforded." Between Wotton and Westcott is The Rookery, once the home of David Malthus, father of the historian and economist. The name of David Malthus hides behind his more famous son's; but he was a translator of the _Sorrows of Werther_ and of _Paul and Virginia_, who deserves memories of his own. He lies in Wotton churchyard.