In the dull days of autumn and winter, when the heavy, damp air wafted inwards from the sea shrouds London with a dirty pall of fog thickened and discoloured with the smoke belched forth skywards from the long throats of thousands of tall factory chimneys and emitted from hundreds of thousands of household and workshop fires, the dweller in this vast overgrown city is tempted to range himself for the moment among the belauders of better times in the past. Almost groping his way along the streets in semi-darkness, and half choked with the sulphurous surcharge in the atmosphere, this latter-day growler may perhaps be astonished to learn that his complaint is of very old standing, and that long before the days of his great-great-grandfather, in fact more than seven generations ago, this poisoning of the atmosphere with the impurities given off from ‘sea-coal’ and other combustibles had already come to be looked on by some as a public nuisance. It will, therefore, interest Londoners in general, and will delight the hearts of Sir William Richmond R.A. and the County Council in particular, to know that their great precursor in this matter of reform nearly 250 years ago considered the question even then one of urgency, admitting of no delay. How graphic, and how refreshing, is the pithy point thus neatly scored-- ‘I propose therefore, that by an _Act_ of this present _Parliament_, this infernal _Nuisance_ be removed.’ There is no beating about the bush here, and no mincing of phrases. The matter is at once probed with the needle. Evelyn was not merely a rather notable person in the London society of that period. As a man of science he was one of the most prominent pillars of the then recently founded Royal Society. As an official he was His Majesty’s Commissioner for improving the streets and buildings of London, in addition to various other particular duties. But finally,--and, at the same time, first of all, if it be permissible to emphasise the fact in so paradoxical a manner--he was a courtier; and that at a time when expressions of loyalty to His Gracious Majesty, King Charles II., were somewhat too highly coloured, too servile and sycophantic, to suit our modern taste.