inferior to none that could be imagin’d for _Health_, _Profit_, and _Beauty_, which are the three _Transcendencies_ that render a place without all exception. And _this_ is what (in short) I had to offer, for the _Improvement_ and _Melioration_ of the _Aer_ about _London_, and with which I shall conclude this discourse.’ Besides dedicating his pamphlet especially to the King, as well as proposing, on the title-page, the remedy “To His Sacred Majestie, and To the Parliament now Assembled”, Evelyn likewise adresses himself “To the Reader” by way of a second introduction; and he does so in these plainer and rather contemptuous terms:-- ‘I have little here to add to implore thy good opinion and approbation, after I have submitted this Essay to his Sacred Majesty: But as it is of universal benefit that I propound it; so I expect a civil entertainment and reception....’ Confessing himself ‘frequently displeased at the small advance and improvement of Publick Works in this nation,’ he further expresses himself as ‘extremely amazed, that where there is so great affluence of all things which may render the People of this vast City the most happy upon Earth; the sordid and accursed Avarice of some few Particular Persons should be suffered to prejudice the health and felicity of so many: That any Profit (besides what is absolute necessity) should render men regardlesse of what chiefly imports them, when it may be purchased upon so easie conditions, and with so great advantages: For it is not happiness to possesse Gold, but to enjoy the Effects of it and to know how to live cheerfully and in health, _Non est vivere, sed valere vita_. That men whose very Being is _Aer_, should not breath it freely when they may; but (as that _Tyrant_ us’d his Vassals) condemn themselves to this misery and _Fumo præfocari_, is strange stupidity: yet thus we see them walk and converse in _London_, pursu’d and haunted by that infernal Smoake, and the funest accidents which accompany it wheresoever they retire.’ Surely, if John Evelyn could in spirit revisit the metropolis he loved so well and was so much at home in, he would, while lamenting the continuation and the now much more acute form of the “infernal _Nuisance_”, to a certainty find ample cause for rejoicing at the admirable work of late years carried out in the London Royal Parks and Pleasure Grounds, and in the Parks and Open Spaces under the administration of the County Council. It was in 1664, however, that Evelyn achieved his greatest literary triumph by the publication of his three masterpieces, _Sylva: or a Discourse of Forest Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His Majestie’s Dominions_; _Pomona: or an Appendix concerning Fruit Trees in relation to Cider, the Making and several ways of Ordering it_; and _Kalendarium Hortense: or the Gard’ners Almanack, directing what he is to do Monthly throughout the Year_.’